Newsletter CLASS of 1955 MEMORIAL PROFESSOR of ART
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WILLIAMS GRADUATE P RO GRA M IN THE HIS TO RY OF A RT OFFERED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE CLARK ACADEMIC YEARS 200 7–8, 2008 –9 Newsletter CLASS OF 1955 MEMORIAL PROFESSOR OF ART MARC GOTLIEB Letter from the Director Greetings from Williamstown and partners, including the Williams College Museum of Art, from all the staff, faculty, and current MASS MoCA, and the Williamstown Art Conservation Center. students of the Graduate Program. No other graduate program in the United States features It has been at once a pleasure and an such integrated partnerships between great museums and a honor to serve as the program’s new great institution of higher education. Most of all our attention focuses on questions relating director, succeeding Mark Haxthausen, to students, however, including student support. Following who over 14 years helped bring the my appointment we have identified a number of key funding program to such a high level of distinction. Even as I complete targets designed to enhance the program and our ability to my second year , not a day goes by when I do not discover a recruit and support outstanding students from all walks of new, extraordinary feature of the program, from its remark - life, and indeed from across the world. able faculty and curriculum to the impressive accomplish - Our students, too, have begun to self-organize. Begin - ments and loyalty of its alumni. Not a day goes by, too, when ning in the fall of last year, they launched a new Proseminar we don’t remind ourselves that we must assure that the as well as other academic activities designed to enhance legacy of excellence established by this esteemed degree is student involvement in the curriculum. The program is also not only maintained but vigorously renewed. expanding its communications with alumni, including re - Over the last two years we have engaged in an intensive vamping our newsletter and initiating a cycle of electronic program of self-study and external review. Some of the fruits communications. Also stay tuned for an upgraded system of of our labors have already been harvested — a new website, alumni contact with the College, including the ability to log an on-line application system, and modest but nevertheless directly into the Williams alumni webpage. I look forward to significant changes to the curriculum — all designed to communicating with you about these and other program de - assure that the Graduate Program remains second to none. velopments in the months and years ahead. But meanwhile, More substantial modifications to the curriculum will come please enjoy the newsletter, which comes to you this year in a in the years ahead, consistent with our goal to train public double edition. Many thanks to Marc Simpson for his labor intellectuals in the visual arts able to participate and excel in on its behalf. And a final word of congratulations to the a range of professional and academic contexts. classes of 2008 and 2009, the program’s newest alumni, The opening of Stone Hill Center, the beginning of the whose academic and extra-curricular work this expanded Clark’s Phase Two expansion, and the continued expansion newsletter chronicles. of the Clark’s research and curatorial programs will bring to the graduate students new opportunities for meaningful in - tellectual, curatorial, and academic work. We also continue to expand and intensify our relationships with our other 2 GP & Faculty News 12 GP & The Clark 17 GP & WCMA 21 GP & MASS MoCA 23 GP & WACC 24 GP & Conferences 26 GP 2007 –8 Events 30 GP 2008 –9 Events 34 Students’ News 42 Grads’ News The Class of 2008 on the day of their Graduate Student Symposium. Standing: George Philip LeBourdais, Amanda Hellman, Erin Corrales-Diaz, Julie Blake, Katie Steiner, Tianyue Jiang, Hannah Friedman ; seated; Jennifer Sichel, Katherine Alcauskas, Sarah Hammond, Stephanie Schumann The Class of 2009 on the day of their Graduate Student Symposium. Left to right: Erica DiBenedetto, Ruthie Dibble, Jamie Sanecki, Diana Nawi, Layla Bermeo, Kate Albert, Andrea Gyorody, Melina Doerring, Rebekah Flake, Vera Totos, Rebecca Shaykin Congratulations to the classes of 2008 and 2009! 3 2009 CAA DISTINGUISHED TEACHING OF ART HISTORY AWARD Mark Haxthausen In mid-January the College Art Association announced the recipients of its 2009 Awards for Distinction — annual awards that“honor outstanding member achievements and reaffirm CAA’s mission to encourage the highest standards of scholar - ship, practice, and teaching in the visual arts.” The Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award went to former Graduate Pro - gram Director Mark Haxthausen .“With these awards,” notes the organization,“CAA honors the accomplishments of indi - vidual artists, art historians, authors, conservators, curators, and critics whose efforts transcend their individual disciplines and contribute to the profession as a whole and to the world at large.” CAA President Paul Jaskot formally recognized the honorees and presented the awards at Convocation, held dur - ing CAA’s 97th Annual Conference on Wednesday, February 25, 2009, at the Los Angeles Convention Center in California. Mark’s certificate reads: Princeton, New Jersey. Haxthausen ’s service to the field has Charles W. Haxthausen has provided long, transforma - been exemplary, especially in his international role as a cura - tive, and inspiring leadership to one of the most important tor and consultant in the field of modern German art. Known master ’s degree programs in art history in the United States. for his work on Paul Klee, he has published numerous articles As Robert Sterling Clark Professor of Art History at Williams on German painters, sculptors, and critics, and he coedited College in Massachusetts and director of the Graduate Program books on modern German painting as well as The Two Art there from 1993 to 2007, he has served as an enthusiastic and Histories: The Museum and the University . His latest work, energetic intellectual model, with his love of scholarship and Refiguring Vision: The Art Criticism of Carl Einstein , is carefully crafted and innovative pedagogy creating a degree forthcoming from the University of California Press. program that in turn has produced numerous leading scholars, Among the accolades of students and colleagues, one ob - teachers, and curators in art history. servation resonated with special force: “If the teaching award Known to his colleagues and students as Mark, Haxthausen is not only about personal interaction with students, the way has taught across the country, at Indiana University, Harvard an instructor can inspire and support, but also about how an University (where he was also associate curator at the Busch- individual can create an institution that represented the most Reisinger Museum), Columbia University, Duke University, advanced and cutting-edge thinking about art history, then it and the University of Minnesota. He received his B .A. from seems to me that this prize should undoubtedly go to Mark. ” the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, in 1966, and The writer references the remarkable pedagogical edifice built his M .A. and Ph .D. with distinction from Columbia Univer - by Haxthausen at Williams. The famous and mandatory sity in 1976. He has received numerous grants and fellowships symposium “cycle ” that dominates a student ’s second year including a Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship, two constitutes the program ’s keystone academic event. A highly Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowships, and a Fulbright rigorous form of intellectual training, the requirement is an Senior Scholar Award; he is also a member of the School of academic structure extending over an entire semester that Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in allows students to envision themselves and indeed operate as 4 public intellectuals in the visual arts. Beneficiaries of a bril - art historian never tires of looking at art! ” In Haxthausen ’s liantly conceived and student-centered curriculum, graduates case, it is clear that he has never tired of bringing his enthusi - of the Williams College program have pursued doctorates at asm for the field to his teaching and his students. His deep leading schools, obtained prestigious internships in the US care for his students is apparent through the time and devo - and abroad, and taken curatorial and administrative posi - tion he has spent in assisting in their advancement. “Always tions at such institutions as the Albright-Knox Gallery, the available to students and utterly approachable, ” Haxthausen Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the is known for his generosity of time. One student remarked Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Isabella Stewart Gardner that the “level of energy, dedication, and commitment that Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the San Francisco Mark brings to his students ’ intellectual development is noth - Museum of Modern Art, and the Walker Art Center. ing short of remarkable. ” Students fondly remember him for Comments from his students reveal the depth of Hax - the “endless hours logged in symposium dry runs ” and for his thausen ’s legacy on a more individual level as well. They note winter study excursions to Europe. But perhaps most notable his ability to inspire and challenge through “brilliant and in his significant teaching career is the way he has motivated fascinating ” lectures, emanate enthusiasm for teaching and students while challenging them with “rigorous but inspiring the field, and express “extraordinary generosity ” as a professor instruction. ” As one colleague has noted, “Mark Haxthausen and mentor. When asked how he could juggle so many book has transformed lives through the unwavering belief that his projects, reviews, classes, and other professional commitments, work as a teacher is important. ” he told one student: “Because I love art history! ” This love of Congratulations to Mark — and collective appreciation the discipline resonates through his career of teaching and in - to those of his students and colleagues who wrote in his teractions with students.