Letters from the Local Bazaar: Scraps and Scrolls of Mobility in the Global Eras of Art

Northern and western India’s well-traveled Jain merchants commissioned numerous letters; between 1400 and 1900 to invite eminent monks to their towns. They sought to entice recipients with pictures of urban places and completed journeys. In a letter sent from the port of Diu, ca. 1666, painters and scribes juxtaposed the vignette of Jain monks and nuns who would walk long tracts of land on foot with the image of Portuguese merchants who had crossed the vast expanse of sea on ships.

The Republic of Color

Michael Rossi discusses The Republic of Color: Science, Perception, and the Making of Modern America. Darby English will moderate and a Q&A and signing will follow the discussion. 

Presented in partnership with the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory (3CT)

At the Co-op

2020 AAP PROSE Award for Neer

Richard Neer, the Barbara E. and Richard J. Franke Distinguished Service Professor in Art History, Cinema & Media Studies, and the College, along with his co-author Leslie Kurke (University of California, Berkeley) have been awarded the 2020 PROSE Award in the Classics subject category.

VMPEA: Nancy Lin

“'That artwork doesn't exist': Productive misreadings of performance documentation and what happens when you find out the truth.”

Nancy Lin, PhD candidate, Department of Art History

Co-sponsored with Speaking of Art: Artist Interviews in Scholarship and Practice. 

VMPEA: Luo Rufei

“A Preliminary Research on Images of Thousand Buddhas in Tibet: Taking the Murals of Pegdongpo Cave in Zanda County in Ngari Prefecture of Western Tibet as an Example” 西藏千佛图像初探——以西藏西部阿里地区札达县白东波石窟壁画为例

Luo Rufei, PhD candidate, Zhejiang University; exchange student, University of Chicago

Respondent: Dongshan Zhang, PhD candidate, Department of Art History

Stamps provide rare picture of North Korea

Last year, Jee-Young Park, Korean Studies Librarian at the University of Chicago, acquired 2,000 North Korean postage stamps spanning 1962–2018. The stamps—many of which arrived in thematic stamp albums—depict a surprising variety of topics and images, including political propaganda and North Korean architecture as well as animals, art and culture, and more. 

English receives Frank Jewett Mather Award

Darby English, the Carl Darling Buck Professor of Art History, has received the 2020 Frank Jewett Mather Award for his book, To Describe a Life: Notes from the Intersection of Art and Race Terror

Brittenham awarded Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize

Claudia Brittenham, Associate Professor of Art History and the College, has been awarded the 2020 Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize by the College Art Association for her article, “Architecture, Vision, and Ritual: Seeing Maya Lintels at Yaxchilan Structure 23,” which was featured in the September 2019 issue of

Helen Frankenthaler Fellowship Endowed

The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation announced a $500,000 gift to the University of Chicago’s Department of Art History, one of five new institutional partners for the Frankenthaler Scholarships, a multi-year initiative that has dedicated more than $4 million to art and art history graduate programs nationwide.

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