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
Alumna update from Dr. Angie Verduci
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Angie Verduci, who defended her dissertation on medieval Triumph of Death murals in 2023, has been appointed to teach in the International Curriculum at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy. Offered twice each year to students from around the world,...
Rachel Sweeney, third-year PhD student in medieval art, was this year's recipient of the Terence Barry Prize for Best Graduate Paper in Irish Medieval Studies from the American Society for Irish Medieval Studies. Her paper, "The Faddan More Psalter: Tangible Connections Between the Insular World and Byzantium," was originally written...
The Department of Art History and Art is delighted to announce the publication of Animalities and Humanities in Medieval Jewish Art, a special issue of Ars Judaica co-edited by Prof. Elina Gertsman. In addition to a broad range of articles, the volume features a roundtable discussion that explores historical and ecological spectra of...
Congratulations to all the speakers, chairs, and organizers at the International Congress on Medieval Studies! Case Western Reserve--its faculty, its affiliates, its students, and its alumni--were amply represented this year. Thank you, as always, for making us proud, and for paving the way for the annual meeting of the...
Congratulations to Clara Pinchbeck! She’ll be at the Getty for the next two years.
PhD candidate Clara Pinchbeck has accepted a two-year Research Assistant position at the Getty Research Institute. Working under Dr. Nancy Um, Associate Director for Research and Knowledge Creation, Clara will focus on long-term digital projects within a division that encompasses the Getty Provenance Index, the Getty Vocabulary Program, and...
Art Studio Minor, Isabella Montemore has been selected as a recipient of The 2026 Baker-Nord Institute for the Humanities Prize for Excellence in a SAGES Capstone Project or Senior Paper in the Humanities for your project “The ‘Synthesis’ Event: Using Synesthesia to Improve Inclusivity in the Arts."
Ph.D. Candidate | Dept. of Art History and Art, Arielle Suskin
Coin exhibition CWRU news article