Alumna Announced as 75th Mellon Lecturer
January 28, 2026
Aden Kumler, Art History AB ‘96, where she studied with Michael Camille, and Professor of Medieval Art History at the University of Chicago from 2007 to 2020, has been named the 75th A.W. Mellon Lecturer in the Fine Arts.
From The National Gallery of Art: "Aden Kumler, professor of art history in the Department of Arts, Media, Philosophy at Universität Basel and director of eikones, Center for the Theory and History of the Image, will present a four-part lecture series entitled In Praise of Difficulty: Ambiguity, Aesthetics, and the Work of Art in Medieval Europe, in the National Gallery’s East Building Auditorium every Sunday from May 3 to 24, 2026.
In the series, Kumler will focus on difficulty as an aesthetic strategy, value, and theme in medieval European art. The lectures expand upon one of the central topics of Kumler’s scholarly research: how the material conditions of life shape people’s thought, imagination, and actions."
