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
Please join me in congratulating Susana Montañés-Lleras, whose dissertation, "The Sleeping Princess and the Creeping Briar: Book Illustration, Pictorial Language, and the Rhetoric of Fantasy" was unanimously and enthusiastically approved by her committee today! On behalf of my fellow committee members, Dr. Henry Adams, Dr. Britany Salsbury, and Dr....
Prof. Benay and Dr. Britany Salsbury--Curator of Prints and Drawings at the CMA--have won BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR from the International Fine Prints and Drawings Foundation for their exhibition catalogue Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community (Yale, 2025). The IFPDA Book Award "highlights and promotes published books, articles, or catalogues on fine...
Now Pitching! Congratulations to Prof. Benay and Dr. Ken Schneck, executive director of the Buckeye Flame, Ohio's only LGBTQ+ Newsroom, on the success of their pitch at Accelerate! They WON the Arts & Culture category!! Hosted by the Cleveland Leadership Center, Accelerate is an annual competition that funds innovative, non-profit...
Elina Gertsman receives highest teaching award in the field of art history
Congratulations to Prof. Gertsman, who received the 2026 Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award from the College Art Association (CAA)! Recipients are evaluated on several criteria, including Inspiration to a broad range of students who pursue humanities studies; rigorous intellectual standards; contributions to the advancement of knowledge and methodology...
Lighting Demo In Art Studio
Some of the curriculum developments in the Photo Minor and purchasing some new lighting and camera equipment, we were able to teach lighting for the first time here at CWRU. The students were enthusiastically engaged in the process and it was equally rewarding for Intructor Jerry Birchfield. Here is a...
Reed O'Mara joined Prof. Gertsman at the Ornamented Membranes conference in Cologne, the home of the bone-lined Golden Chamber as well as of the amazing Schnutgen and Wallraf-Richartz collections. They subsequently traveled to see some fantastic sites and objects: to Aachen, to explore the Palatine Chapel and the extraordinary Praymobil exhibition...
Art History Graduate Students Present at AIA
Earlier this month, students in the Joint Program past and present made an impressive showing at the Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
Monsters, Humans, and Those In Between
Art Studio Ceramics Intructor Benjamin Lambert Exhibit