History of Art and Architecture

The Italian Art Society recently named Kelly Whitford, MA ’11, its annual Dissertation Grant Recipient for her project “Embodying Belief: Crossing the Ponte Sant’Angelo with Bernini’s Angels.” Whitford earned her degree at Oregon in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture and is currently a PhD candidate at Brown University.

Whitford’s research focuses on work by seventeenth century sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini at the Ponte Sant’Angelo in Rome. The bridge was a venue for religious processions, fireworks, and public executions.

Listening to Jerome Silbergeld, the first director of Princeton University's Tang Center for East Asian Art, you wouldn’t peg him as having been a goatherd in the New Mexico Rockies, dropping out of two PhD programs, or being arrested as a pacifist war protester.

Brandi Wilkens, an undergraduate student in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, has been selected as one of six UO students to participate in the Humanities Undergraduate Research Fellowship for her research project, “Not Just a Pretty Face: 19^th century Japanese Courtesans and their influence in art exportation.”

Wilkens is researching and writing a comprehensive paper on the topic during winter and spring 2016 terms, and will present her research at the 2016 UO Undergraduate Symposium on May 19.

The mere mention of surgery in the nineteenth century may conjure up grotesque images of gore and negligent doctors, but this is one myth that one University of Oregon graduate of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture wants to debunk.

Chyna Bounds was researching her master’s thesis on British satirical artists and their inventive critiques of political figures when the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art provided her an opportunity to curate an exhibit of European satirists.

The 2015-16 academic year introduces new faculty members to several A&AA departments and programs. The professors new to the school bring a wide spectrum of expertise and creativity in architecture, the history of art and architecture, arts and administration, and product design. They come to UO from schools including Istanbul Technical University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Denver, Stanford University, and the University of Minnesota.

Architecture

A&AA is wrapping up its 100th anniversary this month after a full year of events, exhibitions, and celebrations. The school is now embarking on a capital campaign to imagine the future of art and design education and facilities for the next 100 years. In envisioning the school’s future, the A&AA Building Project Work Group in January issued a request for proposals (RFP) from student teams for a competition to design a transformative learning environment for A&AA. In May, the finalists were announced.

The United States Society for Education Through Art has awarded UO Senior Vice Provost Doug Blandy its National Ziegfeld Award for his research in arts education.

The A&AA community continues to take steps toward creating its future home on University Street. The location of the Phase I A&AA building is on the site of the current McArthur Court. To help keep interested constituents and stakeholders informed, a blog has been created to follow the progress of the “Phase I A&AA Learning and Innovation Hub” capital project. Here you can view documents and design studies that outline the design process, including reports, timeline, and correspondence.