Linda Seidel
Contact Information
lseidel@uchicago.edu
Ph.D. Harvard University - Linda Seidel, Professor of Art History, was named the Hanna Holborn Gray Professor in Art History. Seidel is the first person to be appointed to the chair, which was established in honor of Hanna Holburn Gray, President Emerita and the Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor Emerita in History. Gray served as President of the University from 1978 to 1993 and then returned to teaching in Autumn Quarter 1994. She won the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 1996.
Seidel's fields of expertise include medieval architectural sculpture, northern European Renaissance painting and art historical methodology. Her current interests focus on the representation of domesticity in 15th-century art and on the early career of the influential scholar and critic, Meyer Schapiro.
Her books include Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait: Stories of an Icon (Cambridge University Press, 1993), Songs of Glory: The Romanesque Facades of Aquataine (University Press, 1981) and Romanesque Sculpture from the Cathedral of St-Etienne, Toulouse (Gardener Press, 1977). Her most recent work, Legends in Limestone: Lazarus, Gislebertus and the Cathedral of Autun (University Press, 1999), examines the diverse ways in which 12th-century visitors and more recent viewers have approached this medieval church and understood its elaborate program of sculptures.
Seidel was the recipient of a Burlington Northern Distinguished Graduate Teaching Award in 1990 and served as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Professor on several college campuses in 1994 and 1995. At Chicago, she has been involved in the teaching of two courses that culminated in exhibitions at the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, a project which was supported by special funding from the Mellon Foundation.
Seidel received her B.A. degree from Barnard College, her M.A. from Ratcliffe College and her Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Harvard University where she taught before joining the faculty at Chicago in 1977. She retired in 2004.