2013 Newsletter

the newsletter of the department of art history at the university of delaware Spring 2013 Looking Forward Remembering William Innes Homer 1 Spring 2013 From the Chair Editor: Camara Dia Holloway Dear friends of the Department of Art History at Editorial Assistant: Amy Torbert the University of Delaware, As you will see from this issue of Insight, it has been Art Director and Project Manager: a busy and eventful year for the faculty and students Christina Jones and former students in the Department. I am writing to you from my temporary position as interim Chair Lawrence Nees. for the next three terms, which I began to occupy in January Photo by George Freeman. Department of Art History Staff: 2013. In the fall of last year our distinguished Professor Nina Linda J. Magner, Starline Griffin Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, who had been serving as Chair for several years, announced that she wished to step down from Photographer: George Freeman that position and, after the sabbatical now beginning, will retire from full-time teaching. Professor Kallmyer has taught at Delaware since 1982 and has brought much distinction to the faculty and immense learning and energy to our students at all levels. She is the Insight is produced by the Department author of four important books, French Images from the Greek War of Independence of Art History as a service to alumni and (1989), Eugène Delacroix: Prints, Politics and Satire (1991), Cézanne and Provence (2003) friends of the Department. We are always and Théodore Géricault (2010), and countless articles, the recipient of many awards, pleased to receive your opinions and including the College Art Association’s (CAA) Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize, and her many The officers of the Art History ideas. Please contact Linda J. Magner, prestigious grants include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Getty, the Club strike philosophical Old College 318, University poses, à la Raphael’s School American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the American Philosophical Society, the of Athens, under the Old of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716 Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts (CASVA), and the Institute for Advanced College Portico. Pictured from (302-831-8416) or [email protected]. Study at Princeton, to name only some. She has served as adviser for many theses and from left: Mollie Armstrong, dissertations during her three decades of distinguished service, and although we will Anna Kamensky, Bryan Walker, On the cover: miss her presence we expect that her scholarship will not only continue but perhaps even Vincent Ryan, Julianna Broz, increase when she has more time to devote to it. and Kristin Wittman. William Innes Homer. Photo courtesy of Contents UDaily online newspaper. There are too many highlights among the many and varied accomplishments of our students and faculty to mention here, and you may read about them elsewhere in this issue of Insight, ably edited by Professor Camara Holloway, to whom we are all grateful for her efforts. I would like to call attention to two features that are, if not altogether new, at least newly energized and activated. First is the Friends of Art History, led by Carol Nigro From the Chair | 3 Around the Alumni Corner | 16 and Thorpe Moeckel, who organized several special events during the past fall that were Department | 10 Convocation Address remarkably well-attended. More events are planned for the spring and indeed already in New Life for the Old Slide the works for next year. Please consider not only attending such events, but also becoming Remembering RISING STAR: Nenette William Innes Homer | 4 Library actively involved in the organization. Luarca-Shoaf Second is the “Grad Depot.” Graduate students in the Department have long been Department Lecture Series sharing grant proposals and exam bibliographies with one another, as many of you may Curatorial Track Initiative RISING STAR: Melody Art History Club Report Barnett Deusner remember, some even from the vaguely recalled B.D.E. period, before the digital era. Last Bears Many Fruits | 5 fall Professor Sandy Isenstadt formalized this activity by exploiting Sakai, the University’s Undergraduate Student Awards Friends of Art History Report Partnerships Strengthened learning management system to establish the “Grad Depot,” an online repository for such On Campus and Beyond Alumni Notes materials that makes them more easily available. This new initiative supports the culture of camaraderie that prevails among our grads, as has long been the case, and helps that First Curatorial Internship Graduate Student Thanks to culture to continue and to thrive. Colloquium Held News | 13 Enjoy Insight, and please let us hear from you! Our Donors | 24 First Mellon Fellowship HIGHLIGHT: Isabelle Havet Awarded Best wishes, HIGHLIGHT: Craig Lee Lawrence Nees Faculty News | 8 HIGHLIGHT: Emily Casey Interim Chair SPOTLIGHT: Christopher Degrees and Awards Bennett Graduate Student Notes Faculty Notes 2 3 Remembering Curatorial Track Initiative William Innes Homer (1929–2012) Bears Many Fruits By Joyce Hill Stoner (PhD 1995) and Roberta K. Tarbell (PhD 1976, MA 1968)1 With a name like “William Innes Homer” He favored Partnerships Strengthened and a birthplace near the Barnes monographic studies Foundation, how could he not end up a and published books nationally recognized art history scholar, on Georges Seurat, On Campus and Beyond teacher, and connoisseur? Bill Homer Robert Henri, Stieglitz, (1929–2012) became the first Chair of Gertrude Käsebier, the new Art History Department at the Albert Pinkham Ryder Increased Emphasis on University of Delaware in 1966 and (co-authored with Lloyd Technical Art History retired thirty-four years later at the age of Goodrich), and Thomas Brian Baade, Painting Conservator, and seventy. For fifty years he championed late Eakins. Bill felt a special Researcher of Historic Painting Materi- nineteenth- and early twentieth-century kinship to Eakins als and Techniques, is offering the First American painters and photographers, because both were Mellon Curatorial Seminar this spring. organized exhibitions of their works, and Philadelphians who Baade worked as a practicing painter and wrote scholarly analyses of their art and were fascinated with illustrator with a BFA from the School of aesthetics. He supervised more than the interrelationship the Art Institute of Chicago before shift- forty UD dissertations and his influence of science – especially ing to painting conservation. He is a 2006 extended to hundreds of students, many of photography – and art. graduate of the Winterthur/University of whom in turn became career Americanists He took his students William Homer in 2008. Photo by Elizabeth Hyer Rose. Delaware Program in Art Conservation in universities and museums. Homer to the exact locations (WUDPAC). He specializes in the iden- earned his BA in art history at Princeton in Philadelphia where tification and analysis of historic painting in 1951 and his MA (1954) and PhD Eakins had placed his easel – on the banks often would be heard in our voicemails. materials and techniques. Baade is a private (1961) at Harvard. He had begun his of the Schuylkill River for the sculling The board members of the Wyeth conservator and an Instructor for the Art undergraduate studies as a painter, giving pictures, the surgical theater at Jefferson Foundation for American Art were pleased Conservation Department. He will share him a unique appreciation of the physical Medical College for The Gross Clinic to help support his last book, The Paris his research and expertise reconstructing presence of works of art. When he later (1875), and 1729 Mount Vernon Street, Letters of Thomas Eakins (2009), with one historical paintings in a graduate seminar served on the Admissions Committee where the artist lived and worked from of our publication grants awarded through for the Department. The course “Decoding for the Winterthur/UD Art Conservation 1899 to 1916. Such exactitude and concrete the College Art Association. However, the the Old Masters” will explore materials and UD Alumni, Faculty, and Graduate Students at Scholars’ Day at PAFA. From left: Wendy Bellion, Amy Torbert, Joyce Hill Program, he drew little portrait sketches references were much appreciated by final volume of Eakins’s letters remains techniques used by Western easel painters Stoner, Camara Holloway, Anna Marley, La Tanya Autry, Brian Baade, Amber Kerr-Allison, Tiarna Doherty, Laura Hartman. of each of the applicants. He spent time in the Art Conservation students who took among several of his unfinished projects. from late Middle Ages through early 20th Photo by Barbara Katus, Digital Assets Manager, PAFA. the darkroom of the Princeton camera club his classes or asked him to serve on their The exhibition Gertrude Käsebier: The century. Traditionally art historians receive and developed a keen appreciation for the doctoral committees. Complexity of Light and Shade, on view little knowledge of technical art history of developing an exhibition on the art of religious paintings produced in France. Like chemistry and aesthetics of photography, He challenged the students in his until June 28, 2013 in the University and conservation, so most curators have Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937). Tanner many of his teachers, who included Thomas which informed many publications about Postmodernist class in the mid-nineties to Museums, University of Delaware, Old relatively little background in how to ex- was one of the first African Americans to Eakins, and fellow students, Tanner went Alfred Stieglitz and other pioneers of think about how wrong twentieth-century College Gallery, has been dedicated to amine and understand the material aspects enroll at PAFA where he was a student from abroad to study after completing his training modern photography. scholars were likely to be about what painter Homer, who was responsible for bringing of artworks. Seminars like this will better 1879 to 1885. Most Americans aware of at PAFA and attend the Académie Julian in Bill Homer was a prolific writer.

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