News & Events
Weekly Newsletter
- Current Issue: February 17, 2012 (PDF)
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Professor Weisberg receives Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award
As Chair of the Department of Art History, I am delighted to share the news that Professor Gabriel Weisberg, who joined the department’s faculty in 1985, has been named the recipient of the 2012 Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award by the College Art Association.
The Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award, established in 1977, is presented to an individual who has been actively engaged in teaching art history for most of his or her career. Among the range of criteria that may be applied in evaluating candidates are: inspiration to a broad range of students in the pursuit of humanistic studies; rigorous intellectual standards and outstanding success in both scholarly and class presentation; contribution to the advancement of knowledge and methodology in the discipline, including integration of art-historical knowledge with other disciplines; and aid to students in the development of their careers.
In being honored in this way, Professor Weisberg joins a distinguished list of past winners of this award, including Horst W. Janson (1979), Meyer Shapiro (1981), Oleg Grabar (1983), Marvin Eisenberg (1987), James Ackerman (1991), Egbert Haverkap-Begemann (1992), Jules Prown (1996), Cecilia F. Klein (2000), and Wu Hung (2008).
Here, at the University of Minnesota, we have long known that Professor Weisberg is a gifted and generous teacher, who has inspired generations of students on both the undergraduate and graduate level. We are therefore especially delighted that his distinguished record of teaching has now been given national recognition by our professional organization.
Professor Weisberg will receive his award at the College Art Association’s Annual Conference Award Ceremony in Los Angeles in February 2012.
Please join me in congratulating Professor Weisberg.
Steven F. Ostrow
Chair
Dr. Roberta Bartoli, Visiting Professor
The Department of Art History is pleased to introduce and welcome Dr. Roberta Bartoli as a Visiting Assistant Professor for Spring term 2012. After studying Art History at the University of Florence, Dr. Bartoli received her doctorate from the University of Pisa with a dissertation on “Stone Sculpture in the Territory between Florence and Emilia Romagna (1420-1530).” The recipient of a Paul Mellon Senior Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), a Getty Research Library Grant, and an honorary membership in the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (Florence), Dr. Bartoli has worked on numerous exhibitions at major museums throughout Italy, including the Galleria dell’Accademia, Pitti Palace, Galleria degli Uffizi, Accademia Carrara (Bergamo), and Opera el Duomo (Pisa). She is the author of a monographic study of the fifteenth-century Florentine painter Biagio d’Antonio, and Text and Image/Text as Image: Inscribed Frames from the Sixteenth Century, as well as numerous articles, exhibition catalogue essays and entries on Italian Renaissance painting, sculpture, and drawings, patronage, and collecting. Since 2008 she has been an Associate Scholar at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence.
During Spring term, Dr. Bartoli will be teaching ArtH 3009, Medieval Art and ArtH 5324, Fifteenth-Century Painting.
We are delighted to welcome Dr. Bartoli to Minneapolis and the Department of Art History, and we hope you will have the opportunity to meet her and to take her classes.
In Memoriam: Frederick A. Cooper
Frederick A. Cooper
1936-2011
Frederick A. Cooper, Professor of Art History, died on September 23rd, 2011, at the age of seventy-four.
Born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, Fred received his B.A. from Yale University, his M.A. from the University of Pittsburgh, and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. After working as a civil engineer, he embarked on a career as an educator and archaeologist, specializing in Greek and Roman art. He began his academic career at the University of Pittsburgh and, after brief stints at Temple and Northwestern Universities, joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota in 1971.
Professor Cooper was an accomplished scholar and educator. The recipient of the University of Minnesota’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the Archaeology Institute of America’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the University of Minnesota’s Morse Alumni Distinguished Professor Award, and the National Endowment of the Humanities Fellowship, he inspired generations of students to pursue careers in his beloved field. Among his many publications, his 4-volume series on The Temple of Apollo Bassitas (1992 and 1996) and his Houses of the Morea: Vernacular Architecture of the Northwest Peloponnesos (2002) are recognized as classics.
In addition to his teaching and publications, Fred headed MARWP (the Minnesota Archaeological Researches in the Western Peloponnese) the University of Minnesota’s program of archaeological research in the Peloponnesos. In this capacity he excavated the Bronze Age Palace of Nestor and reconstructed the Heroon at Messene. He was also closely affiliated with the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, serving there as the Andrew F. Mellon Professor of Classical Studies from 1982 to 1985. At the time of his death he had just completed a major study of Greek architecture.
Professor Cooper is survived by his wife, Dr. Helen B. Foster, and two daughters. He will be missed by all who knew him, but always remembered as a brilliant scholar and passionate human being.
News Highlights
Lecture Series
Willa Z. Silverman, Professor of French and Jewish Studies, Pennsylvania State University
March 29, 2012
"Art and Life in Paris 1900: The Cahiers of Henri Vever"
Room: Room 215 Blegen, 5:00 pm
Carolyn Dean, Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, University of California Santa Cruz
April 26 or 27, 2012
"Masonry, Memory, and Meaning in Inka Rockwork"
Co-sponsored by the Department of Art History, University of St. Thomas, Maya Society of Minnesota, and Center for Early Modern History
Room: TBA, 5:00 pm
GENERAL NEWS
Art detective: Student Annika Johnson Featured in UM News
Art History student Annika Johnson was featured in UM News for her undergraduate research on Clara Mairs—a little known Minnesota artist from the depression era.
See the original article here:
Art Detective
Student-curated exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
A current student-curated exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts grew out of a poster for a giant telescope at Paris' 1900 Universal Exposition. Donated to the museum by Dr. Gabriel and Yvonne Weisberg, the advertisement features a fantastic, statuesque woman lowering a glowing moon toward a spellbound spectator. Like other advertisements from the time period, this poster promotes more than the featured product. It offers ways to leave one's everyday existence behind and enter a world of fun, fantasy and hedonism.
Called "A Means of Escape: European Posters from 1889 to 1930," the exhibition examines escapism in large-scale advertisements and focuses on three forms of diversion: fast transportation, reckless drinking and dazzling entertainment. While such activities carry an inherent appeal, an investigation of the historical context surrounding these works will also help to reveal what the public might have been trying to forget.
Guest curator Nikki Otten received her bachelor's in Professional Strategic Communication from the University of Minnesota in 2006. She then worked at small ad agencies in London and Dublin and spent time in Sydney. The museums she visited whilst abroad heightened her interest in art and prompted her to pursue a career change.
Nikki enrolled in the University of Minnesota's History of Graphic Arts course taught by Professor Weisberg from an Internet cafe in France, and has continued taking undergraduate art history courses in preparation for graduate study in 2012.
biennial meeting of The American Council For Southern Asian Art (ACSAA)
The American Council For Southern Asian Art (ACSAA) will hold its biennial meeting at the University of Minnesota September 22-25. Some 80 scholars from India, Europe, Japan and Southeast Asia will join American scholars presenting state of the field papers. It is particularly apt that the fifteenth ACSAA conference should be held at Minnesota: the idea for these conferences was born at the University, and the first conference held here. Support for the conference has come from the Asian Cultural Council (New York), the Hazen-Polsky Foundation, and the Institute for Global Studies at the University of Minnesota, to say nothing of a great deal of very good-natured assistance from the staff of the Art History Department.
Melissa Heer: Fulbright Fellowship
Doctoral candidate Melissa Heer has received a Fulbright Fellowship for study in India.
Sara Franck: John L. Caskey Fellowship
Doctoral candidate Sara Franck receives John L. Caskey Fellowship through the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.
Professor Marshall: McKnight Land-Grant Professorship
The Department of Art history is proud to announce that Jennifer Jane Marshall, Assistant Professor of North American Art, has been named a McKnight Land-Grant Professor for the academic years 2010-2012.
Of the ten recipients named this year, Professor Marshall is one of only two professors from the College of Liberal Arts to receive this prestigious award.
The McKnight Land-Grant Professorship is a two-year appointment that includes a generous research grant in each of the two years, and a year's leave from teaching in 2011-2012.
The award will support Professor Marshall's second book project, tentatively titled "Subtraction: American Sculpture in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," a study of sculptural practice in the United States from WWI to the Cold War.
More information on the McKnight Land-Grant Professorship and for a list of all current recipients.
