History of Art and Architecture

For more than 30 years, the University of Oregon professor and HAA emerita professor, Esther Jacobson-Tepfer, has studied prehistoric Mongolian rock art, illuminating the lives of people who lived 3,000 to 12,000 years ago through the imagery they left behind. She is one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject.

Over the centuries, karuta game play and card designs evolved to reflect historical and cultural shifts. Like a detective, HAA PhD candidate, Mew Lingjun Jiang searches karuta art for clues to Japan’s past.

Jayne Cole Southard, HAA PhD '22, alongside fellow curators christina ong and Howie Chen, was awarded the 2025 Best Thematic Museum Show. The exhibition, titled “Legacies: Asian American Art Movements in New York City”, was the first institutional show to survey artists of Asian descent in the city during the period from 1969 to 2001 while being centered around three organizations: Godzilla: Asian American Art Network, the Basement Workshop, and the Asian American Arts Centre.

The College of Design has developed two new options for students looking to get more value from their time at the University of Oregon. The goal? To give high-achieving art history majors and planning, public policy and management majors an opportunity to earn a BA and MA within five years.

Maude I. Kerns Professor Emerita of Asian Art talks to "Popular Science" about why Elks were traditionally depicated in ancient art as monstrous.

When international, award-winning design firm, 13&9 Design, searched for research to help center their design philosophy to a more biophilic focused, the team turned to Richard Taylor's stellar research on fractals.