Department of Art History

Senior Art History major Elizabeth Smith is the recipient of the 2019 Millard Pierce Binyon Memorial Prize for distinction in humanistic pursuits in the College community, awarded by the Humanities Collegiate Division. 

Smith is being honored for her remarkable accomplishments both on-campus and city-wide. Her undergraduate thesis examined the work of Cuban-American artist Félix González-Torres and the relationship between the artist’s oeuvre and curatorial praxis. In the 2018-19 academic year, Smith was part of the student trio that curated an exhibition of newly acquired works from the Booth Art Collection in McGiffert House, titled Small Frequencies. Smith also worked alongside fellow Art History students at University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) to organize the second annual Intercollegiate Undergraduate Art History Symposium in April. The event provided a platform for fourteen undergraduate students from UChicago, SAIC, Loyola University, and University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to present their B.A. research.