Department of Art History

How do we approach art historical study of monuments and images from settings without the aid of written history? How might archaeological context serve as an alternative record for art historical inquiry? Ancient mural art is especially well suited to the pursuit of archaeo art history. In this lecture, Lisa Trever (Associate Professor in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeology, Columbia University) offers perspectives—from the panoramic to the microscopic—on how meaning can be made from painted and sculpted murals created on the coast of Peru.

American art historians Erika Doss (University of Notre Dame) and Alex J. Taylor (University of Pittsburgh) contextualize the work of Italian sculptor Virginio Ferrari (b. 1937) within the broader landscape of public art in post-war Chicago and American cityscapes. Q&A and reception to follow.

Architectural historian and director of the Preservation Studies Program at Boston University Daniel Bluestone (PhD ’84) explores the contentious yearlong international preservation campaign spurred by the Chicago Theological Seminary’s 1957 plan to demolish Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and replace it with a married student dormitory.