Art and Art History Department

On Oct. 5, Phillip Wagoner, professor of art history, professor of archaeology, was named a co-recipient of the American Historical Association's John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History. The John F. Richards Prize recognizes the most distinguished work of scholarship on South Asian history published in English. Eligibility includes books on any period or field of South Asian historical studies and works which integrate South Asian history with broader global issues and movements. Wagoner shares the prize with Richard Eaton of the University of Arizona. Together, they co-authored the book, Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India’s Deccan Plateau, 1300–1600,…

An international research team headed by Professor of Art History Peter Mark has been awarded a grant for a project titled “African Ivories in the Atlantic World.” The $115,000 three-year grant from the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) will make it possible for the research team to carry out the first laboratory analyses of selected ivories, in order to determine more precisely the age and the provenance of these little-known artworks. In addition, team members will compile the first comprehensive catalogue of “Luso-African ivories” in Portuguese collections, as well as the first thorough study of those carvings that were exported…

John Paoletti, the Kenan Professor of the Humanities, emeritus and professor of art history, emeritus is the author of Michelangelo’s David: Florentine History and Civic Identity, published by Cambridge University Press, Feb. 2015. Paoletti was on the faculty at Wesleyan from 1972 to 2009. According to the publisher, this book takes a new look at the interpretations of, and the historical information surrounding, Michelangelo's David. New documentary materials discovered by Rolf Bagemihl add to the early history of the stone block that became the David and provide an identity for the painted terracotta colossus that stood on the cathedral buttresses for…

View the talents of senior art studio majors during the 2015 Senior Thesis Exhibition at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery through April 19. The gallery is open noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and is free of charge. In the final year of study, each student develops a focused body of work, and mounts a solo exhibition in the Zilkha Gallery. This exhibition is the culmination of a two-semester thesis tutorial, and is developed in close critical dialogue with a faculty advisor. The exhibition is critiqued by the faculty advisor and a second critic, and must be passed…

Master printmaker Keiji Shinohara, artist in residence, will have three solo exhibitions in 2015." The title is "Keiji Shinohara: Woodcut." The first will be at the Odakyu Shinjuku Art Salon in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan March 11-17. For more information call 03-3342-1111 (Japan). The second show will be at Art Zone-Kaguraoka in Kyoto, Japan May 9-May 25. For more information call o75-754-0155 (Japan). The exhibition will return to the United States and be on display at the Visual Arts Gallery at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I. throughout the month of October. In addition, Shinohara will be demonstrating Japanese Ukiyo-e printmaking…

Early this year, Gary Shteyngart embarked on an experiment for The New York Times: For a week straight, he would "subsist almost entirely on a diet of state-controlled Russian television, piped in from three Apple laptops onto three 55-inch Samsung monitors in a room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan." Assistant Professor of Art Sasha Rudensky documented this experiment in a series of photographs that accompany the story. Here is Shteyngart lying in bed, feet encased in hotel slippers, while Russian President Vladamir Putin's stern face fills three towering television screens. Here Shteyngart is dining on Wagyu beef slices and sipping pinot noir…

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Tula Telfair, professor of art, is having a solo exhibition of 21 new monumental oil paintings at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum Jan. 10 through March 15. The opening reception is 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 29. In a "World of Dreams— New Landscape Paintings," Telfair paints monumental landscapes and epic-scale vistas that act as windows into another world — a dream world — where everything seems familiar yet remains beyond grasp. Drawing upon the long tradition of landscape painting from the backdrops of the Renaissance through the Romanticism of the 19th century, she presents a thoroughly contemporary perspective upon an archaic art form. Instead of documenting…

#THISISWHY (by Christine Foster. Originally published in Wesleyan Magazine, Dec. 10, 2014) Professor of Art Tula Telfair’s epic and massive landscape paintings fill the walls of Wesleyan’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery. They call forth our memories of the most stunning scenic vistas—craggy mountains topped by threatening clouds; impossibly moist, green valleys; icebergs jutting hundreds of feet out of the freezing aqua waters below. From a distance, they appear to be photographs, but they aren’t. These views don’t even exist, except in Telfair’s mind and on her canvases. Still—even knowing they are imagined— the viewer is tempted to look for signs of…

Thirteen students enrolled in Professor of Art Tula Telfair's Painting I course (ARTS 439) displayed their artwork at a Painting Show Dec. 8 at Art Studio South. This introductory-level course in painting (oils) emphasized work from observation and stressed the fundamentals of formal structure: color, paint manipulation, composition and scale. Students addressed conceptual problems that helped them develop an understanding of the power of visual images to convey ideas and expressions. (Photos by Dat Vu '15) (more…)

Wagoner Honored by American Historical Association for South Asian History Scholarship

Art History Research Team Led by Mark Wins Major Grant

Alumna’s Drawing On Display in Fayerweather

Paoletti Authors Book on Michelangelo’s David

Art by Graphic Design Class on Display in Usdan

Art on Display at Senior Thesis Exhibition

Shinohara’s Solo Exhibitions to be Displayed in Japan

Rudensky’s Photos Featured in Times Story on Russian TV

Faculty Curate Picture/Thing Exhibit in Zilkha Gallery

Telfair’s Solo Oil Painting Exhibition Opens in Louisiana Museum

Telfair’s Imaginary Landscapes Garner Attenton from Artists, Scientists Alike

Students Showcase Art at Painting Show