Spring 2007 Collecting China Interdisciplinary symposium expands dialog on Chinese art objects The Newsletter of the University of Delaware Department of Art History 1 Contents Spring 2007 Editor in Chief and Photo Editor: From the Chair From the Chair | 3 Undergraduate Student Linda Pellecchia News | 15 Titles Editor: David M. Stone No doubt, you’ve noticed that the Art History newsletter has changed its Art History Club | 15 Art Director: Don Shenkle look and now has a name, Insight. The department, launched more than Undergraduate Awards | 15 Editorial Coordinator: forty years ago, has fl ourished and Insight allows us to spread the news Connee McKinney of our extraordinary record of accomplishments. Some news builds on Secretarial Assistance: Eileen Larson, traditional strengths. Other items refl ect exciting new directions. Our Deb Morris, Tina Trimble focus on American art will expand next year with the arrival of a new Graduate Student News | 16 “Collecting ‘China’” — Insight is produced by the Department colleague in the history of African American art and another in the 19th An International Gem | 4 Graduate Awards | 16 of Art History as a service to alumni and 20th-century art of the United States. Our curriculum has, on the Graduate Student News | 16 and friends of the Department. We are other hand, expanded globally beyond America and Europe. We now Graduate Degrees Granted | 17 always pleased to receive your opin- teach the arts and architecture of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Art News from Alumni | 18 ions and ideas. Please contact Eileen History undergraduate and graduate students have garnered prestigious Larson, Old College 318, University of grants and awards. This past year our faculty published several books, Delaware, Newark, DE 19716 (302- 831-8416) or [email protected]. multiple chapters, and numerous essays. They have lectured on top- Faculty Spotlight | 6 In Memoriam | 22 ics ranging from the mystery of Caravaggio’s signature to the design Interview with Prof. Nina Kallmyer | 6 Maggie Ferger | 22 On the cover: practices of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, quilt makers. Vimalin Rujivacharakul, Vimalin Rujivacharakul speaking on Interview with Prof. Lauren Petersen | 8 Maurice Cope | 22 in partnership with Winterthur Museum, organized an international From Tian Yi Ge to Zhongshan Gongyu- Return of the Guggenheims: Chapman symposium, “Collecting ‘China.’” Perry Chapman and Ann Gibson an: Subjects, Objects, and Things in Re- and Gibson and the Rewards publican China Photo George Freeman returned from Guggenheim fellowships. Nina Kallmyer’s discovery of of Research | 9 an American copy of Gericault’s The Raft of the Medusa has inspired collaboration with museums, art conservationists, and art historians that Around the Department | 10 Thanks to Our Donors | 23 will culminate in an international exhibition. Two seminars give students hands-on experience | 10 Wendy Bellion and Monica Dominguez are launching “Crossing Bor- Faculty awards | 10 ders: Colonial Art and Art History across North America,” our upcom- Department Lecture Series | 12 ing 2008 symposium. Our Art History family is truly re- Receptions and Gala events | 12 markable. You have contributed to that legacy and, we hope, will be a vital participant in its future. We are embarking on Alumni Corner | 13 Faculty Books | Back cover a major effort to raise funds to capitalize on our strengths and achievements. Student support at all levels is our major What can you do with an Art History Books published by Faculty B.A? Lots! | 13 in 2005-2006 goal. Because our undergraduate majors and minors rank among the best at UD, we want to support their profes- sional development. We want to create more internships, study trips, and outreach activities. Our graduate students Prof. Bernard Herman, are exceptional and committed to furthering an understand- Edward F. and Elizabeth ing of art history in classrooms, museums, galleries, and the Rising Stars | 14 Goodman Rosenberg public sphere. We need to provide them with better fellow- Kate LaPrad, Eugene DuPont Memorial Professor of Art History Distinguished Scholar, and Chair, Department of ships, and more funding for research travel and participation Honors student and Alison Art History Photo George in professional meetings and symposia. That kind of exposure Freeman Scholar | 14 translates into enthusiastic teaching and an advocacy that Three Graduate Students Awarded instills in others a lifelong understanding of the importance Smithsonians | 14 of art in our lives. Our invitation to you is to be part of the future; to be a partner in propelling art history at the University of Delaware to the next level. We share a dynamic heritage. Together we will build a legacy for a world that must sustain art at its heart to be complete. 2 3 Collecting China An International Gem Could there ever be a universal paradigm governing “Chinesessness” encoded in material objects, or does the cultural code “Chinese” vary from object to object, interpreted differently according to those who collect the objects and their various collecting practice? n an autumn weekend late in rising stars, took us on journeys spanning September, the campus of the three centuries. In a series of elegant and OUniversity of Delaware and the stimulating presentations, they demon- Winterthur Museum & Country Estate strated how our perceptions of China and became the site of an extraordinary its culture were shaped and reshaped by interdisciplinary conference on Chinese collections of objects and artifacts. From art and its collectors, “Collecting ‘China’: Shang-dynasty oracle bones to Neolithic Objects, Materiality, and Multicultural jades, export ceramics, and pre-modern Collectors.” Co-organized by the De- manuscripts, the speakers revealed how partment of Art History and Winterthur objects helped establish what “Chinese- under the direction of Prof. Vimalin Ruji- ness” means to modern viewers. Accord- vacharakul, the symposium demonstrated ing to Prof. Rujivacharakul, “the study of how a conference designed for specialists ‘Chinese objects’ and their collections has can have far-reaching appeal for non- been at the center of the study of Chi- specialists as well. Because collecting was nese art, architecture, and archaeology in the fulcrum, the conference appealed recent decades, but basic questions about to scholars of Western and non-Western the objects’ cultural code in relation to art alike. “It was splendid to see such a their materiality remain under-examined. strong turnout for scholarly papers in an To explore these interconnections on a “Loading Boats for Canton,” Watercolor, 1956.38.127, Courtesy Winterthur Museum & Country Estate. area, the art of China, that has not re- global scale, we invited scholars to par- ceived much attention on the University ticipate in an interdisciplinary and cross- Perry Chapman (Northern Baroque), and ern collectors. Objects in Rembrandt’s paper titles conveys the expanse of topics of Delaware campus,” commented Prof. cultural conference so that they could ex- Bernard Herman (American folk art and kunstkammer, a collection of art and covered and the interdisciplinary range Lawrence Nees. amine objects beyond the typically fi xed material culture). Regardless of their dif- natural curiosities meant to represent the of speakers: Monumental Miniature, An realms of national culture and accepted fering subjects, a single message became knowledge of the world and popular in Oxymoron?: A Han-Dynasty Bronze The conference also exemplifi ed how historical interpretations of China.” the traditional boundaries of geogra- apparent: collecting affects the mean- seventeenth-century Holland, acquired Mat Weight and Its Cosmos (Eugene phy, discipline, and chronology can be In that spirit of cross-cultural interaction, ing of objects. Collections can alter our new meanings when used as splendid Wang, History of Art and Architecture, transcended to produce exciting new Prof. Rujivacharakul opened the confer- view of the societies that made them or motifs in his paintings. Harvard); Bug Collecting: Imagining the perspectives. For almost three full days, ence with a roundtable discussion on transform our ideas about the ones that Exotic in Late Ming China (Yuming He, Collecting ‘China’ moved into full swing art historians, archaeologists, and anthro- collecting composed of faculty from the collected them. Artifacts of high symbolic East Asian Languages and Civilizations, with three sessions on China: “China and pologists rubbed elbows with museum Art History department, none of whom value to one culture became “loot” in the Chicago); Goncourt’s China Cabinet, the Discourse of Things”; “The World curators, collectors, and art critics at a are scholars of Chinese art. Moderated eyes of a later civilization. The African (Ting Chang, Visual Studies and Critical and Its Collections”; and “On Differ- series of lectures, discussions, dinners, by David M. Stone (Italian Baroque), American quilt made to provide comfort Theory, Carnegie Mellon); Collecting ent Grounds: Collecting Practices and receptions, and meetings. Speakers, from the participants represented a variety and warmth for an Alabama family was China in Britain: Sir Percival David and Private Collectors.” A sampling of the highly acclaimed senior scholars to young of fi elds: Lawrence Nees (Medieval), turned into “art” through the will of mod- Continues on page 20 4 5 FACULTY SPOTLIGHT “The Society is thrilled to have Nina apply her considerable expertise to this long-overshadowed