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
Diekhoff Nominations Announced
Congratulations to Prof. Elina Gertsman and Prof. Maggie Popkin who were both nominated for the 2024-2025 John S. Diekhoff Award for Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring/Teaching! The award, created in 1978, recognizes exceptional contributions to graduate student education at CWRU through exemplary advising, teaching, and mentoring. Up to four winners...
Medieval Academy Round-up, Part II: Congrats, Cecily!
Cecily Hughes, third-year PhD student in medieval art, was awarded the coveted Graduate Student Paper Prize by the Medieval Academy of America! Cecily presented her award-winning paper, “A Place to Shine: Darkness and Light in a Medieval Swedish Sacrament Niche,” in the New Perspectives on Medieval Scandinavia session held on the second day of the Academy’s annual meeting at Harvard University. Congratulations, Cecily!
Medieval Academy Round-Up, Part I
Several grad students joined Prof. Gertsman at the Medieval Academy of America’s centennial meeting at Harvard University. Cecily Hughes delivered an award-winning paper in the session on Scandinavian art (more on that separately!). Claudia Haines reports that she had the opportunity to hear several fascinating papers (on topics ranging from the integration of music into the social fabric of thirteenth-century Lille, to the diaphanous pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels, to the construction of identity in Scandinavian literature, to narratives of enslavement in Iberia, and beyond), visit many of Boston’s fabulous libraries and museums, reconnect with familiar colleagues and meet new ones—all in all, it was a hugely enriching experience! Rebekkah Hart, in her capacity as a member of the MAA Graduate Student Committee, co-organized and co-chaired a panel on working across institutional and disciplinary boundaries. Sarah Frisbie had a wonderful time attending sessions on materiality, optics, and medieval epistemologies, cheering on Prof. Gertsman, Cecily, and Rebekkah, spending her lunch breaks in the Harvard Art Museums, and eating more than one cannoli. Anna Farber, for whom the MAA was her first conference, says that all the sessions, panels, and gallery visits she attended significantly improved her understanding of the diverse methodologies and subjects with which other medievalists are engaging in the field. Tess Artis, who presented her paper, “Prudent Giving: A Gold Girdle Book and the Rise of the Crokes Under Henry VIII,” at the RSA – held at the same time in the same city – nevertheless made her way to Cambridge to partake in several sessions. And Prof. Gertsman organized and chaired a session on “Form, Thought, and the Pleasure of Looking,” which featured Herbert Kessler, (Johns Hopkins), Megan McNamee (Edinburgh), Jeffrey Hamburger (Harvard), and Vincent Debiais (EHESS).
Tracing Jewish Histories Program is up!
We are tremendously proud to announce the Tracing Jewish Histories symposium, co-organized by Reed O’Mara, with sessions introduced and chaired by several of our graduate students! See the full program here.
Works of art and architecture made by or for Jewish communities in the medieval period are often examined through the lenses of persecution and expulsion, or are contrasted against Christian or Muslim “styles.” This symposium seeks to expand and nuance these narratives in order to highlight how works of art and architecture can uniquely trace the history of particular Jewish communities by mapping their movements and traditions across generations and geographies. Medieval Jewish objects and spaces can also serve as loci to examine ideas related to collective memory and cultural identity. To that end, the symposium seeks to open new dialogues regarding the “afterlives” of medieval Jewish art more broadly, initiating discussions regarding the ways in which works of art and architecture continued to bear witness to the richness of Jewish life and culture long after they were created.
Organised by Laura Feigen and Reed O’Mara, this symposium is supported by Sam Fogg and the Mellon Foundation with additional support from The Department of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University.
Congratulations to Prof. Benay, Dr. Britany Salsbury, and the graduate students who helped to curate the historic exhibition Karamu Artists Inc.: Printmaking, Race, and Community, which opened this weekend at the CMA. This is the first exhibition to feature the work of this important group of Black artists since the...
From Prints to Power 2025
SAVE THE DATE! Dr. Benay will examine relief prints created in the 1940s by Black artists whose contributions have been largely overlooked. By repositioning their work, Benay will illustrate how these artists helped foster an enduring Black art and collecting scene in Cleveland.
Professor Popkin Organizes Symposium in Greece
Professor Maggie Popkin and doctoral student Clara Pinchbeck (pictured here with Professor Tina Howe of the CWRU Religious Studies Department and Dr. Bonna Wescoat, Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens), recently presented paper at the symposium, "Three-Dimensional Experiences of Ancient Environments in Athens." The symposium...
Rebekkah Hart receives the Getty Internship
Congratulations to Rebekkah Hart, third-year PhD student in medieval art, who has been selected as the 2025-2026 Getty Graduate Intern in the Sculpture & Decorative Arts curatorial department! She will be working with an astounding collection devoted to European sculpture and decorative arts dating between around 1200 and 1900....