Elizabeth S. Bolman
Elizabeth S. Bolman is Chair of the Department of Art History and Art, and Elsie B. Smith Chair in the Liberal Arts. She engages with the visual culture of the eastern Mediterranean in the late ancient and Byzantine periods. Professor Bolman is best known for her work in Egypt, in which she has demonstrated the vitality of Christian Egyptian art and a new understanding of the nature of artistic production there in the early Byzantine period. She edited and was the principal contributor to the award-winning Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St. Antony at the Red Sea (Yale University Press and the American Research Center in Egypt, 2002) and to The Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt (Yale University Press and the American Research Center in Egypt, 2016). This recent book is the product of over a decade-long multidisciplinary project that she founded and directed, which included cleaning and conservation of the Red Monastery’s spectacular paintings. She is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, Fulbright program, National Endowment for the Humanities, Dumbarton Oaks, American Research Center in Egypt, and United States Agency for International Development.
Recent Department News
Professor Elina Gertsman Awarded Distinguished University Professor at Convocation
Congratulations to our very own Professor Elina Gertsman for her appointment as Distinguished University Professor, the highest distinction granted to faculty at CWRU. Professor Gertsman is not only the youngest faculty member at CWRU to ever be awarded this title—she is also the first professor from our department and the second woman in all of the humanities. Read more and see more photos by clicking below!
Emma Zavodny to be Kiethley Fellow in Community-Engaged Art History
We are delighted to announce that MA candidate Emma Zavodny will be the 4th annual Keithley Fellow in Community-Engaged Art History!
Sarah Frisbie awarded a Medieval Academy Grant
Congratulations to Sarah Frisbie, a first-year MA student in medieval art, who was awarded a Medieval Academy/CARA Summer Scholarship to attend the University of Tennessee-Knoxville’s MARCO Summer Latin Program! Sarah with spend eight weeks in an intensive virtual study of Medieval Latin, reading and translating texts from various medieval...
Photography Minor and Classes
Please click on the following link to learn more about our Photography Minor and classes!
Undergraduate Research Showcase
Please join us for the annual Undergraduate Research Showcase on Friday, April 19 from 12:45-2:00 in Mather 100. Refreshments will be served!
Sarah Lavin to join Winterthur program in Art Conservation at the University of Delaware
We are thrilled to announce that Sarah Lavin, MA class of 2023, will be joining the prestigious Winterthur program in Art Conservation at the University of Delaware this fall! Sarah held positions in conservation at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Intermuseum Conservation Association and attended the San Gemini School of Preservation Studies in Italy. Congratulations Sarah!
Zoe Appleby wins the 2024 Vagantes Prize!
Congratulations to Zoe Appleby, second-year PhD student in medieval and Byzantine art, whose paper, "Materials in Dialogue with an Aqueous Landscape: Marble, Glass, and Shell in San Vitale, Ravenna," won the 2024 Vagantes Paper Prize! Her work was praised by the selection committee for its complexity, depth, originality, and...
The International Center for Medieval Art News just published a wonderful feature penned by Reed O’Mara and Ariella Har-Even on their FUSE collaboration — with a great shoutout to the department, our medieval studies program, GAMS, and our marvelous colleagues at the CMA. Many of us benefited from the fantastic enameling workshop Ariella and Reed masterminded, and we look forward to more!
Ruth Bryant’s, Vivian Lewis’s, and Maddy Fox’s Papers Accepted into the 2024 SUNY New Paltz Undergraduate Art History Symposium
Ruth’s paper, “Analyzing the Torah Shield: Understanding the Abundance of Animal Imagery through the Zohar,” aims to explain the unusual presence of abundant animal imagery on a Boston MFA Torah shield through the relevance of the Zohar. Vivian’s paper, “Royal Family Feud: Cordelia Parting from her Sisters as a Pre-Raphaelite Social Commentary,” delves into Ford Madox Brown’s 1854 painting Cordelia Parting from her Sisters, now housed at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Maddy’s paper, “The Adoption of Aesthetics: Borrowing Byzantium and Looking West in the Russian Romanesque,” seeks to address and expand the notion of amalgamation between the Byzantine and European tradition in Slavic architecture during the 12th century.
