The Department of Art History and Art offers opportunities to study art history, to participate in a broad range of studio offerings and to engage in pre-professional museum training. The Bachelor of Arts degree is granted in art history and in pre-architecture. In addition, the department offers graduate programs leading to the degrees of Master of Arts in art history, in art history and museum studies; and the Doctor of Philosophy in art history.
All art programs are considerably enhanced by close cooperation with and access to the facilities of cultural institutions located in University Circle, in particular The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cleveland Institute of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland.
The Cleveland Museum of Art/CWRU Art History Program has been in existence since 1967. The museum’s curators serve as adjunct faculty, and graduate research projects under their direction often result in exhibitions and publications. The museum Studies course and internships provide experience in curatorial practices, connoisseurship, conservation, design, and museum education, and the program has a history of producing leaders in the museum field. Graduate students are exposed to both traditional and newer theoretically based art historical approaches in classes taught by faculty renowned for their expertise in a diversity of fields.
News
Year-end message from Elina Gertsman, the Acting Chair of Art History and Art
It was a true privilege to shepherd the department during this academic year. Despite all the complexities, we have accomplished astonishing things! Both our faculty members and our graduate students garnered extremely competitive fellowships and awards, organized international conferences, spoke at a broad variety of venues, published widely, and curated exhibitions. Our studio artists, in turn, exhibited their work across the United States. Our lecture series brought extraordinary scholars to campus; the Graduate Association for Medieval Studies and the Undergraduate Art History Club held a series of fabulous events; and the Cleveland Symposium, which celebrated its 50th anniversary, was a rousing success.
This year two new faculty members joined our ranks, and we are excited to welcome a new colleague, a specialist in medieval Japanese art, in the fall. Congratulations to our BA and MA graduates, and kudos to our PhD students who secured important curatorial appointments this year! In turn, Barney Taxel retired at the conclusion of this semester, and we are tremendously grateful for his years of service to the Art Studio program.
It was wonderful to celebrate everyone at our end-of-the-year party. I hope you have a magnificent conclusion to this academic year and a glorious summer!
Tracing Jewish Histories Blog Post
Tracing Jewish Histories blog post is now live! In addition to a detailed description of the Courtauld conference, it contains a link to recordings of both days of talks. Read it here! Once again, congratulations to Reed on organizing this fantastic endeavor and to Sam, Claudia, Sarah, Tess, Darren, and Alli for chairing and moderating!
Art History in Action: Erin Benay is at the forefront of redefining humanities education
The Department is delighted to celebrate the accomplishments of Prof. Erin Benay, Director of Undergraduate Studies and Distinguished Scholar in the Public Humanities--her work was profiled in a full feature in the Spring issue of THINK Magazine, CWRU's flagship publication. Click here to view the feature. Pressing Matters, a...
New course! Issues in the Art of Japan: Transformations in Medieval Visual Culture (ARTH 341/441)
This course will explore developments in medieval Japanese art, starting with the rise of cloistered imperial rule in the eleventh century and ending in the sixteenth century with the violent upheaval of the Sengoku era. From the expressive formations of wood sculpture, to the flowing brushwork of ink painting, and the crackling surfaces of tea ware, students will consider how visual culture embodied this dynamic period in Japanese history. We will begin with an introduction to major historical and cultural movements in Japan’s middle ages, considering the impact of art across social strata. Subsequent class sessions will delve into central themes that shape contemporary understandings of medieval art, including intercultural exchange, materiality and the natural world, and intersections of healing and image-making practices.
The Department of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) invites current and recent graduate students in art history and related disciplines to submit paper abstracts for the 2025 Annual Cleveland Symposium, Love and Desire in the Visual Arts, July 21, 2025. Held in partnership with the Cleveland Museum of Art as part of the joint program between CWRU and CMA, the Cleveland Symposium is one of the longest-running annual art history symposia in the United States organized by graduate students. This year’s symposium welcomes innovative research papers that explore themes of love and desire as manifested in any medium as well as in any historical period and geographic location. Please click below for more information!
Reed O’Mara convenes an international symposium at the Courtauld Institute
Scholars and curators of medieval and early modern Jewish art, museology, and provenance convened in London two weeks ago to participate in the international two-day symposium Tracing Jewish Histories: The Long Lives of Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts, Judaica, and Architecture. The symposium took place in London at The Courtauld Institute of Art and was co-organized by Reed O’Mara (Mellon Fellow and PhD candidate at CWRU) and Laura Feigen (PhD candidate at The Courtauld). As a part of the program, speakers were invited to handle Judaica from the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum with V&A curator Alice Minter. The symposium covered a wide array of subjects, from synagogue architecture to manuscript illumination to the curation and collecting of Judaica, uncovering the complex histories of studying historic Jewish objects and spaces. CWRU and Courtauld graduate students took on roles as chairs and moderators for sessions, and Professor Elina Gertsman served as the primary advisor to Reed and Laura throughout the course of their symposium planning. The symposium was sponsored by the Department of Art History and Art at CWRU, Sam Fogg, the Mellon Foundation, and The Medieval Academy of America Graduate Student Committee Grant for Innovation in Community Building and Professionalization. A recording of the symposium will go live on The Courtauld’s website in the next week!
The department is delighted to announce the publication of Scent and Sense in Medieval Material Culture, edited by Prof. Elina Gertsman. This collection of essays explores images and objects that take smells as their predicates, directing the inquiry on their tropological and often paradoxical meanings, and on their place in the medieval economy of remembrance and reflection. The volume, a guest-edited issue of Convivium, gathers essays drawing from several religious cultures of the global medieval world—Buddhist, Jewish, Christian (both western and eastern), Islamic—and offers a broad temporal span of several centuries. Among the featured authors are Sonya Rhie Mace, the George P. Bickford Curator of Indian and Southeast Asian Art at the CMA, and Reed O’Mara, the department’s Mellon Fellow and doctoral student in medieval art.
Arielle Suskin awarded Research Grant from the Decorative Arts Trust
Congratulations to doctoral candidate Arielle Suskin, who has been awarded a Research Grant from the Decorative Arts Trust. The grant will support her summer research to travel to multiple U.S. museums as part of her dissertation research, which explores the social meanings of Roman bronze figural balsamaria, an ancient vessel...
The Joint Program / GAMS at the Medieval Congress
Members of the CWRU community took the International Congress on Medieval Studies by storm! Rebekkah Hart and Cecily Hughes co-organized a session “Scales of Devotion,” which featured a talk by Gerhard Lutz; Reed O’Mara led an online session on Jewish Women in the Middle Ages; Sarah Frisbie organized two sessions on medieval graffiti; and Prof. Gertsman put together two sessions on medieval materialities, one of which featured Zoe Appleby’s paper on Palermo’s lava stones. Tess Artis, Cecily, Sarah, and Rebekkah also presented papers in various sessions: on the CMA’s macabre double portrait, on sacrament niches, on the Beatus apocalypse, and on the seven sacraments fonts, respectively. Claudia Haines, Anna Farber, Rachel Sweeney as well as Sarah, Rebekkah, and Cecily helped prof. Gertsman run a day-long set of Immersive Realms HoloLens demos, brought to Kalamazoo by the fabulous Peter Gao and Anna Faxon. The gang was joined, at various times, by the alumni Laura Rybicki and Julia LaPlaca, and KSL’s digital preservation librarian and an avid member of GAMS Alyssa Pierce. And the famous book exhibit was greatly enriched by the presence of Nikki DeLuca’s freshly published book on shadows in medieval manuscripts!
Congratulations to Clara Pinchbeck, a fifth-year PhD candidate, has been selected as the Fall 2025 Graduate Research Intern in Antique, Byzantine, and Medieval Textiles at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston! Clara will collaborate with Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, Penny Vinik Chair of Fashion, Textiles, and Jewelry, to examine, catalogue,...
The Department of Art History and Art is delighted to announce the hire of Dr. Rachel Quist, who will be joining CWRU in the fall. Dr. Quist specializes in Buddhist visual culture of medieval Japan, and is especially interested in the interactions between Buddhist icons, their worshipers, and their natural environs. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Kansas with the dissertation “Forging Bonds through Icons and Ritual: Imperial Patronage of Daigoji,” which illuminates the centrality of sculptural icons within the complex interplay of medicinal rituals, imperial politics, and the cosmic worldview of premodern Japan.
Announcing Baker-Nord Faculty Fellowship!
Dr. Andrea Wolk Rager, Associate Professor in the Department of Art History & Art, has been awarded the Baker-Nord Institute Faculty Fellowship for the 2025-2026 academic year! She will be taking this teaching and service release in the spring 2026 semester to devote time to her new book manuscript, Canary in the Coal...