dissertation art

Department of the History of Art

You are here, dissertations, completed dissertations.

1942-present

DISSERTATIONS IN PROGRESS

As of July 2023

Bartunkova, Barbora , “Sites of Resistance: Antifascism and the Czechoslovak Avant-garde” (C. Armstrong)

Betik, Blair Katherine , “Alternate Experiences: Evaluating Lived Religious Life in the Roman Provinces in the 1st Through 4th Centuries CE” (M. Gaifman)

Boyd, Nicole , “Science, Craft, Art, Theater: Four ‘Perspectives’ on the Painted Architecture of Angelo Michele Colonna and Agostino Mitelli” (N. Suthor). 

Brown, Justin , “Afro-Surinamese Calabash Art in the Era of Slavery and Emancipation” (C. Fromont)

Burke, Harry , “The Islands Between: Art, Animism, and Anticolonial Worldmaking in Archipelagic Southeast Asia” (P. Lee)

Chakravorty, Swagato , “Displaced Cinema: Moving Images and the Politics of Location in Contemporary Art” (C. Buckley, F. Casetti)

Chau, Tung , “Strange New Worlds: Interfaces in the Work of Cao Fei” (P. Lee)

Cox, Emily , “Perverse Modernism, 1884-1990” (C. Armstrong, T. Barringer)

Coyle, Alexander , “Frame and Format between Byzantium and Central Italy, 1200-1300” (R. Nelson)

Datta, Yagnaseni , “Materialising Illusions: Visual Translation in the Mughal Jug Basisht, c. 1602.” (K. Rizvi)

de Luca, Theo , “Nicolas Poussin’s Chronotopes” (N. Suthor)

Dechant, D. Lyle . ” ‘daz wir ein ander vinden fro’: Readers and Performers of the Codex Manesse” (J. Jung)

Del Bonis-O’Donnell, Asia, “Trees and the Visualization of kosmos in Archaic and Classical Athenian Art” (M. Gaifman)

Demby, Nicole, “The Diplomatic Image: Framing Art and Internationalism, 1945-1960” (K. Mercer)

Donnelly, Michelle , “Spatialized Impressions: American Printmaking Outside the Workshop, 1935–1975” (J. Raab)

Epifano, Angie , “Building the Samorian State: Material Culture, Architecture, and Cities across West Africa” (C. Fromont)

Fialho, Alex , “Apertures onto AIDS: African American Photography and the Art History of the Storage Unit” (P. Lee, T Nyong’o)

Foo, Adela , “Crafting the Aq Qoyuniu Court (1475-1490) (E. Cooke, Jr.)

Franciosi, Caterina , “Latent Light: Energy and Nineteenth-Century British Art” (T. Barringer)

Frier, Sara , “Unbearable Witness: The Disfigured Body in the Northern European Brief (1500-1620)” (N. Suthor)

Gambert-Jouan, Anabelle , “Sculpture in Place: Medieval Wood Depositions and Their Environments” (J. Jung)

Gass, Izabel, “Painted Thanatologies: Théodore Géricault Against the Aesthetics of Life” (C. Armstrong)

Gaudet, Manon , “Property and the Contested Ground of North American Visual Culture, 1900-1945” (E. Cooke, Jr.)  

Haffner, Michaela , “Nature Cure: ”White Wellness” and the Visual Culture of Natural Health, 1870-1930” (J. Raab)

Hepburn, Victoria , “William Bell Scott’s Progress” (T. Barringer)

Herrmann, Mitchell, “The Art of the Living: Biological Life and Aesthetic Experience in the 21st Century” (P. Lee)

Higgins, Lily , “Reading into Things: Articulate Objects in Colonial North America, 1650-1783” (E. Cooke, Jr.)

Hodson, Josie , “Something in Common: Black Art under Austerity in New York City, 1975-1990” (Yale University, P. Lee)

Hong, Kevin , “Plasticity, Fungibility, Toxicity: Photography’s Ecological Entanglements in the Mid-Twentieth-Century United States” (C. Armstrong, J Raab)

Kang, Mia , “Art, Race, Representation: The Rise of Multiculturalism in the Visual Arts” (K. Mercer)

Keto, Elizabeth , “Remaking the World: United States Art in the Reconstruction Era, 1861-1900.” (J. Raab)

Kim, Adela , “Beyond Institutional Critique: Tearing Up in the Work of Andrea Fraser” (P. Lee)

Koposova, Ekaterina , “Triumph and Terror in the Arts of the Franco-Dutch War” (M. Bass)

Lee, Key Jo , “Melancholic Materiality: History and the Unhealable Wound in African American Photographic Portraits, 1850-1877” (K. Mercer)

Levy Haskell, Gavriella , “The Imaginative Painter”: Visual Narrative and the Interactive Painting in Britain, 1851-1914” (T. Barringer, E. Cooke Jr)

Marquardt, Savannah, “Becoming a Body: Lucanian Painted Vases and Grave Assemblages in Southern Italy” (M. Gaifman)

Miraval, Nathalie , “The Art of Magic: Afro-Catholic Visual Culture in the Early Modern Spanish Empire” (C. Fromont)

Mizbani, Sharon , Water and Memory: Fountains, Heritage, and Infrastructure in Istanbul and Tehran (1839-1950) (K. Rizvi)

Molarsky-Beck, Marina, “Seeing the Unseen: Queer Artistic Subjectivity in Interwar Photography” (C. Armstrong)

Nagy, Renata , “Bookish Art: Natural Historical Learning Across Media in Seventeenth-century Northern Europe” (Bass, M)

Olson, Christine , “Owen Jones and the Epistemologies of Nineteenth-Century Design” (T. Barringer)

Petrilli-Jones, Sara , “Drafting the Canon: Legal Histories of Art in Florence and Rome, 1600-1800” (N. Suthor)

Phillips, Kate , “American Ephemera” (J. Raab)

Potuckova, Kristina , “The Arts of Women’s Monastic Liturgy, Holy Roman Empire, 1000-1200” (J. Jung)

Quack, Gregor , “The Social Fabric: Franz Erhard Walther’s Art in Postwar Germany” (P. Lee)

Rahimi-Golkhandan, Shabnam , “The Photograph’s Shabih-Kashi (Verisimilitude) – The Liminal Visualities of Late Qajar Art (1853-1911)” (K. Rizvi)

Rapoport, Sarah , “James Jacques Joseph Tissot in the Interstices of Modernity” (T. Barringer, C. Armstrong)

Riordan, Lindsay , “Beuys, Terror, Value: 1967-1979” (S. Zeidler)

Robbins, Isabella , “Relationality and Being: Indigeneity, Space and Transit in Global Contemporary Art” (P. Lee, N. Blackhawk)

Sen, Pooja , “The World Builders ” (J. Peters)

Sellati, Lillian , “When is Herakles Not Himself? Mediating Cultural Plurality in Greater Central Asia, 330 BCE – 365 CE” (M. Gaifman)

Tang, Jenny , “Genealogies of Confinement: Carceral Logics of Visuality in Atlantic Modernism 1930 – 1945” (K. Mercer)

Thomas, Alexandra , “Afrekete’s Touch: Black Queer Feminist Errantry and Global African Art”  (P. Lee)

Valladares, Carlos , “Jacques Demy” (P. Lee)

Verrot, Trevor , “Sculpted Lamentation Groups in the Late Medieval Veneto” (J. Jung)

Von-Ow, Pierre , Visual Tactics: Histories of Perspective in Britain and its Empire, 1670-1768.”  (T. Barringer)

Wang, Xueli , “Performing Disappearance: Maggie Cheung and the Off-Screen” (Q. Ngan)

Webley, John , “Ink, Paint, and Blood: India and the Great Game in Russian Culture” (T. Barringer, M. Brunson)

Werwie, Katherine , “Visions Across the Gates: Materiality, Symbolism, and Communication in the Historiated Wooden Doors of Medieval European Churches” (J. Jung)

Wisowaty, Stephanie , “Painted Processional Crosses in Central Italy, 1250-1400: Movement, Mediation and Multisensory Effects” (J. Jung)

Young, Colin , “Desert Places: The Visual Culture of the Prairies and the Pampas across the Nineteenth Century” (J. Raab)

Zhou, Joyce Yusi, “Objects by Her Hand: Art and Material Culture of Women in Early Modern Batavia (1619-1799) (M. Bass, E. Cooke, Jr.)

Department of Art History

Dissertations

Dissertations completed in the Department of Art History, listed by the year in which the student defended.

• "Between Virtual and Real: A New Architecture of the Mogoa Caves (Dunhuang, China), 781-1036 CE," Zhenru Zhou
• "Vera Molnar's Programmed Abstraction: Computer Graphics and Geometric Abstract Art in Postwar Europe," Zsofia Valyi-Nagy
• "Inventing Contemporary Chinese Architectural Culture in the Age of Globalization 1979-2006," Zhiyan Yang
• "'A Tragic Suburban Mentality': Managerial Lyricism in Contemporary Art," Jadine Collingwood
• "Henry the Lion and the Art of Politics in Northern Europe, c. 1142-1195," Luke Fidler
• "Interchanges: Construction of the U.S. Interstate Highway System and Artistic Practice, 1956-1984," Hanne Graversen
• "Roaming, Gazing, and Listening: Human Presence and Sensory Impression in Song Landscape Art," Meng Zhao
• "The City's Pleasures: Urban and Visual Culture of Garden Spaces in Shanghai, 1850s-1930s," Xi Zhang
• "Making Merit in the Tableau: Early Sixth-Century Chinese Stele," Dongshan Zhang
• "Caught by Surprise: Affect and Feminist Politics in the Art of Magali Lara," Maggie Borowitz 
• "Monochrome Painting and the Period Body in Andrea del Sarto's Cloister of the Scalzo," Christine Zappella 
• "(Re)Making the View: The Shifting Imaginary of West Lake, from the 13th to the 19th Century," Yunfei Shao 
• "The Visual Culture of English Medicine, 1348 - 1500," Carly Boxer
• "From Gold to Green: Visualizing the Environment in the Italian Renaissance," Chloé Pelletier
• "Making Spaces: Site-Based Practice in Contemporary Chinese Art in the Long 1990s," Nancy Pai Suan Lin
• "From Mouth to Hand: Mopa Mopa Images in the Northern Colonial Andes," Catalina Ospina 
• "How to Photograph the Air: Photography, Cinema, and the Problem of Atmosphere in German Modernism, 1893-1933," Katerina Korola
• "From the Ground Up: Yona Friedman and the Postwar Reimagining of Architecture," Jesse Lockard
• "Ruthenians in Early Modern Rome: Art and Architecture of a Uniate Community, 1596 – 1750," Anatole Upart
• "Unsettling the Spiritual Conquest: The Murals of the Huaquechula Monastery in Sixteenth Century Mexico," Savannah Esquivel
• "Likeness, Figuration, Proof: Geometry and the Arabic Book, 1050-1250," Meekyung MacMurdie
• "The Disputed City: Art, Architecture, and the Performance of Argument in Scholastic Paris (c.1120–c.1320)," Martin Schwarz
• "Beyond Treaty Ports: Chinese Photography 1860-1916: Practitioners, Contexts, and Trends," Tingting Xu
• "The History of Idolatry and the Codex Durán Paintings," Kristopher Driggers
• "Non Est Hic: Figuring Christ's Absence in Early Medieval Art," Nancy Thebaut
• “The Art of the Periodical:  Pan , Print Culture and the Birth of Modern Design in Germany, 1890 – 1900,” Max Koss
• "The Whole World is (Still) Watching: Early Video, the Televisual, and Nonviolent Direct Action, 1930s-1970s," Solveig Nelson
• "Criticism without Authority: Gene Swenson, Jill Johnston, Gregory Battcock," Jennifer Sichel
• "Evolving Photography: Naturalism, Art, and Experience, 1889-1909," Carl Fuldner
• " Water, Ice, Lapis Lazuli: the Metamorphosis of Pure Land Art in Tang China," Anne Feng
• " Le Roman de la Poire : Constructing Courtliness and Courtly Art in Gothic France," Elizabeth Woodward
• "Unfolded Worlds: Allegory, Alchemy, and the Image as Structure of Knowledge in Early Modern Northern European Scientific Books," Alexandra Marraccini
• “Consequences of Drawing: Self and History in Jacques-Louis David's Preparatory Practices,” Tamar Mayer
• “Seizing the Everyday: Lettrist Film and the French Postwar Avant-Garde,” Marin Sarvé-Tarr
• “Surrealism and the Art of Consumption,” Jennifer Rose Cohen
• “The Mancheng Tombs: Shaping the Afterlife of the ‘ Kingdom within the Mountains ’  in Western Han China (206BCE- 8CE),” Jie Shi
• “Kazimir Malevich and Russian Modernism,” Daniel Phillips
• “Engraving Identities in Stone: Stone Mortuary Equipment of the Northern Dynasties (386-581 CE),” Jin Xu
• “Past Black and White: The Color of Photography in South Africa,  1994-2004,” Leslie Wilson
• “Systems Depictions: A. R. Penck and the East German Underground, 1953-1980,” Hannah Klemm
• “Body Analyses / Poetic Acts: Ambivalences of Austrian Performance Art After 1945,” Caroline Schopp
• “Allan Kaprow and the Dialectics of Instruction, 1947-1968 ,” Emily Capper
• “Great Expectations: The South Slavs in the Paris Salon Canvases of Jaoslav Čermák and Vlaho Bukovac,”  Rachel Rossner
• “‘Writing Calculations, Calculating Writing’: The Art of Hanne Darboven ,” Victoria Salinger
• “The Art of Play: Games in Early Modern Italy ,” Kelli Wood
• “The Materiality of Azurite Blue and Malachite Green in the Age of the Chinese Colorist Qiu Ying (ca. 1498-ca.1552) ,” Quincy Ngan
• "Contested Spaces: Art and Urbanism in Brazil, 1928-1969," Adrian Anagnost
• “Mt. Sinai and the Monastery of St. Catherine:  Place and Space in Pilgrimage Art,” Kristine Larison
• “Planctus Provinciae: Arts of Mourning in Fifteenth-Century Provence ,” Rainbow Porthé
• “Amateurs: Photography and the Aesthetics of Vulnerability ,” Anna Lee
• “A Movable Continent: Collecting Africa in Renaissance Italy,”  Ingrid Greenfield
• “Ornament and Art Theory in Ancient Rome: An Alternative Classical Paradigm for the Visual Arts,”  Nicola Jane Barham
• “The Soft Style: Youth and Nudity in Classical Greece,”  Angele Rosenberg
• “Entangled Modernities: The Representation of China's Past in Early Twentieth Century Chinese and Japanese Art,”  Stephanie Su
• “Representing Difference: Early 20th Century Japanese and Korean Art,”  Nancy Lin 
• “Asia Materialized: Perceptions of China in Renaissance Florence,”  Irene Backus
• “Art on the Border: Galerie René Block and Cold War West Berlin,”  Rachel Jans
• “Creative Disruption: Contemporary Russian Performance Art,”  Michelle Maydanchik
• “Locating Identity: Mixed Inscriptions and Multiple Media in Greek Art, ca. 630–336 BCE,”  Ann Patnaude
• “Ephemeral Monument, Lasting Impression: The Abbasid Dar al-Khilafa Palace of Samarra,” Matt Saba
• “Making Danish Modern, 1945–1960 , ”  Maggie Taft
• “Exhibiting Modernity: National Art Exhibitions in China during the Early Republican Period, 1911–1937,”  Kris Ercums
• “Salon Caricature in Second Empire Paris,”  Julia Langbein
• “Art Photography and the Contentions of Contemporary Art: Rhetoric, Practice, and Reception,”  Phil Lee
• “Arts of Enshrining: The Making of Relics and Bodies in Chinese and Korean Buddhist Art from the 10th to the 14th Centuries,”  Seunghye Lee
• “The Literati Lenses: Wenren Landscape in Chinese Cinema,”   Mia Liu
• “The Civic Cornucopia of Ornament: The Florentine Picture Chronicle’s (1470–75) Somatic Visioning of the Festive City in the time of Lorenzo de’ Medici,”  Iva Olah
• “A Coat that Doesn't Fit: Jean Dubuffet in Retrospect, 1944–1951,”  Jill Shaw
• “Ben Enwonwu: His Life, Images, Education, and Art in the Context of British Colonialism in Nigeria,”  Freida High W. Tesfagiorgis
• “National Socialist Exhibition Design, Spectatorship, and the Fabrication of Volksgemeinschaft,”  Lawrence Michael Tymkiw
• “By Mind and Hand: Hollis Frampton’s Photographic Modernism,” Lisa Zaher
• “Quest for the True Visage: Sacred Images in Medieval Chinese Buddhist Art and the Concept of Zhen,”  Sun-ah Choi
• “Towards a New Reading of Aumônières,”  Nancy Feldman
• “Dimensions of Place: Map, Itinerary, and Trace in Images of Nanjing,”  Catherine Stuer

• “Different Objects: Repositioning the Work of Four ‘African Diaspora Artists,’”  Ian Bourland
• “Picturing the Yangzi River: Particular Landscapes in Southern Song China,”  Julia Orell
• “A Painter of Cuban Life: Victor Patricio de Landaluze and Nineteenth-Century Cuban Politics,”  Evelyn Carmen Ramos
• “Art at the limits of Modernization: The Artistic Production of Beatriz González 1962–1978,”  Ana Maria Reyes
• “Building a Community through Painting: Fourteenth-Century Chinese Scholars,”  Christina Yu
• “Mutable Authority: Reimaging King Solomon in Medieval Psalm Illustration,”  Kerry Boeye
• “The Aesthetics of Encounter (Mediated Intimacies in Recent Art),”  Kris Cohen
• “Domestic Arts: Amelia Peláez and the Cuban Vanguard (1935–1945),”  Ingrid Elliott
• “Rebellious Conformists: Avant-Garde Exhibitions in Mexico City and Buenos Aires,”  Harper Montgomery
• “Privacy and Abstraction: American Painting, Late Modernism, and the Phenomenal Self,”  Christa Robbins
• “The Art of Punishment: The Spectacle of the Body on the Streets of Constantinople,”  Galina Tirnanic
• “Responding to the World: Contemporary Chinese Art and the Global Exhibitionary Culture in the 1990s,”  Peggy Wang
• “Pedagogy, Modernism, and Medium Specificity: The Bauhaus and John Cage,” Jeffrey Saletnik
• “Inventing 'Documentary' in American Photography, 1930–1945,”  Sarah Miller
• “Masks and Puppets: Metamorphosis and Depersonalization in European Avant-Garde Art Criticism, 1915–1939,”  Joyce Cheng
• “Tracing the Texture of Stone: Unearthing the Origins of Modern Korean Painting from the Archaeological Remains of the Past,”  Christine Hahn
• “Buffoons, Rustics, and Courtesans: Low Painting and Entertainment Culture in Renaissance Venice,”  Chriscinda Henry
• “Nothing to Look at: Art as Situation and its Neuro-Psychological Implications,”  Dawna Schuld
• “Landscapes of Conversion: Franciscan Politics and Sacred Objects in Late Colonial Mexico,”  Cristina Gonzalez
• “Gestures of Iconoclasm: East Berlin's Political Monuments from the Late German Democratic Republic to Postunified Berlin,”  Kristine Nielsen
• “Picture-Loving: Photomechanical Reproduction and Celebrity in America’s Gilded Age,” Eileen Michal
• “Abstraction and Einfühlung: Biomorphic Fantasy and Embodied Aesthetics in the work of Hermann Obrist, August Endell and their Followers, ”  Stacy Hand
• “Theatricalizing Death in Performance Images of Mid-Imperial China,” Jeehee Hong
• “A Vicarious Conquest of Art and Nature at the Medici Court,” Lia Markey
• “An Eye for the Feast in Late Medieval Burgundy,” Christina Normore
• “Sculpture Parks, Sculpture Gardens, and Site Specific Practices in the US, 1965-1991,” Rebecca Reynolds
• “Putti, Pleasure, and Pedagogy in Sixteenth-Century Italian Prints and Decorative Arts,”  Alexandra Korey
• “Jewish Expressionism: The Making of Modern Jewish Art in Berlin,”  Celka Straughn
• “Figures en buste in Medieval China: Three Studies,”  Yudong Wang
• “Narrating Sanctity: The Narrative Icon in Byzantium and Italy,”  Paroma Chatterjee
• “Bodies of the Avant-Garde: Modern Dance and the Plastic Arts, 1890-1930,”  Ellen Andrew
• “Ethnicity and Esoteric Power: Negotiating Sino-Tibetan Synthesis in Ming Painting,”  Karl Debreczeny
• “On the Lips of Others: Fame and the Transformation of Moctezuma's Image,”  Patrick Hajovsky
• “Chinese Modern: Sun Yat-Sen's Mausoleum as a Crucible for Defining Modern Chinese Architecture,”  Delin Lai
• “Creative Pathologies: French Experimental Psychology and Symbolist Avant-Gardes, 1889-1900,”  Allison Morehead
• “Rebuilding Bungalows: Home Improvement and the Historic Chicago Bungalow Initiative,”  Anne Stephenson
• “Robert Hooke Fecit: Making and Knowing in Restoration London,”  Matthew Hunter
• “Antiquity to Antiquarianism: Chinese Discourses on Antiquity from the Tenth to Thirteenth Century,”  Yun-Chiahn Sena
• “‘Realized Day-Dreams ’ : Excursions to Authors’ Homes,”  Erin Hazard
• “Layers of Being: Bodies, Objects, and Spaces in Warring States Burials,”  Joy Beckman
• “Building a Sacred mountain: Buddhist Monastic Architecture in Mt. Wutai during the Tang Dynast, 618-907 C.E.,”  Wei-Cheng Lin
• “The Origins of the American School Building: Boston Public School Architecture, 1800-1860,”  Rachel Remmel
• “Between Seeing and Knowing: Shifting Standards of Accuracy and the Concept of Shashin in Japan, 1830-1872,”  Maki Fukuoka
• “The Body and the Family: Filial Piety and Buddhist Art in Late Medieval China,”  Winston Kyan
• “Sites of Lost Dwelling: The Figure of the Archaic City in the Discourses of Urban Design, 1938-1970,”  Anthony Raynsford
• “Images and Memory: The Construction of Collective Identities in Seventeenth-Century Quito,”  Carmen Fernandez
• “Experiment in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting: The Art of Carel Fabriitus,”  Lisa Pincus
• “Making the Scene: Assemblage, Pop Art and Locality in 1960s Los Angeles,”  Ken Allan
• “Reframing Viceregal Painting in Nineteenth-Century Mexico: Politics, The Academy of San Carlos, and Colonial Art History,”  Ray Hernandez
• “Collecting Objects/Excluding People: Chinese Subjects and the American Art Discourse, 1870-1900,”  Lenore Metrick
• “Politics on the Cloister Walls: Fra Angelico and His Humanist Observers at San Marco,”  Allie Terry
• “Last Judgments and Last Emperors: Illustrating Apocalyptic History in Late and Post-Byzantine Art,”  Angela Volan
• “I Cannot Paint You But I Love You: Portraiture and the Pre-Raphaelite Search for the Ideal-Elizabeth Siddall, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Jane Burden, and William Morris,”  Amy Bingaman
• “The Moor's Last Sigh: Boabdil and the Black Image in American Orientalism, 1816-1893,”  James Brunson
• “Photography and the Imperceptible: Bertillon, Galton, Marey,”  Josh Ellenbogen
• “Rubbernecking and the Business of Disaster,”  Emily Godbey
• “Better than the Prodigies: The Prints of Hans Burgkmair, Jorg Breu, and the Marvels of the New World,”  Stephanie Leitch
• “Representing Sappho: The Classical Tradition in Nineteenth-Century French Painting,”  Rachel Lindheim

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Dissertation,   the dissertation.

After the successful completion of the general examination, a topic and adviser for the dissertation should be chosen. Students should discuss potential topics with several faculty members before beginning. The final prospectus should be approved not later than 3 months (within the academic calendar -- September through May) of passing the general examinations in order to be considered to be making satisfactory progress toward the degree. This is the time when the Thesis Reader and Dissertation Proposal form should be completed and submitted to the department office or DGS. Three signatures are now required on the thesis acceptance certificate. Two of the three signatories must be GSAS faculty. The primary adviser must be in the department of History of Art and Architecture; the secondary adviser need not be. In addition to the primary and secondary advisers the student may have one or more other readers. Two readers must be in the department.

Thesis Defense

The Department of History of Art and Architecture requires that all Ph.D. dissertations (of students entering in September 1997 and beyond) be defended. At the defense, the student has the opportunity to present and formally discuss the dissertation with respect to its sources, findings, interpretations, and conclusions, before a Defense Committee knowledgeable in the student's field of research. The Director of the thesis is a member of the Defense committee. A committee is permitted to convene in the absence of the thesis Director only in cases of emergency or other extreme circumstances. The Defense Committee may consist of up to five members, but no fewer than three. The suggested make-up of the members of the committee should be brought to the Director of Graduate Studies for approval. Two members of this committee should be from the Department of History of Art and Architecture. One member can be outside the Department (either from another Harvard department or outside the University). The Defense will be open to department members only (faculty and graduate students), but others may be invited at the discretion of the candidate. Travel for an outside committee member is not possible at this time; exceptions are made rarely.  We encourage the use of Skype or conference calling for those committee members outside of Cambridge and have accommodation for either.  A modest honorarium will be given for the reading of the thesis for one member of the jury outside the University. A minimum of one month prior to scheduling the defense, a final draft of the dissertation should be submitted to two readers (normally the primary and secondary advisors). Once the two readers have informed the director of graduate studies that the dissertation is “approved for defense,” the candidate may schedule the date, room, and time for the defense in consultation with the department and the appointed committee. This date should be no less than six weeks after the time the director of graduate studies has been informed that the dissertation was approved for defense. It should be noted that preliminary approval of the thesis for defense does not guarantee that the thesis will be passed. The defense normally lasts two hours. The candidate is asked to begin by summarizing the pertinent background and findings. The summary should be kept within 20 minutes. The Chair of the Defense Committee cannot be the main thesis advisor. The Chair is responsible for allotting time, normally allowing each member of the committee 20 to 30 minutes in which to make remarks on the thesis and elicit responses from the candidate. When each committee member has finished the questioning, the committee will convene in camera for the decision. The possible decisions are: Approved; Approved with Minor Changes; Approved Subject to Major Revision (within six months); Rejected. The majority vote determines the outcome. --Approved with minor changes: The dissertation is deemed acceptable subject to minor revisions. The dissertation is corrected by the candidate, taking into account the comments made by the committee. The revisions will be supervised by the primary adviser. Upon completion of the required revision, the candidate is recommended for the degree. --Approved subject to major revision within six months: The dissertation is deemed acceptable subject to major revisions. All revisions must be completed within six months from the date of the dissertation defense. Upon completion of the required revisions, the defense is considered to be successful. The revisions will be supervised by the primary adviser. --Rejected: The dissertation is deemed unacceptable and the candidate is not recommended for the degree. A candidate may be re-examined only once upon recommendation of two readers. Rejection is expected to be very exceptional. A written assessment of the thesis defense will be given to the candidate and filed in the Department by the Chair of the Defense Committee. Candidates should keep in mind the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences deadlines for submission of the thesis and degree application when scheduling the defense.

Submitting the Dissertation

Students ordinarily devote three years to research and writing the dissertation, and complete it prior to seeking full-time employment. The dissertation will be judged according to the highest standards of scholarship, and should be an original contribution to knowledge and understanding of art. The final manuscript must conform to University requirements described in the Supplement The Form of the Doctoral Thesis distributed by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Graduate students should negotiate with their readers the timing of submission of drafts prior to final revisions. However, the complete manuscript of the dissertation must be submitted to the thesis readers not later than August 1 for a November degree, November 1 for a March degree, and April 1 for a May degree (this in order to provide both the committee with time to read and the candidate to revise, if necessary). The thesis readers may have other expectations regarding dates for submission which should be discussed and handled on an individual basis. The student is still responsible for distribution of the thesis to the committee for reading. In cases where a thesis defense is scheduled, the thesis must be submitted to the primary adviser at least one month prior to the defense. The thesis defense must be scheduled at least two weeks prior to the university deadline for thesis submission.

A written assessment by dissertation readers must be included with the final approval of each thesis including suggestions, as appropriate, on how the dissertation might be adapted for later publication.

The Dissertation is submitted online.   The Dissertation Acceptance Certificate (original) must be on Harvard watermark paper and is submitted directly to the registrar’s office once it is signed.

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Home > Fine Arts and Communications > Visual Arts > Theses and Dissertations

Visual Arts Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2014 2014.

A Maoli-Based Art Education: Ku'u Mau Kuamo'o 'Ōlelo , Raquel Malia Andrus

Accumulation of Divine Service , Blaine Lee Atwood

Caroline Murat: Powerful Patron of Napoleonic France and Italy , Brittany Dahlin

.(In|Out)sider$ , Jarel M. Harwood

Mariko Mori's Sartorial Transcendence: Fashioned Identities, Denied Bodies, and Healing, 1993-2001 , Jacqueline Rose Hibner

Parallel and Allegory , Kody Keller

Fallen Womanhood and Modernity in Ivan Kramskoi's Unknown Woman (1883) , Trenton B. Olsen

Conscience and Context in Eastman Johnson's The Lord Is My Shepherd , Amanda Melanie Slater

The War That Does Not Leave Us: Memory of the American Civil War and the Photographs of Alexander Gardner , Katie Janae White

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Women and the Wiener Werkstätte: The Centrality of Women and the Applied Arts in Early Twentieth-Century Vienna , Caitlin J. Perkins Bahr

Cutting Into Relief , Matthew L. Bass

Mask, Mannequin, and the Modern Woman: Surrealism and the Fashion Photographs of George Hoyningen-Huene , Hillary Anne Carman

The End of All Learning , Maddison Carole Colvin

Civitas: A Game-Based Approach to AP Art History , Anna Davis

What Crawls Beneath , Brent L. Gneiting

Blame Me for Your Bad Grade: Autonomy in the Basic Digital Photography Classroom as a Means to Combat Poor Student Performance , Erin Collette Johnson

Evolving Art in Junior High , Randal Charles Marsh

All Animals Will Get Along in Heaven , Camila Nagata

It Will Always Be My Tree: An A/r/tographic Study of Place and Identity in an Elementary School Classroom , Molly Robertson Neves

Zofia Stryjeńska: Women in the Warsaw Town Square. Our Lady, Peasant Mother, Pagan Goddess , Katelyn McKenzie Sheffield

Using Contemporary Art to Guide Curriculum Design:A Contemporary Jewelry Workshop , Kathryn C. Smurthwaite

Documenting the Dissin's Guest House: Esther Bubley's Exploration of Jewish-American Identity, 1942-43 , Vriean Diether Taggart

Blooming Vines, Pregnant Mothers, Religious Jewelry: Gendered Rosary Devotion in Early Modern Europe , Rachel Anne Wise

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Rembrandt van Rijn's Jewish Bride : Depicting Female Power in the Dutch Republic Through the Notion of Nation Building , Nan T. Atwood

Portraits , Nicholas J. Bontorno

Where There Is Design , Elizabeth A. Crowe

George Dibble and the Struggle for Modern Art in Utah , Sarah Dibble

Mapping Creativity: An A/r/tographic Look at the Artistic Process of High School Students , Bart Andrus Francis

Joseph as Father in Guido Reni's St. Joseph Images , Alec Teresa Gardner

Student Autonomy: A Case Study of Intrinsic Motivation in the Art Classroom , Downi Griner

Aha'aina , Tali Alisa Hafoka

Fashionable Art , Lacey Kay

Effluvia and Aporia , Emily Ann Melander

Interactive Web Technology in the Art Classroom: Problems and Possibilities , Marie Lynne Aitken Oxborrow

Visual Storybooks: Connecting the Lives of Students to Core Knowledge , Keven Dell Proud

German Nationalism and the Allegorical Female in Karl Friedrich Schinkel's The Hall of Stars , Allison Slingting

The Influence of the Roman Atrium-House's Architecture and Use of Space in Engendering the Power and Independence of the Materfamilias , Anne Elizabeth Stott

The Narrative Inquiry Museum:An Exploration of the Relationship between Narrative and Art Museum Education , Angela Ames West

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

The Portable Art Gallery: Facilitating Student Autonomy and Ownership through Exhibiting Artwork , Jethro D. Gillespie

The Movement Of An Object Through A Field Creates A Complex Situation , Jared Scott Greenleaf

Alice Brill's Sao Paulo Photographs: A Cross-Cultural Reading , Danielle Jean Hurd

A Comparative Case Study: Investigation of a Certified Elementary Art Specialist Teaching Elementary Art vs. a Non-Art Certified Teacher Teaching Elementary Art , Jordan Jensen

A Core Knowledge Based Curriculum Designed to Help Seventh and Eighth Graders Maintain Artistic Confidence , Debbie Ann Labrum

Traces of Existence , Jayna Brown Quinn

Female Spectators in the July Monarchy and Henry Scheffer's Entrée de Jeanne d’Arc à Orléans , Kalisha Roberts

Without End , Amy M. Royer

Classroom Community: Questions of Apathy and Autonomy in a High School Jewelry Class , Samuel E. Steadman

Preparing Young Children to Respond to Art in the Museum , Nancy L. Stewart

DAY JAW BOO, a re-collection , Rachel VanWagoner

The Tornado Tree: Drawing on Stories and Storybooks , Toni A. Wood

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

IGolf: Contemporary Sculptures Exhibition 2009 , King Lun Kisslan Chan

24 Hour Portraits , Lee R. Cowan

Fabricating Womanhood , Emily Fox

Earth Forms , Janelle Marie Tullis Mock

Peregrinations , Sallie Clinton Poet

Leland F. Prince's Earth Divers , Leland Fred Prince

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

Ascents and Descents: Personal Pilgrimage in Hieronymus Bosch's The Haywain , Alison Daines

Beyond the Walls: The Easter Processional on the Exterior Frescos of Moldavian Monastery Churches , Mollie Elizabeth McVey

Beauty, Ugliness, and Meaning: A Study of Difficult Beauty , Christine Anne Palmer

Lantern's Diary , Wei Zhong Tan

Text and Tapestry: "The Lady and the Unicorn," Christine de Pizan and the le Vistes , Shelley Williams

Theses/Dissertations from 2008 2008

A Call for Liberation: Aleijadinho's 'Prophets' as Capoeiristas , Monica Jayne Bowen

Secondhand Chinoiserie and the Confucian Revolutionary: Colonial America's Decorative Arts "After the Chinese Taste" , Kiersten Claire Davis

Dairy Culture: Industry, Nature and Liminality in the Eighteenth-Century English Ornamental Dairy , Ashlee Whitaker

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

Navajo Baskets and the American Indian Voice: Searching for the Contemporary Native American in the Trading Post, the Natural History Museum, and the Fine Art Museum , Laura Paulsen Howe

And there were green tiles on the ceiling , Jean Catherine Richardson

Four Greco-Roman Era Temples of Near Eastern Fertility Goddesses: An Analysis of Architectural Tradition , K. Michelle Wimber

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

The Portrait of Citizen Jean-Baptiste Belley, Ex-Representative of the Colonies by Anne-Louis Girodet Trioson: Hybridity, History Painting, and the Grand Tour , Megan Marie Collins

Fix , Kathryn Williams

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

Ideals and Realities , Pamela Bowman

Accountability for the Implementation of Secondary Visual Arts Standards in Utah and Queensland , John K. Derby

The Artistic and Architectural Patronage of Countess Urraca of Santa María de Cañas: A Powerful Aristocrat, Abbess, and Advocate , Julia Alice Jardine McMullin

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Digital Commons @ USF > College of The Arts > School of Art and Art History > Theses and Dissertations

Art and Art History Theses and Dissertations

Theses/dissertations from 2023 2023.

Fragmented Hours: The biography of a devotional book printed by Thielman Kerver , Stephanie R. Haas

Theses/Dissertations from 2022 2022

Assessing Environmental Sensitivity in San Diego County, California, for Bird Species of Special Concern , Eda Okan Kilic

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Empress Nur Jahan and Female Empowerment: A Critical Analysis of a Long-Forgotten Mughal Portrait , Angela N. Finkbeiner

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Seeing King Solomon through the Verses of Hafez: A Critical Study of Two Safavid Manuscript Paintings , Richard W. Ellis

Moving Away from The West or Taking Independent Positions: A Structural Analysis for The New Turkish Foreign Policy , Suleyman Senturk

A Quiet Valley at Roztoky : Testimony of Singularity in the Landscape Imagery of Zdenka Braunerová , Zdislava Ungrova

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Mirror Images: Penelope Umbrico’s Mirrors (from Home Décor Catalogs and Websites) , Jeanie Ambrosio

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Incongruous Conceptions: Owen Jones’s Plans, Elevations, Sections and Details of the Alhambra and British Views of Spain , Andrea Marie Johnson

An Alternative Ancien Régime? Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun in Russia , Erin Elizabeth Wilson

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Sarah Sze's "Triple Point": Modeling a Phenomenological Experience of Contemporary Life , Amanda J. Preuss

Cross-Cultural Spaces in an Anonymously Painted Portrait of the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II , Alison Paige Terndrup

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

The Choir Books of Santa Maria in Aracoeli and Patronage Strategies of Pope Alexander VI , Maureen Elizabeth Cox

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Painting Puertorriqueñidad: The Jíbaro as a Symbol of Creole Nationalism in Puerto Rican Art before and after 1898 , Jeffrey L. Boe

Franz Marc as an Ethologist , Jean Carey

Renegotiating Identities, Cultures and Histories: Oppositional Looking in Shelley Niro's "This Land is Mime Land" , Jennifer Danielle Mccall

Theses/Dissertations from 2010 2010

Empty Streets in the Capital of Modernity: Formation of Lieux de Mémoire in Parisian Street Photography From Daguerre to Atget , Sabrina Lynn Hughes

Theses/Dissertations from 2009 2009

Intervention in painting by Marlene Dumas with titles of engagement: Ryman's brides, Reinhardt's daughter and Stern , Susan King Klinkenberg

Self-fashioning, Consumption, and Japonisme : The Power of Collecting in Tissot’s Jeunes Femmes Regardant des Objets Japonais , 1869 , Catherine Elizabeth Turner

Theses/Dissertations from 2008 2008

Kandinsky’s Dissonance and a Schoenbergian View of Composition VI , Shannon M. Annis

Theses/Dissertations from 2007 2007

Re-Thinking the Myth of Perugino and the Umbrian School: A Closer Look at the Master of the Greenville's Jonas Nativity Panel , Carrie Denise Baker

I'm Not Who I Was Then, Now: Performing Identity in Girl Cams and Blogs , Katherine Bzura

Manifestations of Ebenezer Howard in Disneyland , Michelle M. Rowland

The assimilation of the marvelous other: Reading Christoph Weiditz's Trachtenbuch (1529) as an ethnographic document , Andrea McKenzie Satterfield

Theses/Dissertations from 2006 2006

Rethinking the Monumental: The Museum as Feminist Space in the Sexual Politics Exhibition, 1996 , Devon P. Larsen

Vision and Disease in the Napoleonic Description de l’Egypte (1809-1828): The Constraints of French Intellectual Imperialism and the Roots of Egyptian Self-Definition , Elizabeth L. Oliver

Theses/Dissertations from 2005 2005

The articulate remedies of Dolores Lolita Rodriguez , Hyatt Kellim Brown

Negotiating Artistic Identity through Satire: subREAL 1989-1999 , Anca Izabel Galliera

From Chapel to Chamber: Liturgy and Devotion in Lucantonio Giunta’s Missale romanum , 1508 , Lesley T. Stone

Theses/Dissertations from 2004 2004

Ensenada , Julia DeArriba-Montgomery

Threatening Skies , Brandon Dunlap

Apocalypth pentagram , Matthew Alan Guest

African Costume for Artists: The Woodcuts in Book X of Habiti antichi et moderni di tutto il mondo , 1598 , Laura Renee Herrmann

The Artist and Her Muse: a Romantic Tragedy about a Mediocre and Narcissistic Painter Named Rachel Hoffman , Rachel Gavronsky Hoffman

Procession: The Celebration of Birth and Continuity , I Made Jodog

The Thornton Biennial: The Kruszka Pavilion: The 29YR Apology , Ethan Kruszka

american folk , Preston Poe

A Simple Treatise on the Origins of Cracker Kung Fu Or Mai Violence , Mark Joseph Runge

"My Journey" , Douglas Smith

Twilight , Britzél Vásquez

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Art History Research at Yale: Dissertations & Theses

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WHAT EXPERT RESEARCHERS KNOW

A thesis is typically the culminating project for a master's degree, while a dissertation completes a doctoral degree and represents a scholar's main area of expertise. However, some undergraduate students write theses that are published online, so it is important to note which degree requirements the thesis meets. While these are not published works like peer-reviewed journal articles, they are typically subjected to a rigorous committee review process before they are considered complete. Additionally, they often provide a large number of citations that can point you to relevant sources. 

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Dissertations & Theses @ Yale University A searchable databases with dissertations and theses in all disciplines written by students at Yale from 1861 to the present.

Yale University Master of Fine Arts Theses in Graphic Design​ Finding aid for Arts Library Special Collections holdings of over 600 individual theses from 1951 to the present. The theses are most often in book format, though some have more experimental formats. Individual records for the theses are also available in the library catalog.

Yale University Master of Fine Arts Theses in Photography Finding aid for Arts Library Special Collections holdings of over 300 individual Master of Fine Arts theses from 1971 to the present. The theses are most often in the format of a portfolio of photographic prints, though some theses are also in book form. Individual records for the MFA theses are also available in the library catalog.

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Synaesthetic Dress: Episodes of Sensational Objects in Performance Art, 1955-1975 

The life and art of Ōtagaki Rengetsu 

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• Center for Research Libraries (CRL) Foreign Dissertations Search the CRL Catalog for dissertations already held at the Center. If a foreign dissertation is not at CRL, UCLA's Interlibrary Loan Service will request that CRL acquire it for your use. This special issue of Focus on Global Resources describes CRL's extensive collection of foreign dissertations.
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• Introduction

Art History Dissertation Methodology: 7 Things To Keep In Mind

The methodology section for an art history dissertation is shorter compared to counterparts in the sciences, but it’s still an integral part of the graduate project that requires your undivided attention. As it will likely be based on non-empirical information taken from literature that has already been published in the field, there are some really important things you need to keep in mind when writing it:

• Determine the appropriate methodology to employ

Art historians can use any of a number of methodologies to conduct their research study (e.g., chronological, logical, iconographical, critical analysis, etc.) so it’s important that you first identify the appropriate methodology and that you fully understand how you must frame your study within it.

• Make sure you address your advisor’s requests

If you are having any doubts about which methodology to use then you might benefit from brainstorming some ideas with your graduate advisor. Even though this is your personal academic study, it still must meet certain criteria. Discuss this to find out exactly what is expected from you by the committee.

• Provide a simple step by step explanation of approach

Don’t merely define the methodology you plan on using in your work; you should provide a step by step explanation of why you chose the approach as well as how you plan on going about conducting it. Remember to keep your personal opinions or findings out of this section. The content within should be straightforward.

• Don’t introduce complex approaches in methodologies

One of the things that trip students up is when they begin to introduce complex approaches in their methodologies. This can be both confusing to the reader and to you. The best approach is to think about the simplest method for finding something out and arriving to some definitive conclusion.

• Set your work aside for a few days before revising

The process of revision is very important in high academic writing. If you don’t give yourself plenty of time to revise you might not be taking full advantage of an exercise where the main purpose is to make your argument and presentation stronger. Start this with a clear mindset to reap all of its benefits.

• Thoroughly edit and Proofread the entire section

This piece of advice really does apply to every section and all types of written assignments. Edit for sentence and word clarity. Complex structures or multi-syllabic words can be confusing and much more difficult to understand. Also, make sure you have corrected all errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling. A document that is filled with errors will be poorly received.

• Always have a fresh set of eyes critique the section

You should constantly remind yourself that you want to keep your work interesting and understandable. Even though it will be reviewed by experts in the field, your work should be written and structured so that a person outside the field could also enjoy.

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PhD Program

The UCLA Department of Art History offers a two-stage graduate program toward the PhD. Students are not admitted for a terminal master’s (MA) degree. The MA is awarded in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD and is granted with the successful completion of the first stage of the program, typically at the end of the second year, 6th quarter, in residence. Normative time to degree for the PhD is seven years from the term of admission. For students entering with a MA in hand, the normative time to degree is five years from the term of admission.

All students are required to complete the M.A. requirements in the department. The Graduate Review Committee may waive the M.A. requirements, at the time of admission, for students matriculating with a M.A. degree in Art History or adjacent discipline from another institution. Following Academic Senate policy on duplication of degrees, a student who enters the program with a M.A. degree in Art History from another institution is not eligible to receive a second M.A. degree in Art History from UCLA.

Please see here for the official UCLA Art History Graduate Program Requirements published on the Graduate Division website.

• The student is assigned a faculty mentor upon admission to the program. The mentor is responsible for the student’s course of study and must be consulted at least once each quarter. A change of faculty supervision and/or change in field(s) must be approved by the Graduate Review Committee.
• The Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) offers intellectual guidance, approves any exceptions to the program requirements, and adjudicates disputes between a student and his/her faculty mentor. The DGS further serves as Chair of the Graduate Review Committee, which governs the admissions process.
• The Student Affairs Officer (SAO) assists students with all the administrative aspects of moving through the program.
• Each spring quarter, the entire faculty reviews the status of each graduate student to ensure appropriate time-to-degree progress.

Toward the MA

Requirements for the MA

• Satisfaction of the first language requirement.
• Successful completion of AH 200 with a grade of “B+” or better.
• Nine graduate and upper division courses (36 units) completed while in the program. At least six of those courses (24 units) must be at the graduate level, including four graduate seminars. AH 200 may be counted towards the required six courses.
• Successful completion of a qualifying paper (approximately 30 pages) according to the standards and procedures outlined below.

* Typically the above requirements are completed within the first two years of study (6 quarters).

Distribution of Coursework

The nine required courses must include at least two courses from Group A and two courses from Group B noted below.

Qualifying Paper for the MA

• The qualifying paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper written for a class from the first year of coursework. It should be approximately 30 pages in length (excluding footnotes, images, and bibliography) and should demonstrate the student’s ability 1) to formulate a thesis, 2) to present an extended argument, and 3) to conduct original research. Quality of the writing will also be evaluated.
• By the end of the fall quarter of the second year, student selects a class paper from the first year in consultation with his or her advisor to revise and expand as the qualifying paper.
• In the following winter quarter, student enrolls for 4 units of 598 (RSRCH-MASTER THESIS) to work on the paper under the supervision of advisor.
• Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) will contact each student during the winter quarter (usually early February) to appoint a committee of three faculty readers for the qualifying paper, one of which is the student’s advisor. At least one of the faculty readers will have had no classroom contact with the student. All students may suggest potential readers; however, the DGS will balance the student’s request against equity of faculty workload.
• On the first day of instruction of the spring quarter, students submits three copies of the qualifying paper to the Student Affairs Officer (SAO) along with a list of the three readers assigned to review the paper.
• The qualifying papers will be distributed to the three assigned faculty readers and each reader will complete an evaluation form and submit it to the SAO within three weeks of receipt of the paper.
• By the fourth week of the spring quarter, the SAO will make available the papers with reader’s comments to the student and these papers will be added to the student’s permanent file.
• The Graduate Review Committee, taking into consideration the faculty reader evaluations, will determine whether the student will be awarded the MA and permitted to proceed into the PhDprogram. In some cases, the Committee may recommend that the student receive the MA degree but discontinue further graduate study. It is also possible (although very rare) that the student’s work may not be judged adequate to receive the MA.

Completion of the MA

• Prior to the third week of the spring quarter in the second year, the student should complete the “Petition for Advancement to Candidacy for the Master’s Degree” (provided by and returned to the SAO).
• Once the Department has accepted the qualifying paper, the student must file it with Graduate Division by the Monday of the tenth week of the spring quarter, formatted as a thesis.
• Graduate Division guidelines for formatting MA theses are available  here . Workshops on thesis formatting are offered at the beginning of each fall and winter quarters. See the Grad Division website for more information.
• Following the Department’s annual spring review of graduate students, the student must submit a completed form for transfer from the MA to the PhD program (provided by and returned to the SAO).

Toward the PhD

Upon the completion of the MA or starting with a MA from another institution, the student begins the PhD program having chosen a major field of study within art history, often known at the time of application. By the end of the second quarter of residence at the PhD stage, the student also selects a minor field, which may be outside the department (e.g. Architecture, History, Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Archaeology, etc.). The major and minor advisors are responsible for the student’s course of study and completion of requirements within the selected field. Graduate Review Committee must approve any change of advisor(s) or the major and minor fields.

Requirements for the PhD

• Satisfaction of language requirements (minimum 2, including 1 from MA stage; more may be required depending on field of study)
• Completion of 8 graduate and upper division courses (32 units)
• Written comprehensive exams in major and minor fields
• Dissertation prospectus and oral qualifying exam
• Doctoral dissertation
• A total of 8 graduate and upper division courses are required, of which at least 4 must be art history courses at the graduate level.
• Of the nine courses (36 units) required for the MA, students may use a maximum of two of these (8 units) to count towards Ph.D. coursework. Students may also apply courses taken in excess of MA requirements towards fulfilling Ph.D. course requirements. (This does not apply to students who received their MA from other institutions/departments.)
• 5 courses in one field are required to claim it as the major field; 3 courses in one field are required to claim it as the minor field. The minor can also be from outside the department (e.g. Architecture, History, Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Archaeology, etc.).
• Students entering the PhD stage deficient in Art History 200 (Art Historical Theories and Methodologies) or its equivalent must add this to the total requirements. In some cases, Art History 201 (Topics in Historiography of Art History) may be required by faculty/advisor recommendation. Any additional coursework required by the Graduate Review Committee at time of admission must be completed during the first two quarters of residence and may not count toward the minimum course requirements for either the MA or PhD degree.

Written Comprehensive Examinations

• Upon completion of coursework and fulfillment of language requirements, the student takes the PhD written comprehensive examinations in the major and minor fields of study, designed and evaluated by the student’s major and minor advisors respectively.
• The purpose of the examinations is to test the student’s breadth and depth of knowledge in his/her fields of study. If a student fails to pass the examination or part thereof, the failed portion may be repeated once no later than the subsequent quarter of residence. No further repetition will be allowed. The written comprehensive examinations may be taken during any two-week period of the Fall, Winter, and Spring quarters. Typically, students take these exams during the winter quarter of the second year in residence, 5th quarter, in the PhD program.
• The Department offers two formats for the major and minor written exams, the details of which must be worked out in advance between the student and the examiner. Format A: Take-home. 2-3 essay questions to be completed in 1 week (for the minor exam, 1-2 questions to be completed in 3 days). Format B: Sit-down. 2-3 essay questions to be completed in 6 hours (for the minor exam, 1-2 questions to be completed in 3 hours). Many faculty incorporate designing of a syllabus as an exam question and the formats above do not preclude this possibility. Such an assignment would count as one question/essay.
• The specific format and dates for the major and minor exams must be submitted to the Student Affairs Officer at least three weeks in advance using the appropriate departmental form.

Doctoral Committee

• Upon passing the written comprehensive examinations in major and minor fields of study, the student selects a dissertation topic and nominates the members of his/her Doctoral Committee in consultation with his/her advisor.
• This committee minimally consists of the major advisor, now serving as committee chair, two additional members of the art history faculty (normally, but not necessarily, including the student’s minor advisor), and one member from another UCLA department. For details on the acceptable status of these members and for minimum university standards of the doctoral committee,  please see page 14-17 in the Standards and Procedures for Graduate Study manual .
• The student and committee chair must agree on all committee members. Any changes in committee constitution after formal nomination must be reported to and approved by the Graduate Division; replacing the committee chair can only occur by consent or if the faculty member leaves UCLA.
• Please note that the Graduate Division generally approves Committee nominations within 2-3 weeks, and the oral qualifying exam may not be taken before official approval has been received.

Dissertation Prospectus and Oral Qualifying Examination

• The dissertation topic should be identified in discussions with the advisor. These discussions usually evolve organically through the course of study and are highly individualized. Typically, the oral examination is scheduled during the quarter following the successful completion of the written examinations.
• Once the Doctoral Committee has been officially approved by Graduate Division, and after having conducted considerable exploratory research and preparation for his/her dissertation, the student submits to each member of the Doctoral Committee a dissertation prospectus. The prospectus should not be distributed to the full committee without the approval of the student’s committee chair.
• The dissertation prospectus should not exceed 20 pages and include a statement of purpose regarding the art historical topic/problem being addressed (what is at stake in the study), tentative chapter outlines, working bibliography, research plan, methodological strategies, and preliminary schedule for completion.
• Students should submit the prospectus to committee members 2-3 weeks before the oral examination date to allow sufficient time for the prospectus to be reviewed. If any member of the Doctoral Committee finds the prospectus inadequate, he or she must notify the committee chair at least one week prior to the oral examination date. In some cases, the prospectus must be revised and/or the examination date postponed.
• The student is responsible for scheduling the oral exam, consulting with committee members well in advance regarding the date and time of availability of each faculty member. The SAO helps the student reserve an appropriate space for the exam.
• The purpose of the oral examination is to assess the validity and feasibility of the proposed dissertation topic and its methodologies, as well as the soundness of the student’s projected approach to completing the project.
• At the end of the examination, each committee member reports the examination as “passed” or “not passed.” A student may not pass and may not be advanced to candidacy if more than one member votes “not passed” regardless of the size of the committee, or if the major advisor so votes. Upon majority vote of the committee, the oral qualifying examination may be repeated once. Students upon passing the oral examination are formally advanced to candidacy by the Graduate Division.
• At the time of the exam, the Doctoral Committee decides, by unanimous agreement, whether or not to waive the final oral examination (not normally required) and selects, again by unanimous agreement, a minimum of three members, two from the art history faculty and one from an outside department, who will read, approve, and certify the final draft of the dissertation. For details regarding the acceptable status of these certifying members, consult the publication, Standards and Procedures for Graduate Study at UCLA.
• Upon passing the oral examination, the student is officially Advanced to Candidacy (ATC).

Dissertation and Final Oral Examination (if required)

• After advancing to candidacy, the student works on the dissertation in consultation with his/her advisor, committee chair, as well as Doctoral Committee certifying members according to the rules laid out in the above named publication. Upon completion of the dissertation or individual chapters thereof, and with  approval  of the committee chair, the student circulates a copy of the dissertation  in Week 1 of the quarter  for comments and suggestions from the certifying members of the Doctoral Committee.  Each  reader is allowed  four  weeks in which to read it and make corrections and comments, and the student is allowed  three  weeks in which to respond and revise the dissertation. It is incumbent upon the student to communicate in a timely manner with all certifying members of the Doctoral Committee to ensure adequate time for review. Committee members must be consulted as each reader may require more time.  PLEASE REVIEW the timeline for dissertation completion  which clearly outlines the schedule for submission during the student’s final quarter.
• After incorporating into the final draft of the dissertation the recommended changes, the student will circulate the dissertation again among the certifying members of the Doctoral Committee. This draft should be circulated sufficiently in advance of the deadline for filing the dissertation so that each reader is allowed at least two weeks in which to reread it (see quarterly Schedule of Classes for filing deadlines).
• Each certifying member of the committee then decides whether or not to approve the dissertation. In cases where less than the entire committee acts as certifying members, approval of the dissertation must be unanimous. If the entire committee acts as certifying members, the dissertation is considered approved with one negative decision so long as that negative decision is not that of the committee chair. After final approval by the Dean of the Graduate Division, the student files the required number of copies of the dissertation with the Manuscript Advisor of the Office of University Archives. Deadlines for filing the dissertation fall approximately two weeks before the date the degree is to be awarded.
• Note: A final oral examination is not normally required for Art History, but in some cases it may be requested by the Doctoral Committee (determined at the oral qualifying exam), and is held prior to filing the dissertation. All members of the committee must attend and vote. A student may pass with one negative vote so long as that vote is not that of the committee chair. In case of failure, the Doctoral Committee decides, by unanimous agreement, whether or not the candidate may be re-examined.
• Upon filing the dissertation, the student receives the Ph.D.

Language Requirements

The completion of the PhD requires reading knowledge of a minimum of two foreign languages relevant to the student’s field of study (more than two may be required in some cases and must be determined in consultation with the faculty advisor). Applicants are expected to already possess reading proficiency in at least one of the two languages for which they will be responsible. New students shall sit for at least one language exam upon arrival at UCLA.

Students at the MA stage are expected to satisfy their first foreign language requirement by the end of the 3rd quarter in residence. It is highly recommended that they complete the second language requirement by the end of the 6th quarter in residence.

Students at the PhD stage are expected to satisfy their second foreign language requirement by the end of the 1st quarter and any additional languages by the end of the 3rd quarter in residence (or in consultation with the major advisor).

Fulfilling the Language Requirement

Option 1: Pass the Departmental Foreign Language Exam.

The language exam consists of translation of a text of 300-700 words chosen by the examiner to be translated into English in three hours (use of a non-electronic dictionary is allowed). Specific qualities of the language and expected level of proficiency in the field will impact the choice and length of the selected text. The Department expects accurate rendition in English rather than a strict translation, word for word, and values the quality of the translation over the completion of the exam.

Language exams are scheduled four times a year, approximately three weeks prior to finals week during the regular academic quarters. Entering students must sit for the first language exam in the first week of the fall quarter. Exam results will be sent out by email within three weeks of the exam date. If feedback on the exam is desired after the results have been announced, students are welcome to contact the examiner. If a student fails the exam and wants to appeal, he or she should contact the Chair of the Language Committee or Director of Graduate Studies.

Option 2: Complete UCLA courses  French 6, German 6, Italian 6, Spanish 25, or other relevant language classes with a minimum grade of “B”.

The following is a general guideline for language requirements in relation to specific fields of study. The final selection and number of languages is to be determined in consultation with the primary advisor.

African Indigenous African languages, Arabic, French, German, Portuguese Ancient/Mediterranean/Near East Akkadian, Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Latin Chinese/Korean/Japanese Two East Asian languages, for pre-modern studies additionally literary Chinese or Japanese Byzantine/Western Medieval French, German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Slavic Languages, Turkish, Spanish Indigenous Americas One European language, one indigenous language (e.g., Quechua, Nahuatl, Maya), one other language (depending on topic) Islamic Arabic, Turkish/Ottoman, Persian, French, German Latin America Spanish (mandatory), French, German, Portuguese Modern & Contemporary Europe & America French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian Renaissance/Baroque/Early Modern Italian, French, Spanish, German, Latin, Dutch, Slavic Languages, Latin and/or Greek (depending on topic) South Asia Sanskrit, Hindi/Urdu, Persian Southeast Asia Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian

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Home > Dissertations, Theses & Capstones Projects by Program > Art History Dissertations

Art History Dissertations

Dissertations from 2024 2024.

A Municipal Modernity: Women, Architecture, and Public Health in Working-Class New York, 1913–1950 , Jessica Fletcher

Without Us There Is No Britain: Black British Photography and Film Networks, 1950-1989 , Maria T. Quinata

Dissertations from 2023 2023

The Gilded Tropics: Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent in Florida, 1886-1917 , Theodore W. Barrow

Flamboyant Abundance: Performing Queer Maximalism, 1960–1990 , Jack Owen Crawford

"A Decorator in the Best Sense": Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Lilly Reich, the Fabric Curtain Partition, and the Articulation of the German Modern Interior , Marianne E. Eggler-Gerozissis

From Allegory to Revolution: The Inca Empire in the Eighteenth-Century French Imagination , Agnieszka A. Ficek

“Delicious Libation”: The Art of the Coffee Trade from Brazil to the United States, 1797-1888 , Caroline L. Gillaspie

Fifteenth-Century Sienese Art in Its International Setting: A Case Study of Cross-Cultural Exchange in Italy and Beyond , Maria Lucca

Creative Figures: Portraiture and the Making of the Modern American Artist, 1918-1930 , Sasha Nicholas

Raphael Montañez Ortiz and Alternative Art Spaces, 1966–1971: From Repulsion to Exaltation , Ana Cristina Perry

Styling Sweatshops: Seamstress Imagery, Industrial Capitalism, and Nationalist Agendas in Nineteenth-Century Europe and the United States , Alice J. Walkiewicz

Dissertations from 2022 2022

Pop/Art: The Birth of Underground Music and the British Art School, 1960–1980 , Andrew Cappetta

After the Renaissance: Art and Harlem in the 1960s , Maya Harakawa

Cultural Predicaments: Neorealism in The Netherlands, 1927–1945 , Stephanie Huber

Hellenikotita — Greekness: Constructing Greek Genre Painting, Visualizing National Identity, 1850–1900 , Olga Zaferatos Karras

Contextualizing Britain’s Holocaust Memorial and Museums: Form, Content, and Politics , Rebecca D. Pollack

The Beehive, the Favela, the Castle, and the Ministry: Race and Modern Architecture in Rio de Janeiro, 1811–1945 , Luisa Valle

Globalism and Identity in Taiwanese Contemporary Art, 1978–2009 , Chu-Chiun Wei

Dissertations from 2021 2021

Europ: Expanded Cinema, Projection and the Film Co-op in Western Europe, 1966–1979 , Drew E. Bucilla

Inevitable Associations: Art, Institution, and Cultural Intersection in Los Angeles, 1973–1988 , Liz Hirsch

Xanthus Smith: Marine Painting and Nationhood , Eva C. McGraw

Art After Dark: Economies of Performance, New York City 1978–1988 , Meredith Mowder

The Integration of Art, Architecture, and Identity: Alfred Kastner, Louis Kahn, and Ben Shahn at Jersey Homesteads , Daniel S. Palmer

The Making of Transpacific Video Art, 1966–1988 , Haeyun Park

The U.S.–Mexican War: Visualizing Contested Spaces from Parlor to Battlefield , Erika Pazian

After Abstract Expressionism: Reconsidering the “Death of Painting” at Midcentury , Natasha Roje

The Painter and His Poets: Paul Gauguin and Interartistic Exchange , Aaron Slodounik

Compromised Values: Charlotte Posenenske, 1966–Present , Ian Wallace

Dissertations from 2020 2020

Traditions and Transformations in the Work of Adál: Surrealism, El sainete , and Spanglish , Margarita J. Aguilar

Norman Lewis: Linearity, Politics, and Pedagogy in His Abstract Expressionism, 1946–1964 , Andrianna T. Campbell-LaFleur

The Art of Opacity: Guy de Cointet in L.A. , Media Farzin

Northwest Coast Native Art Beyond Revival, 1962–1992 , Christopher T. Green

Staging the Modern, Building the Nation: Exhibiting Israeli Art, 1939–1965 , Chelsea Haines

Labor and the Picturesque: Photography, Propaganda, and the Tea Trade in Colonial India and Sri Lanka, 1880–1914 , Leila Anne Harris

The International Rise of Afro-Brazilian Modernism in the Age of African Decolonization and Black Power , Abigail Lapin Dardashti

Accomplices in Art: The Expansion of Authorship in the 1970s and '80s , Sydney Stutterheim

The “Olympiad of Photography”: FIAP and the Global Photo-Club Culture, 1950–1965 , Alise Tifentale

Dissertations from 2019 2019

A Series of Acts that Disappear: The Valparaíso School’s Ephemeral Architectures, 1952–1982 , Elizabeth Rose Donato

Added Interpretive Centers at U.S. War Memorials and the Reframing of National History , Jennifer K. Favorite

Stills of Passage: Photography and Migration in the US-Mexico Borderlands, 1978-1992 , Nadiah Rivera Fellah

Arts et Métiers PHOTO- Graphiques : The Quest for Identity in French Photography between the Two World Wars , Yusuke Isotani

Crossing the Atlantic: Italians in Argentina and the Making of a National Culture, 1880–1930 , Lauren A. Kaplan

The Evolution of the Centaur in Italian Renaissance Art: Monster, Healer, Mentor, and Constellation , Trinity Martinez

Weaving Modern Forms: Fiber Design in the United States, 1939–1959 , Sarah Mills

The "I" of the Artist-Curator , Natalie Musteata

Ray Johnson: Collage as Networked "Correspondance" , Gillian Pistell

Mechanical Kingdoms: Sound Technologies and the Avant-Garde, 1928–1933 , Lauren Rosati

Minor Forms, Dismantled Norms: Mediums of Modernism in Pakistan , Gemma Sharpe

Gendered Subjectivity and Resistance: Brazilian Women’s Performance-for-Camera, 1973–1982 , Gillian Sneed

Framing the City: Photography and the Construction of São Paulo, 1930–1955 , Danielle J. Stewart

Between the Cracks: From Squatting to Tactical Media Art in the Netherlands, 1979–1993 , Amanda S. Wasielewski

Dissertations from 2018 2018

Writing with Light: Cameraless Photography and Its Narrative in the 1920s , Karen K. Barber

Bloomsbury's Byzantium and the Writing of Modern Art , Elizabeth Sarah Berkowitz

The Labyrinth and the Cave: Archaic Forms in Art and Architecture of Europe, 1952–1972 , Paula Burleigh

The South Korean “Meta-Avant-Garde,” 1961–1993: Subterfuge as Radical Agency , Sooran Choi

Creating 1968: Art, Architecture, and the Afterlives of the Mexican Student Movement , Mya B. Dosch

Cellist, Catalyst, Collaborator: The Work of Charlotte Moorman , Saisha Grayson

Modern Arts and Pueblo Traditions in Santa Fe, 1909–1931 , Elizabeth S. Hawley

Women’s Suffrage in American Art: Recovering Forgotten Contexts, 1900-1920 , Elsie Y. Heung

Rising Above the Faithful: Monumental Ceiling Crosses in Byzantine Cappadocia , Alice Lynn McMichael

Visualizing Knowledge in the Illuminated Manuscripts of the Breviari d’amor , Joy Partridge

Lauretta Vinciarelli in Context: Transatlantic Dialogues in Architecture, Art, Pedagogy, and Theory, 1968-2007 , Rebecca Siefert

Prints on Display: Exhibitions of Etching and Engraving in England, 1770s-1858 , Nicole Simpson

Dissertations from 2017 2017

Open Works: Between the Programmed and the Free, Art in Italy 1962 to 1972 , Lindsay A. Caplan

I. M. Pei, William Zeckendorf, and the Architecture of Urban Renewal , Marci M. Clark

Posthumanist Animals in Art: France and Belgium, 1972-87 , Arnaud Gerspacher

On London Ground: The Landscape Paintings of Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff , Lee Hallman

Joseph Beuys and Social Sculpture in the United States , Cara M. Jordan

Claude III Audran: Ornemaniste of the Rococo Style , Barbara Laux

Exhibitions of Outsider Art Since 1947 , Christina McCollum

Mónica Mayer: Translocality and the Development of Feminist Art in Contemporary Mexico , Alberto McKelligan Hernandez

Merchandise, Promotion, and Accessibility: Keith Haring’s Pop Shop , Amy L. Raffel

Ludic Conceptualism: Art and Play in the Netherlands, 1959 to 1975 , Janna Therese Schoenberger

Communicationists and Un-Artists: Pedagogical Experiments in California, 1966-1974 , Hallie Rose Scott

Foreign-Born Artists Making “American” Pictures: The Immigrant Experience and the Art of the United States, 1819–1893 , Whitney Thompson

Left and Right: Politics and Images of Motherhood in Weimar Germany , Michelle L. Vangen

From Design to Completion: The Transformation of U.S. War Memorials on the National Mall , Sara Jane Weintraub

Dissertations from 2016 2016

Export / Import: The Promotion of Contemporary Italian Art in the United States, 1935–1969 , Raffaele Bedarida

The Emergence of the Bird in Andean Paracas Art. c. 900 BCE - 200 CE , Mary B. Brown

The Moving Image in Public Art: U.S. and U.K., 1980–Present , Annie Dell'Aria

Modernism with a Human Face: Synthesis of Art and Architecture in Eastern Europe, 1954-1958 , Nikolaos Drosos

Building in Public: Critical Reconstruction and the Rebuilding of Berlin after 1990 , Naraelle Hohensee

The Bauhaus Wall Painting Workshop: Mural Painting to Wallpapering, Art to Product , Morgan Ridler

Provisional Capital: National and Urban Identity in the Architecture and Planning of Bonn, 1949-1979 , Samuel L. Sadow

Developing Italy: Photography and National Identity during the Risorgimento, 1839-1859 , Beth Saunders

The Photographic Universe: Vilém Flusser’s Theories of Photography, Media, and Digital Culture , Martha Schwendener

Finish Fetish: Art, Artists, and Alter Egos in Los Angeles of the 1960s , Monica Steinberg

Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran (1842-1899) , Shannon Vittoria

Dissertations from 2015 2015

A Merchant-Banker's Ascent by Design: Bartolomeo Bettini's Cycle of Paintings by Michelangelo, Pontormo, and Bronzino for His Florentine Camera , Richard Aste

On the Fringe of Italian Fascism: An Examination of the Relationship between Vinicio Paladini and the Soviet Avant-Garde , Christina Brungardt

Let The Record Show: Mapping Queer Art and Activism in New York City, 1986-1995 , Tara Jean-Kelly Burk

Maude I. Kerns: Overlapping Interpretations of Art and Pedagogy in the Northwest and Along the Pacific Coast, 1890–1932 , Mary Helen Burnham

Contemporary Art and Internationalism at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1952–1988 , Rachel Chatalbash

Los Grupos and the Art of Intervention in 1960s and 1970s Mexico , Arden Decker

The Hall of Fame for Great Americans: The Evolution of a Forgotten Memorial , Sheila Gerami

Mobilizing The Collective: Helhesten And The Danish Avant-Garde, 1934-1946 , Kerry Greaves

Death and Photography in East Asia: Funerary Use of Portrait Photography , Jeehey Kim

Native American Chic: The Marketing Of Native Americans In New York Between The World Wars , Emily Schuchardt Navratil

The Print Portfolio and the Bourgeoisie in Fin-de-Siècle Paris , Britany Lane Salsbury

A Light in the Darkness: Argentinian Photography During the Military Dictatorship (1976-1983) , Ana Tallone

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Art history: resources for research: 8-dissertations.

• 1-Literature Guides/Research Methods
• 2-Primary Resources
• 3-Directories & Biographical Dictionaries
• 4-Encyclopedias & Dictionaries, Multi-volume Surveys & Corpora
• 5-Indexes, Current Bibliographies & Online Journal & Book Collections
• 6-Specialized Subject Bibliographies & Websites
• 7-Festschriften

8-Dissertations

• 9-Museum & Exhibition Catalogs
• 10-Iconography
• 11-Image Indexes & Online Image Sites
• 12-Geographical, Topographical Sources, Cultural Heritage & Guides
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• 14-Sales/Auction Catalogs & Provenance Indexes
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Resources marked with this symbol are restricted to Columbia affiliates.

Columbia university, general (all disciplines).

Jahresverzeichnis der Deutschen Hochschulschriften . (Online:1890-1900, 1904-1909, limited view: 1940-1942) Butler Offsite R016.37843 J19  (1937-1970) Index to German dissertations. Arranged by institution.

Fine Arts & Archaeology

Archaologischer Anzeiger . (1963 to date) Avery AC D480105 End of each year it lists current dissertations in archaeology from Germany and Austria. Arranged by author, gives dissertation title, institution or university and date of completion.

Burt, Eugene. Ethnoart: Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; a Bibliography of Theses and Dissertations . (1988) Avery-Fine Arts N5313 AB95 An example of a subject specific bibliography of dissertations.

Current Lists in Fine Arts (a sample)

CAA.Reviews/Dissertations . (Online) (http://www.caareviews.org/dissertations) PhD dissertation authors and titles in art history and visual studies from US and Canadian institutions are published each year in caa.reviews. Titles can be browsed by subject category or year.   Titles are submitted once a year by each institution granting the PhD in art history and/or visual studies.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Greek Art'

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Consult the top 50 dissertations / theses for your research on the topic 'Greek Art.'

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Levéntī, Ifigéneia. "Hygieia in classical Greek art /." Athens : Archaiognosia, 2003. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb40101183p.

Fowler, Michael Anthony. "Unsavory Sights: Cannibalism in Greek Art." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2019. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/8908.

Fowler, Michael Anthony. "Unsavory Sights: Cannibalism in Greek Art." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2020. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/8911.

Vollkommer, Rainer. "Herakles in the art of classical Greece." Oxford : Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 1988. http://books.google.com/books?id=ur2fAAAAMAAJ.

D'Alconzo, Nicolo. "Works of art in ancient Greek novels." Thesis, Swansea University, 2015. https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa42452.

Antoniadou, Alexandra. "Realisations of performance in contemporary Greek art." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/31283.

Muskett, G. M. "The representation of the individual in Mycenaean art." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.250311.

Lopez, Noelle Regina. "The art of Platonic love." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5e9b2d70-49d9-4e75-b445-fcb0bfecdcef.

Christopoulou, Martha. "Conceptualising a visual culture curriculum for Greek art education." Thesis, University of Roehampton, 2008. https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/portal/en/studentthesis/conceptualising-a-visual-culture-curriculum-for-greek-art-education(c7f68387-643e-4199-9fda-fa45c687350b).html.

Rosenzweig, Rachel. "Aphrodite in Athens : a study of art and cult in the classical and late classical periods /." view abstract or download file of text, 1999. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p9957572.

Anderson, Michael J. "Images of the Ilioupersis in Early Greek art and poetry." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.239383.

Wolfson, Elizabeth Graff. "Pictorial Representations of Monkeys and Simianesque Creatures in Greek Art." Thesis, University of Missouri - Columbia, 2019. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=13877177.

Ronseberg, Jonah L. "The development of emotional rendering in Greek art, 525-400." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:48c6bdc3-85a0-4d1c-983d-cd833510c98f.

Fowler, Michael Anthony. "Bad Blood? The Sacrifice of Polyxena in Archaic Greek Art." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2019. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/8907.

Zourgou, Anna. "The judgement of Paris in ancient Greek art and literature." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2018. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/51092/.

Salgirli, Saygin. "From thirteenth-century Toulouse to fifteenth-century Serres a comparative study on dissent, authority and architecture /." Diss., Online access via UMI:, 2009.

Sini, Efthalia-Thalia. "Studies in the choice and iconography of everyday scenes on fourth-century Athenian vases." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.670241.

Dipla, Anthi. "Images of revolt : women of myth in the art of classical Athens." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.297329.

Lawton, Carol L. "Attic document reliefs : art and politics in ancient Athens /." Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1995. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=1999.04.0005.

Spier, Jeffrey Bryan. "Minor arts and regional styles in East Greece, 700-500 B.C." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1988. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:76ecad5c-367b-4ea2-9f5d-ec248ddd1b31.

Christoforaki, Ioanna. "Patronage, art and society in Lusignan Cyprus, c.1192-c.1489." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.365598.

Fowler, Michael Anthony. "Bad Blood? Varying Attitudes on Human Sacrifice in Archaic Greek Art." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2021. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/8905.

Jones, Lewis Molly Ayn. "A Dangerous Art: Greek Physicians and Medical Risk in Imperial Rome." The Ohio State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1242865685.

Boivin, Lawrence J. "The depiction of boxing in classical Athenian art /." Thesis, McGill University, 2001. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=31092.

Photiou, Maria. "Rethinking the history of Cypriot art : Greek Cypriot women artists in Cyprus." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2013. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/12139.

Rask, Katherine. "Greek Devotional Images: Iconography and Interpretation in the Religious Arts." The Ohio State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1338473387.

Cocking, J. M. "The folk textiles of Crete : A study of folk art in its context." Thesis, University of Manchester, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.378798.

Tsingarida, Athéna. "Anatomy and poses of the human figure in Attic art from the last quarter of the sixth to the first quarter of the fifth centuries B.C." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1997. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f3d9cb4a-3f9d-49f4-947d-58127044691f.

Gerleigner, Georg Simon. "Writing on archaic Athenian pottery : studies on the relationship between images and inscriptions on Greek vases." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.610545.

Alroth, Brita Holthoer Rostislav Linders Tullia. "Greek gods and figurines aspects of the anthropomorphic dedications /." Uppsala : Stockholm : Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis ; Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1989. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/20312256.html.

Servadei, Cristina. "La figura di Theseus nella ceramica attica : iconografia e iconologia del mito nell'Atene arcaica e classica /." Bologna : Ante Quem, 2005. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb40201611c.

Thliveri, Hara. "Evidence for the Discobolos of Myron and its place in ancient Greek art." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.632839.

Hofsten, Sven von. "The feline-prey theme in archaic Greek art : classification, distribution, origin, iconographical context /." Malmö : Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2007. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb41151639r.

Mare, EM. "Combat scenes in classical Greek art as "beautiful objects": the expressive power of visual omission." South African Journal of Art History, 2008. http://encore.tut.ac.za/iii/cpro/DigitalItemViewPage.external?sp=1000804.

Pollard, Alison. "Carmen heroum : Greek epic in Roman friezes." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:1bd394a8-200e-48c7-b7b4-e1e7cabd39e0.

Faita, Antonia Stella. "The Great Altar of Pergamon : the monument in its historical and cultural context." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1983/4c340190-355f-4116-95b8-e36116f1ed1d.

Riccardi, Lee Ann. "The Image of Augustus in the Greek World: An Examination of the Portraiture and the Cults." The Ohio State University, 1988. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1381400785.

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Xu, Jialin. "Techniques of red-figure vase-painting in late sixth- and early fifth-century Athens." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.670015.

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Kavoulaki, Athena. "Pompai : processions in Athenian tragedy." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1996. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:94049c7e-b93b-4d8a-a7e4-5e7d82adc7d1.

Lucas Samaras

Greek/American Multi-media Artist

Summary of Lucas Samaras

Samaras has produced a body of work that is remarkable for its scope and inventiveness. He has achieved success in many media but is undoubtedly best known for his multi-media "box" assemblages and his Polaroid "photo-transformations". The broad range of his work is nevertheless dominated by a single theme: that of autobiography. He repeatedly addresses the relationship between the body, mind, and soul and the environments and milieus which help shape them. Yet while his art is highly personal, Samaras uses autobiography, not as a romantic device, but rather as a more critical means of self-interrogation. Samaras is also very well known for the solitary world in which he chooses to live; his tiny self-contained one-bed apartment doubling as both living space and artist's studio.

Accomplishments

• Samaras was one of the first artists to exploit the artistic potential for the instamatic Polaroid camera. With his "Photo-transformations", Samaras worked the wet emulsions on Polaroid prints to "transform" the fixed image into something more malleable and ethereal. Many of these images were gestural self-portraits that saw the artist metamorphosed into a multicolored phantasmagorical figure. Samaras stated that he "made things to seduce myself ... narcissism is making one's body into art".
• Samaras produced 135 complex bejeweled box assemblages over a period of close to two decades. The boxes, made up of found items from his immediate surroundings or bought at local thrift stores often featuring a portrait head shot of the artist himself, and were revealed to the viewer through hidden compartments. The box assemblages represented Samaras's ongoing interest in exploring ways to represent a psychological (rather than literal) portrait of himself.
• By inviting viewers to "experience" rather than simply "view" the artwork, Samaras's ground-breaking Room No. 1 (1964) was one of the earliest known immersive installation artworks. His "Rooms", which incorporated personal bric-a-brac and other ephemera, were, on the one hand, " readymades " constructed on the theme of personal identity. On the other, the installations contributed to the wider tendency within the current avant-garde that was questioning the very notion of what could or should be art.

The Life of Lucas Samaras

For Samaras art and life should be considered one and the same thing: "To be a human being may be a very messy thing, but to be an artist is something else entirely, because art is religion, art is sex, art is society. Art is everything".

Important Art by Lucas Samaras

Untitled, 7 July 1962

Between the late 1950s and early 1980s, Samaras produced (periodically) small pastel works made on cheap construction paper. The artist himself claimed that he was initially attracted to pastels because of the "bright colors and shimmering surface, and also to the fact that it was an unfashionable medium in postwar American art". As the online art journal, Artfixdaily , describes, the early pastels "reflect his love of patterns and rich color contrasts [...] Their inspiration ranges from modern masters - notably colorists such as Henri Matisse and Hans Hofmann - to pornographic magazines. They also reflect Samaras's interest in theater with their imaginary scenes and stagelike compositions". In this image, we see a wounded, pale figure, hanging above a forest path. The hands are out of frame, and so he appears to almost hover above ground. The wounds on the figure's body - on the head, the chest, the feet - are reminiscent of those received by Christ on the cross, and it is likely that this figure alludes to Samaras's own feelings about his strict Greek Orthodox upbringing. The forest scene which surrounds the central figure, meanwhile, is executed in inviting warm tones of browns, yellows, reds, with dashes of vibrant purples and blues. These attractive markings rather undermine the image's overall feel for claustrophobia and violence. Samaras has said that with his early pastels he created "personae through whom [he] could release a string of strong, unsophisticated psychic pictorialized needs". Indeed, Artfix alluded to the psychosexual element of the piece(s) through a connection to the artist's theatrical training. Artfix makes the point that during this period "Samaras was also taking classes at Stella Adler's acting studio, and became involved in loosely structured theatrical performances known as "happenings" in lofts and galleries. He also wrote plotless and irrational narratives though he never physically enacted them. He did, however, give visual form to some of these in his pastels - employing imagery associated with private fantasies, eroticism, and violence".

Pastel on black construction paper - The Morgan Library & Museum

In 1964, Samaras recreated his bedroom in New York's, The Green Gallery. The room was a restaging of his own bedroom from his family home in New Jersey and contained everything he had accumulated since moving to America - a decade long gathering of sentimental and artistic miscellany. Items such as yarn, beads, foil, cloth, paints, books, all crowded around his disheveled single bed. This Installation (although the term would not become part of the parlance of contemporary art practice until the 1970s) was a bold statement on identity: an assertion of individuality, artistry, masculinity, and humanity, presented to the public in a gallery. At the same time the work explored the dissolution of identity in that the installation was largely motivated by the fact of his family had moved back to Greece (while he remained behind in America). As art historian Thomas McEvilley has noted, this decision "signified a kind of death, an end to one identity and the beginning of another". This work, though deeply personal, was also in line with wider counter-tendencies within the artworld at the time, in particular the desire to question the idea of what could be considered art. Whereas high modernist art had tended to focus rather rigidly on various forms of painting or sculpture, the late 1950s early 1960s saw artists moving into new media, performance and happenings. Indeed, Samaras was an alumni of Rutgers University whose art department was headed by Allan Kaprow. Samaras took part in several happenings, including Kaprow's, 18 Happenings in 6 Parts (1959). For what some see as a turning point in contemporary art practice, Kaprow took over an entire gallery for a happening that involved performances in music, theater, and dance. The audience experience, which was fully immersive, was designed to dismantle the orthodoxy that demanded that an audience come to a gallery or museum to enter in a ritual of arts appreciation and spiritual or critical contemplation. With Room No. 1 , Samaras had extended the concept of performance to the readymade, and in so doing, suggested that life itself, with all its mundane ephemera and disposable objects, can, under altered contexts, become transformed into something meaningful. Samaras had constructed his room with the goal of creating an understanding between artist and audience (who would be acquainted with the sorts of domestic environment he had recreated). A feature of Installation art is that it will be dismantled and, although it may be reassembled at another venue, Installation art presented a further challenge to the traditions of art exhibition and appreciation because the work in question is transient and very much "of its moment". Indeed, after the exhibition's run, Samaras's Room was dismantled for good - Samaras kept the artist's materials, but he donated all his furniture to the Salvation Army.

Installation - Green Gallery, New York

Two years after Room No. 1 , Samaras constructed Room No.2 . It was an installation measuring eight feet square, and ten feet tall, lined on the inner and outer walls with square mirrors. In one corner, there is a concealed door, allowing two viewers at a time to enter the piece. Stepping inside the room, one is dazzled by an infinity of reflections, eyes straining to pick out the mirrored table and chair in the center of the room. This work is in some ways an elaboration on Room No.1 since both works interrogate the idea of the self, and how the self-functions in interior spaces. Samaras was a contemporary of the Japanese-American Conceptual artist, Yayoi Kusama and one might draw some comparisons between the two. Like Samaras, Kusama's installations were immersive and autobiographical and in 1963 she presented the first of her Infinity Mirror Rooms. For Kusama, her early Mirror Room's (she had made over 20 such rooms during her career) allowed her to transform, through intense repetition, her earlier paintings and works on paper. Kusama's perplexing environments played on the viewers' perceptions of space and distance while the repetitions of her artworks spoke loudly and specifically of the artist's troubled mental state that related to childhood trauma and her anxieties about sex. With Room No. 2 , Samaras rather turned the question of autobiography back onto the audience by prompting them to question their self-identity. Reflected images of inanimate walls, tables, chairs, and indeed, the viewer themselves, abound. The sheer number of reflections makes it difficult to grasp any single image and so conceptions of "self" becomes multiple and illusive. The artist and the viewer are thus connected in one overwhelming sensory experience.

Installation - AKG Art Museum, Buffalo

Samaras began producing mixed media box works in the summer of 1960. The outside of Box #61 is covered with a pattern of colored wool. On the inner lid is a photograph of the lower half of Samaras's face, the contours and outline lined with thin metal pins - down the bridge of the nose, along the lower lip, around the mustache, and along the side of the face. The inside of the box is embellished with countless beads of blue and yellow, creating a beautiful interior. Emerging from each side is a pencil, its tip stained red, the two points almost touching. The front panel is completed with a series of painted colored dots. Samaras's Boxes follow in the vein of the American Surrealist, Joseph Cornell. Indeed, Cornell made his name on his celebrated glass-fronted boxed assemblages. Predating Samaras's boxes, Cornell's were filled with all manner of thrift store objects and magazine cuttings, but with the intent of creating, through incredulous juxtapositions of different items, a type of inexplicable (ergo, surrealistic) visual poetry. But whereas Cornell's shadow boxes (as they are known) touched on the idea of the artist as poetic archivist, Samaras's boxes spoke explicitly of the artist's own life experiences. His boxes would be Samaras's main output during the 1960s and were intended to elicit a dynamic repel-and-attract response in the viewer - their beauty attracts or pulls the viewer in while violence is suggested in the pins or the pencil points which simultaneously push the viewer away. Samaras has noted that in life he "cannot separate beauty from pain"; a conflation he termed "the quality of seducing-repelling". Art historian Donald Kuspit states that through his boxes "Samaras has mythologized his traumatic experience" (a reference to the difficult years in Greece during World War II), and that the boxes reflect the way in which, as a child, he "hunkered in on himself in a hostile world. He created a small inner space, womblike and reclusive, where he could hold out against the world".

Mixed media - Pace Gallery

Untitled Photo Transformation 1977 - 168

In 1973 Samaras began a series of photographs that would become perhaps his most famous works to date. The Photo Transformation works are made using the Polaroid SX-70 camera, and the printed pictures are manipulated using a makeshift tool or even a finger to blur and smudge the emulsion before it has had time to dry. In this image we can clearly make out a male figure, wearing only a pair of black flip flops, crouching on the checkerboard tiles of a kitchen floor. To the left, we see a refrigerator; to the right a table littered with other polaroid images, arranged neatly in rows while a white mug perches on the table's edge. The scene is lit with bands of red, green, blue and golden light. The upper half of the figure is distorted, the body bending wavering and in places disappearing. The figure's right hand is raised upward, the face gazing upward too. The photographic manipulation makes the air seem as though it is vibrating, disturbed by an unseen energy or force which wraps itself around the body. Taken in his small New York apartment, this photograph is one of his many searching self-portraits. The photographs laid out on the table allude to the artist's wider practice at this time, and what might be described as his narcissistic obsession with self-presentation. Samaras himself has stated: "I make things to seduce myself ... narcissism is making one's body into art". In early life, Samaras had wanted to be an actor, and in many ways portraits such as this can be seen as fulfilling that desire to some extent, as he performs different roles and scenes for the camera. Ultimately, however, in this work Samaras is exploring his own embodied experience of the world. The piece is also vividly imaginative, and the bright colors and patterned distortions are part of a visual language which we see throughout Samaras's work - from his pastels to his boxes, from his Polaroids to his later digital photographs. The use of his own naked form, meanwhile, challenged what Samaras saw as a prevailing public discomfort with male nudity, while the innovative techniques used in his photo transformations pushed the limits of what photographic art could be.

Polaroid print - Princeton University Art Museum

This image is part of a series started in 2008, and still ongoing, wherein the artist constructs a myriad of digital creatures and places them in cityscapes. By digitally manipulating photographs taken in his apartment and on strolls around the streets of Manhattan, Samaras creates scenes that invite the viewer into a familiar, yet alternate, reality. A strange creature, made up of streaks and lines of color, vaguely humanoid in its shape - arms, head, shoulders - looms before the classical visage of building. The creature's arm seems to sweep across the composition, perhaps pointing to the jumbled sign that reads "theatre". Gazing into the creature's form, one becomes seduced by the technicolor pattern. The bottom of the scene is overlaid with a block of greenish-blue hue, on top of which sits a single red triangle. After Samaras's family returned to Greece (from America) he all-but withdrew from daily social interaction, rarely emerging from his small Brooklyn apartment (and later from his high-rise Manhattan apartment). Many of his digital manipulations suggest a preoccupation with sky and air, presenting his audience with ethereal, sometimes winged, creatures who appear to "float" above the crowd or sit nimbly atop buildings. In these works Samaras projects his interior world out onto the surrounding cityscape. It is in later works such as these that we see Samaras moving from imaginary interior worlds, to engaging with the exterior world. These works are in tune with Samaras's efforts to see art in all aspects of his life, here claiming the Manhattan streets as a canvas.

Ink-jet print - GESTURES series (2008-20)

Samaras's later portraits are intricate digital manipulations whose dream-like landscapes are drawn from the simplest of sources, such as Samaras's apartment, old family photographs and Central Park. In this image, Samaras's naked form appears to move lithely through a green, swampy pond, his shoulders thrown back, and his hips twisting. At his side swims a pure white swan (perhaps a subtle nod to the Greek myth of Leda) - its head bent in toward Samaras, whose eyes gaze piercingly out at us through vibrant orange glasses. The space of the image is a confusing mass of branches reaching down into the water and mirrored above, creating a claustrophobic landscape of oppressive green. The posing of the body here is reminiscent of many iterations of the female nude throughout history, and Samaras appears to be presenting himself as both artist/voyeur and model/subject. Such conscious mirroring of art-historical posing suggests a desire on Samaras's part to place himself within the trajectory of history of art. Indeed, there is a sense in his work at this time of a very conscious attempt to understand his personal history and the ways in which identity changes throughout one's life, and the ways in which it stays fixed. Curator Oliver Schultz notes that in Samaras's later works we see "the heroic or unheroic male nude ... dwelling on his own body in a way that's both incredibly public and yet ... very private at the same time". In constructing these elaborate imaginary images, the artist utilizes technology as a means to plunder the past, to try to understand the process of living, of aging, and of dying. Art critic Roberta Smith notes that with Samaras's work, the self that is revealed is "exposed in such specific, sophisticated increments that we encounter him only in fragmented, highly artificialized form, one obsessive preoccupation at a time. Rarely do we see a picture of the real person". By referencing ancient mythology, and creating imagined settings, moreover, this piece moves between the personal to the universal.

Pure pigment on paper - Pace Gallery

Biography of Lucas Samaras

Lucas Samaras was born in a small village called Kastoria, in Macedonia, Greece. His father, and many of his relatives were "furriers" (selling and trading fur in Greece and overseas). Samaras recalls family members arriving home from trade trips late at night with silks and jewels: "they would open a suitcase and out would come this wonderful little satin thing or glittering thing with gold and green and blue and perfume". In 1939 Samaras's father traveled to the United States on business. While he was away, World War II broke out in Europe, meaning he was unable to return home. Samaras, who was still just three years old, was duly raised by his mother, his aunts, and his paternal grandmother.

During the war, Greece was occupied by the Rome-Berlin Axis (the "Axis Powers" - a disorganized military coalition made up predominantly by Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Empire of Japan) and many towns and villages experienced violent persecution and famine. During air raids, The Samaras family would shelter in their basement, or sometimes in hillside caves with other Greek families. During one attack on the family home, Samaras's grandmother was killed, and his aunt very badly wounded.

After the war, Greece entered a period of political flux and a strong religious order took over domestic affairs. Samaras's childhood memories were of "the pageantry of military parades, religious processions ... and the rituals, splendors, and fears introduced by the church". In 1948, Samaras and his mother and father moved to America, settling in New Jersey. His early years in America were difficult as he navigated this new world. Language barriers meant he struggled at school but Samaras found solace in art class (where he was not required to speak, read or write, and could become lost in drawing). Indeed, art became central to his ability to navigate his difficult immigrant experience.

Education and Early Training

In 1955, Samaras graduated high school and received a scholarship from Rutgers University's College of Arts and Sciences in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Artist and art critic Allan Kaprow was the acting chair of the art department and was known for creating an atmosphere that promoted experimentation and play with new or alternative materials and methods. Samaras became known for his strange style and reserved demeanor. His freshman roommate Norman Fruchter recalled that "People's sense of him was that he was both an actor and an enigma". It was while at Rutgers that Samaras created a series of pastels which he considered his first proper artworks (he has continued to create pastels periodically throughout his career).

Having taken part in Kaprow's, 18 Happenings in 6 Parts , Samaras's first New York exhibition was held at the Reuben Gallery in 1959. It was through these two events that he befriended Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Claes Oldenburg. He had also met Robert Whitman (while at Rutgers) and the two would collaborate on future performance pieces. After graduating from Rutgers (also in 1959) Samaras briefly enrolled in Columbia University's Graduate Department of Art History. Samaras's parents did not approve of their son becoming a practicing artist, and so to please them he considered the more scholarly career path of art historian. At Columbia he studied art history under Meyer Schapiro , whose uncanny, encyclopedic subject knowledge proved too intimidating for Samaras who soon withdrew from the course. In October of that year Samaras entered the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting in New York, where he studied for a further two years. He had professional headshots taken and distributed amongst various agencies, but without any success.

Mature Period

Over the next two decades, Samaras participated in multiple " happenings " with Kaprow and Claes Oldenburg . Samaras was invigorated by these events: "Being in a Happening was like being in something that had never existed before ... It was our way of making ourselves known artistically", he said. He debuted his famous "assemblage boxes", which brought together elements of painting, sculpture, found objects, and photographic self-portraits, in 1961 at New York's Green Gallery.

Historians and curators Anthony Downey and Claire Bishop said of the boxes "[Samaras's] bejeweled assemblage boxes encrusted in objects such as push pins, glass millefiore beads, yarn or razor blades [suggested] inhabited worlds, recalling the Greek Byzantine heritage of his forefathers, while the off cuts and discarded materials refer to childhood recollections of the young Samaras spending time with his dressmaker aunt". The boxes, which introduced a career-spanning exploration of the theme of the self, led to his inclusion in his first group show, The Art of Assemblage , held at MoMA, in 1961. In 1963, Samaras continued with the autobiographical theme when he turned the black-and-white head shots he had taken for his unsuccessful foray into professional acting into a series of self-portraits by replacing his eyes with hundreds of metal pins.

When Samaras's mother, sister and father moved back to Greece in 1964, he moved into a small one-bedroom apartment on West 71st Street. He lived here for the next twenty years or so. The apartment became his creative hub as well as his home. He stated: "I sit down and I can work on my table and I can have a cup of whatever - everything is within reach, It's almost like a spaceship or a submarine". Samaras worked assiduously, producing a vast body of work and, in the summer of 1965, he joined Pace Gallery on the agreement they facilitate the making of his first mirrored room installation. Upon joining the Gallery, which first mounted an exhibition of his work produced from the beginning of the decade, Samaras said he "immediately felt like a professional artist". Samaras's immersive Room No. 2 (aka Mirrored Room ) (1966) was the first of his installations to become a part of a museum collection when it was acquired by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. Samaras received his first solo exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1969 and was followed the next year by his first overseas exhibition at Hanover's Kunstverein Museum.

In 1969, Samaras began experimenting with a Polaroid 360 Land Camera which used a manual "peel-apart" instant film that appealed to Samaras's sense of immediacy. By 1973 he had progressed to the Polaroid SX-70 whose exposed film ejected automatically leaving a 10-minute drying time. It was all the time he needed to manipulate the wet-dye emulsions with a stylus or fingertip tip before the image set. It was during the 1970s that Samaras "stripped back" his boxes project to a basic "chicken wire" construction as a means of re-examining the physical geometric form of the container itself. Historians and curators Anthony Downey and Claire Bishop add that "Responding to developments in Minimalist and Post-Minimalist art, Samaras also concentrated on the geometric possibilities integral to two-dimensional works. The transformative potential of art making attracted Samaras to return to the traditional medium of painting, exploring the surface plane in psychedelic and illusory space. 'Untitled #12' (1973) is one example from a series of round disc paintings. Using a system of rules Samaras built up segments of colour, which seemingly spin out of control expanding the geometric possibilities of the circular space".

In the summer/fall of 1974, Samaras took up pastels once more. He created around 100 heavily patterned compositions that included interiors, still lifes, and seascapes. In 1976, Samaras completed his first public commission. As the U.S. General Services Administration explains, Silent Struggle "has its origins in a 'reawakening' of elements from both [Samaras's] own Greek origins and from the history of art. He likens its design to a doily, delicate and intricate, created out of the indelicate substance weathering Cor-ten steel (an alloy, developed originally to eliminate the need for painting, and which takes on a "rust-like" look after long exposure to the elements). The result, standing 107 inches tall, with a thickness of 13 inches and diameter of six feet, was originally located in the courtyard of the Hale Boggs federal complex in New Orleans". (In 2008, Silent Struggle was transferred to the Court of International Trade in New York City for better cover from the elements.)

In 1977 Samaras produced the first in his series of textile "Reconstructions" which were created as an homage to his mother. These saw the artist allude to traditional quilt-making techniques by sewing fabric strips to canvas to create dazzling colored collages. As Downey and Bishop state, "The synthesis of the paintings and chicken wire boxes are most clearly achieved in the fabric reconstructions [...] Horizontal bands of wildly different fabrics and patterns are here stitched together, creating a science fiction of space and composition. Anticipating the digital age, Samaras, in his acute observations of detail and form, zones in on the pixilated components and structure of his works".

Late Period

Between 1981 and 1983, Samaras produced the last of his pastel works. These were dominated by expressionistic, vividly colored, self-portraits and were some 200 in number. Around this period, Samaras started to work again with Polaroid film, this time producing an autobiographical series he called "Panoramas". For the series, he pieced assembled "slices" of different photographs to create a two-meter view (panorama) of his tiny apartment-cum-studio.

In 1989, Samaras moved into a new high-rise apartment. Ingrid Sischy, the legendary editor of Artforum , recalled the epic task of moving him: "Every day for two months Samaras carried, in plastic and paper bags, the more fragile possessions from his past - a small walk-up on the Upper West Side - to his future, twenty blocks away: a new midtown skyscraper with doormen who announce company". The move marked the beginning of a truly insular period in Samaras' life. He states that "When I moved here, I divorced myself from people. You can't live in a constant state of ecstasy. You need so many pounds of pain, so many pounds of disappointment, so many pounds of dissatisfaction and so on".

Samaras's progression to Digital art began in 1996 with the purchase of his first computer and experiments with digital editing tools. By 2002, he had acquired a digital camera and the use of Photoshop became an integral component of his practice. He began to manipulate his own photographs, revisiting earlier works such as the Photo-transformations and Auto-Polaroids, and reworking them digitally. He also took photographs with the specific aim of transforming them in Photoshop. He created portraits (including those of friends such as David Byrne, former leader of New York art-rock band Talking Heads) that became known as "Photofictions".

Describing his working environment, historian Efi Michalarou writes "composed of computer drawings of chimerical creatures all made on his Mac in the magical aerie where he lives, alone, high above midtown Manhattan, in one of those apartments wherein you might start to think you were an eagle or a god". In 2009, Samaras represented Greece at the 53rd Venice Biennale, which featured his multi-installation Paraxena .

Secluded in his apartment - "in the magical aerie where he lives, alone, high above midtown Manhattan, in one of those apartments wherein you might start to think you were an eagle or a god" (wrote historian Efi Michalarou) - Samaras spends his days working and his nights reading. He eats in and ventures out occasionally to walk the streets where he will take his photographs.

The Legacy of Lucas Samaras

Historians and curators Anthony Downey and Claire Bishop state "Lucas Samaras's original and versatile approach to art making has had a profound impact on developments in contemporary art, creating works which have anticipated dominant trends in painting, sculpture and photography. a life-long preoccupation with the self, always incorporating his immediate environment into his work. Expressed in his sculptural work or in his radical use of Polaroid film, Samaras always found himself as the subject of his own universe. The investigation of the body or the portrait of the artist provides the central concern that unites the broad and varied character of his art".

Indeed, Samaras's output has been so wide-ranging his influence is all but impossible to quantify. Some art critics have seen his autobiographical Polaroids series as a reference point for the work on self-identity by the likes of Cindy Sherman and Robert Mapplethorpe, while Roberta Smith suggests that Samaras is the progenitor for styles and trends such as "psychedelic color and pattern, labor-intensive craft, homoerotic urges, and fierce performance-like self-revelations". But perhaps his legacy was best summed up by the historian and curator, Efi Michalarou who wrote that, "Samaras is not the best-known artist in America, but among the experts he is considered a wizard, and among artists he's an elusive legend, a loner, eccentric, master of unusual media, and visionary who has avoided classification. He's a solitary worker who has remained outside of movements, trends, or cliques, making work that is always original, provocative, and surprising".

Influences and Connections

Useful Resources on Lucas Samaras

• Lucas Samaras By Kim Levin
• Unrepentant Ego: The Self-Portraits of Lucas Samaras By Marla Prather
• Lucas Samaras By Lucas Samaras
• Lucas Samaras : Objects and Subjects, 1969-1986 By Thomas McEvilley, Donald B. Kuspit, Roberta Smith
• Artist's website (via Pace Gallery)
• Dreams in Dust: The Pastels of Lucas Samaras Artfixdaily.com
• Silent Struggle U.S. General Services Administration
• Lucas Samaras By Anthony Downey and Claire Bishop / Stephen Friedman Gallery / October/November 2007
• TRACES: Lucas Samaras By Efi Michalarou / Art View
• Virtual Studio Visit: Lucas Samaras
• Lucas Samaras, Grace Glueck, 1978
• Lucas Samaras: The Stories Behind The Sittings
• Various interviews and accounts relating to his retrospective in the Venice Biennale 2009

Related Artists

Related Movements & Topics

Content compiled and written by Lara Ni Chuirrin

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Antony Todd

Literature and Arts from the Center of the World

The Creative Resistance in Palestinian Art

Inside the Zawyeh Gallery's Ramallah Art Fair, 2022-2023.

The 3rd edition of the Ramallah Art Fair takes place at Zawyeh Gallery in Ramallah, through Feb. 12, 2023.

Malu Halasa

The Israelis knew the power of art in Palestine. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were no official galleries, and artists showed their work in schools, churches and town halls. The popularity of these exhibitions among ordinary Palestinians also drew an unexpected audience — Occupation authorities. Artists became another front in the resistance. They were forced to apply for permits to exhibit work; their art was censored and Israeli soldiers conducted studio visits.

Before the Oslo Accords in 1993, some artists were imprisoned because they incorporated the colors of the banned Palestinian flag — red, white and black — in their artwork. [On May 13, 2022, Israeli police attacked the funeral procession of slain Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, nearly causing mourners to drop her coffin as they seized Palestinian flags . ED]. However, occupation, discrimination and violence were opportunities not so much for the art of resistance symbols predicated on the fist or the gun, but for art that was modern, complex, critical as well as beautiful.

As stated on the Zawyeh Gallery website, director Ziad Anani believes in “investing in creativity and artistic talents in Palestine as a way of resilience in the face of adversaries.” His West Bank city gallery is host to the third edition of the Ramallah Art Fair until February 12, 2023. The fair features over 200 works by 40 Palestinian, Arab, and international artists.

“Over the years, we have developed a wide and varied network of Palestinian young artists, both in Palestine and abroad,” he writes in an email. “In group exhibitions such as the Ramallah Art Fair, we aim to break the barriers between young and established artists.” The Fair, also available as a 3D virtual online exhibition , transverses geographical boundaries like checkpoints, and allows people no matter where they live to view the artworks.

An independent visual arts gallery, Zawyeh was founded by Anani in Ramallah, in 2013. The first Ramallah Art Fair in 2020 opened during the pandemic when Ramallah was still under curfew. That same year the gallery opened a second hub in Dubai. In addition to the Ramallah Art Fair online, it is also showing another exhibition, Jerusalem: City of Paradoxes by Hosni Radwan until the end of December, online.

“We focus on Palestinian art production,” stresses Anani, “but also we give space to artists who produce art about Palestine, or who are in solidarity with Palestine.” As a Palestinian he said he would “love to see a Palestinian museum of contemporary art. But this is difficult to attain under occupation. Therefore, the Palestinian collections of contemporary art remain in exile the same as the Palestinian artists themselves.”

Sliman Mansour (b. 1947, Birzeit, West Bank, Palestine) is Palestine’s best-known artist. His work spans fifty years and has been collected by the British Museum; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; and Khalid Shoman Collection/Darat al-Funun, Amman, Jordan. He was key to the development of Palestinian fine arts education, as the co-founder and director of East Jerusalem’s al-Wasiti Art Centre, and a founding member of Ramallah’s International Art Academy Palestine.

In Ibraaz , artist Samah Hijawi quoted Mansour from Hiwar al-Fann al-Tashkeeli . The older artist commented on the personal journey he had made from political symbolism to art:  “ … As you know we have been in the Occupied Territories for 25 years or more . . . Throughout this time we would draw bars, fists, prisoners, confiscated lands and barbed wire through which we developed an encyclopedia of symbols …” Mansour was speaking at a 1993 symposium for Arab artists hosted by Darat al- Funun. “After twenty years or so we started to feel that something was missing in us … and the Intifada in 1980 made me personally feel small and without the importance I had imagined as an artist leading masses to revolution … My work did not have any meaning in light of the Intifada … This granted me a feeling of freedom, through which to develop my own work as well as Palestinian art.”

In 1998, Mansour received the Prize for Visual Arts at the Cairo Biennale and the Palestine National Award for Visual Arts. He was also awarded the UNESCO Award for Arab Culture in 2019. Writing in Imperfect Chronology: Arab Art from the Modern to the Contemporary – Works from the Barjeel Art Foundation , curator Omar Kholeif calls Mansour’s work “iconic” and “a symbol of Palestinian resistance, melancholy and ambition over the past forty years.”

Born in Gaza in 1986, Saher Nasser rebels against “dominant metaphors, established symbols and the power of authority.” These words from his 2021 solo show at Zawyeh Gallery, Dubai, define his art. A graduate of the College of Applied Art, Palestine, he studied illustration at University of Hertfordshire, in the U.K. In addition to commissions by Alserkal Avenue; DIFC; Emaar Foundry; and BMW — all in Dubai — Nassar participated in a 2018 group exhibition at Tashkeel Hub Gallery, Dubai. Since 2015, he has been a member of the art space, Tashkeel, which describes the artist’s creative practice as the point where “social observation and self-interpretation” intersect with art and design. The artist lives and works in Dubai.

Majd Masri (b. 1991, Jerusalem) is an abstract artist, who in 2016 participated in Young Palestinian Artist of the Year at London’s Mosaic Rooms. In an email she writes of her “love of the sea and the idea of us Palestinians in the West Bank who can’t be close to the sea. We’re always surrounded by checkpoints and need permission to enter the other side of our cities. I’m one of millions who is looking for ways to escape this reality and another way to express these feelings of lost, limited chances.” In “Hidden 2,” she reflects “the sea sounds and waves in color in the painting, and finds the blue sky a reflection of the compensation I’m looking for. In abstract work without objects or figures, mass and emptiness leaves space for the person looking at the work to ask questions and possibly find solutions.” A drawing from her series “Haphazard Synchronizations” (2017) graced the cover of my novel, Mother of All Pigs . Masri won second place in the 2018 Ismael Shamout Prize for Visual Art at the College of Arts and Culture of Dar al-Kalima University, in Bethlehem.

Born in Jerusalem in 1993, Yazan Abu Salameh has taught art at several community centers, including at Aidya Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. He studied fine arts at Dar al-Kalima University, and participated in group exhibitions in Palestine, Jordan and the U.A.E. He won the third prize in “Let’s Make It Glow,” a 2019 exhibition held by Turin Municipality, in Italy. He has exhibited in the Ramallah Art Fair, in 2021 and 2020. Art Dubai recently characterized his art as an exploration of “urban geographies … depicting what can be seen as miniature maps that reflect the remnants of childhood memories, concrete blockades and watch towers, as well as Palestinian neighborhoods from a bird’s eye view.” In 2021, Salameh’s solo exhibition was held at Zawyeh Gallery, Dubai. He lives and works in Bethlehem.

Nabil Anani (b. 1943, Latroun, West Bank, Palestine) is a prominent artist and an influential proponent of the contemporary Palestinian art movement. Born during the British Mandate, he lived through the Nakba firsthand. He witnessed the 1967 Six Day War from Egypt, and came of age as an artist in Palestine during the first and second Intifadas. With Vera Tamari and Tayseer Barakat, he established the New Vision Movement, an artists’ precursor to BDS, which boycotted Israeli products and used natural materials — leather, henna and plant dyes — in the making of art. As Dalloul Art Foundation’s Head of Research Wafa Roz writes from Beirut, “From early on, Anani worked to form a modern Palestinian national identity with visual narratives rich in folkloric as well as political themes.” He studied fine art at Alexandria University, Egypt, and held his first exhibition in Jerusalem, in 1972. Anani was a pioneer in the establishment of the League of Palestinian Artists, the International Academy of Art Palestine and the al-Wasiti Centre. He was awarded the first Palestinian National Prize for Visual Arts in 1997. His work has been exhibited widely in the Middle East, Europe, North America, and Japan. He is the recipient of the 2006 King Abdallah II Arab World Prize for Fine Art.

Vera Tamari (b. 1945, Jerusalem) is a multidisciplinary artist, Islamic art historian, curator, and art educator. She is perhaps best known for her 2002 installation “Going for a Ride?” in which she arranged cars crushed by Israeli tanks, during the 2002 invasion of Ramallah, on a piece of tarmac next to the El Bireh football field. From across the street where she lived, the artist watched Israeli tanks stop and their occupants stare at the traffic jam installation of wrecked cars. She told the Guardian a week later “a whole cohort of Merkavas turned up and the tank commanders got out and discussed what to do. Then they got back into their tanks and ran over the whole exhibit, over and over again, backwards and forwards, crushing it to pieces. Then, for good measure, they shelled it. Finally, they got out again and pissed on the wreckage.” Tamari, who admires Duchamp, caught the Israelis in the act on video and turned it into an art happening.

Local pottery traditions, especially large hishash pots made by village women, inspired the artist to open the first ceramics studio in Palestine. She specialized in ceramics, in 1974, at the Istituto Statale d’Arte per la Ceramica in Florence, Italy, after receiving an undergraduate degree in fine arts from Beirut College for Women, in 1966. She obtained a Master of Philosophy degree in Islamic art and architecture from Oxford University, in 1984, and served for more than twenty years as professor of Islamic art and architecture and art history at Birzeit University, where she founded and directed the Paltel Virtual Gallery and the Birzeit University Museum.

Rana Samara (b. 1985, Jerusalem) is an artist and a graduate of the International Academy of Art Palestine, Ramallah, in 2015. A year later for her first solo exhibition, “Intimate Space” at Zawyeh Gallery, Ramallah, she interviewed women in al-Amari Refugee Camp about virginity, sexual desire, relationship and roles. Her second solo show, “Inner Sanctuary,” took place in 2022 at Zawyeh Dubai. Samara has participated in a number of group exhibitions and art fairs locally and internationally, including Contemporary Istanbul, Turkey (2019); Art Dubai, U.A.E. (2017 and 2019); Beirut Art Fair (2017); and Ramallah Art Fair (2020). She told the online magazine Arte & Lusso that she grew up in a typical Palestinian family. “I spent most of my childhood and teenage years observing and analyzing social and gender relations. I came to understand how precious, yet also suffocating, women’s roles as careers and nurturers can be.” Known for her vibrant paintings of interior spaces, from living rooms to bedrooms, Samara explores intimacy in nature for her “Landscape Dream” series.

Bashar Alhroub (b. 1978, Jerusalem) works with a variety of media including drawings, paintings, photography, and video installation. According to his website: His art deals with “the polemics of a place, questioning its role in humanity and its influence on creativity … His work is deeply influenced by the socio-political sentiments that assert [the artist’s] identity as well as his desire to belong to a social and cultural community; rooted in a particular place. Alhroub constantly longs for a feeling of attachment, a sense of significant ownership of that place.” His oeuvre has been included in a number of international collections and museums. In 2001, he received his B.A. in fine art from Nablus’s al-Najah University. He was awarded a Ford Foundation fellowship to pursue his Master’s in Fine Art, which he completed following his graduation from the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, U.K. in 2010. His work has been exhibited by the Mosaic Rooms, and he was a resident artist at London’s Delfina Foundation. In 2012 he was awarded the First Grand Prize at the 14th Art Asian Biennial Bangladesh.

Dina Mattar (b. 1985, Gaza) is a painter from al-Bureij, a densely populated refugee camp where judicial assassinations and tank and helicopter gunship incursions, attacks and assaults by the IDF have taken place. Mattar’s paintings are fable-like and bold, as she explained to the Amos Trust. “My use of bright colors is an invitation for hope, optimism and joy. They are an indication that we still exist … My work manifests my insistence and perseverance to exist, and to love life through all that is beautiful.” Mattar obtained her B.A. in art education from Gaza City’s al-Aqsa University, in 2007, and has participated in exhibitions and workshops in Gaza in cooperation with A.M Qattan Foundation and the French Cultural Center. She has exhibited in Lebanon, Geneva and France.

The wide-eyed expression on Mattar’s angel recalls another celestial being — Paul Klee’s “Angelus Novus” (1920) and the words of Walter Benjamin. “The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back his turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress.” In “Untitled 1,” a poem in Arabic prevents the angel’s wings from closing. “To My Mother” was written from prison by Palestine’s national poet Mahmoud Darwish.

Amir Hazim (b. Baghdad, 1996) is at the forefront of a resurgence of new generation Iraqi artists. As he told Arab News: “Because of everything happening in Iraq now … it’s a great place for an artist to be inspired and explore working in a variety of media. However, since the invasion, many Iraqis don’t see the importance of art and its ability to make a change in the world. We have been pushed away from art. We were distracted by the problems in our country.” Hazim’s multimedia practice merges lived experience and Baghdad’s social history with photography, sound, sculpture, painting, and installation. His photograph from the series “Above the Damage” shows youthful demonstrators on the fringe of the 2019 marches, sit-ins, and civil disobedience against on-going corruption, sectarianism and failing public services in Iraq. Hazim started taking photographs on his phone when he was painting as a student at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Baghdad. After graduating in 2019, he picked up a Fujifilm camera and began to explore the medium of photography in earnest. His images play with shadow and light and often appear in cinematic gray-scale. Hazim lives and works between Baghdad and Dubai.

Tayseer Barakat (b. 1959, Jabaliya Refugee Camp, Gaza) is an influential Palestinian artist whose life and art has been shaped by war, conflict and displacement. His family was originally from al-Majdal, a village in the Lower Galilee that was bulldozed by Zionist forces in 1948. He spent his formative years in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp in Gaza. He earned a B.A. in painting from Cairo’s College of Fine Arts, Helwan University, and in 1983, returned to Palestine and taught art at the UNWRA women’s teacher training center in Ramallah. In 1981, he walked for forty days through the West Bank, and solidified his ties to towns and villages erased by the Occupation.

As Dalloul Art Foundation’s Wafa Roz writes, Barakat’s “work is based on extensive research into the ancient arts of the region as a whole, drawing from Canaanite, Phoenician, Mesopotamian and Ancient Egyptian cultures. However, [he] does not adhere strictly to any one style. His practice instead relies on intuition, imagination, and the dynamics of the work itself as it takes shape.” A member of New Vision Movement, he pioneered the use of local media/craftsmanship in fine arts. Barakat was a founding member of al-Wasiti Art Centre in East Jerusalem, and the Ramallah based: al-Hallaj Hall; the International Academy of Art Palestine; and the Palestinian Association for Contemporary Art (PACA). His international exhibitions include the 6 th Sharjah Biennial (2003), Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris (1997), São Paulo Biennale (1996), and the Museum of Modern Art (1993). He lives and works in Ramallah.

Khaled Hourani (b. 1965, Hebron, West Bank, Palestine) is an influential conceptual artist, curator and writer. He served as artistic director and general director of the International Academy of Art Palestine. He was also the general director of the Fine Arts Department in the Palestinian Ministry of Culture. He was awarded the 2013 Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change — Creative Time, in New York City. In 2014, he organized his first retrospective at the CCA, Glasgow, and Gallery One, Ramallah. He also curated a second retrospective at Darat al-Funun, Amman, Jordan, in 2017.

Hourani was the initiator of the Stone Distance to Jerusalem project and the 2011 “Picasso in Palestine,” a two-years in the making collaboration between the International Academy of Art Palestine and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands. “ Buste de Femme” by Pablo Picasso (1943) was, against enormous odds, brought to Ramallah and exhibited to a Palestinian audience, under armed guard. Hourani has participated in many group exhibitions and curated exhibitions in Palestine and abroad. His tongue-in-cheek, “This Is Not a Watermelon,” uses the very colors the Israelis once banned Palestinian artists from using in their art.

Additional information provided by curator Angelina Radakovic at the Mosaic Rooms , in London.

Hermoso el arte el del pueblo Palestino, arraigos y cultura ancestral legado para la humanidad.

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