Join us in congratulating Gray Danforth for her award, the Phi Beta Kappa/Albert S. Borgman Memorial Prize, awarded to the CAS candidates for honors who submit the best honors theses in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.
Professor Jon Ritter was her thesis adviser. He had this to say about Gray and her paper in his nomination:
In her honors thesis, Gray examines the 20th century Japanese experience in St. Louis, Missouri, through a wide range of evidence and approaches. In her first locus of investigation, the 1904 World’s Fair, Gray presents familiar material in new ways through her thoughtful reading of nationalist agendas and public receptions. Her work shows great originality in her next chapter, where she traces the legacy of the fair in the lived experience of the dispersed Issei population that remained in St. Louis after 1904. In documenting this group through meticulous research and mapping of census data and news accounts, Gray has quite literally discovered a community overlooked by urban historians. Her analysis offers convincing reasons for this gap in historical recognition, while giving form to this group by accounting for its physical distribution and the distinct experiences of the lives lived in these places. The third chapter treats what is perhaps the best-known group of the Issei and Nisei in St. Louis, the architects drawn to Washington University in the post-World War II years. By contextualizing their Modernist professional practice within her framing of the earlier experience and reception of Japanese in St. Louis, however, Gray is able to provide new insight into the work and aspirations of this post-Internment, or Incarceration, generation. Gray’s conclusion develops her contextual approach further, showing how the construction of a Japanese landscape in the late 20th and early 21st centuries reflects the return of repressed identities in our own era, characterized as it is by concepts of heritage and authenticity. Throughout this thesis, Gray provides generous context and analysis to bring the reader along with her argument. Overall, I admire the sophistication Gray brings to this ambitious thesis, which is comparable to those submitted by graduate students completing our M.A. in Historical and Sustainable Architecture.
As her adviser, I have been particularly impressed with Gray’s resourcefulness and flexibility in her methods throughout this difficult year. She shows great ability to adapt her approaches to the information and material available and to the issues she discovered through close engagement with her subject, even when unable to travel or to visit archives under covid restrictions. Rather than trying to align her research with initial ideas about the post-World War II generation of Japanese American architects in St. Louis, Gray was able to refocus her work several times to incorporate new questions, leading her to a much wider scope and to new interpretations as she worked through her material. Her archival work in particular stands out in a time when libraries and archives have been closed.
The Department of Art History congratulates Serena Ponciano, the inaugural recipient of the Summer in the City Student Fund for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Serena (seen here recently representing the Fremin Gallery at Affordable Art Fair NYC) will be interning throughout the summer, aiding in writing, art handling, and gallery management and expects to graduate from the DAH in spring 2022.
The fund was created to assist BIPOC students with their summer living expenses. The fund provides a one-time $2,500 grant to support the student while interning over the summer. The only requirements are that the student is majoring in Art History and/or URDS and obtains a summer internship in the field. The internship can be in any facet of the art world. With many summer internships offering little or no financial reimbursement, the intent of this fund is to help BIPOC students — including international students attending NYU — embrace these opportunities and to diversify the art community from the ground up.
Sydney Brinker (B.A. Journalism/Art History/Politics ’22) was elected to Phi Beta Kappa this year.
Sasha Carnes (B.A. Art History ’23) published an essay titled “Progressive Deaccessioning: A Step Towards Museum Parity” in Ink & Image 13 this year.
Emma Carrig (B.A. Art History ’22) received the H.W. Janson Scholarship, presented to a junior major for excellence in the study of the history of art.
Molly Chang (B.A. Art History ’21) received a Faculty Choice Award from the Department of Art History.
Gabby Chinea (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) received a Faculty Choice Award from the Department of Art History and Program for Urban Design and Architecture Studies.
Janet Chuang (B.A. Art History ’21) successfully defended her honors thesis, which she wrote under the supervision of Professor Pepe Karmel. Janet will begin the NYU Steinhardt Masters program in Visual Arts Administration this fall.
Carlos Cojab (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) will begin the program in M.S. Real Estate in Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) this fall.
Jalen Colbert (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) will begin the M.F.A. program at CalArts this fall.
Grace (Gray) Danforth (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) successfully defended her honors thesis, which she wrote under the supervision of Professor Jon Ritter. Gray’s thesis earned the Albert S. Borgman Prize for Best Thesis in the Humanities. Gray also received a Faculty Choice Award from the Department of Art History and Program for Urban Design and Architecture Studies.
Davis Dunham (B.A. Art History ’21) received a Faculty Choice Award from the Department of Art History.
Kristen Ealy (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Willa Gegelman (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) successfully defended her honors thesis, which she wrote under the supervision of Professor Jon Ritter. Willa was awarded a CAS Deans Undergraduate Research Fund Grant this academic year.
Shelley Gregg (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Gianni Grieco (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) successfully defended his honors thesis, which he wrote under the supervision of Professor Jon Ritter.
Hyugjoo Han (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) received a Faculty Choice Award from the Department of Art History and Program for Urban Design and Architecture Studies.
Weiting Hong (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) will begin the M.S. program in Data Science and Real Estate at Cornell Tech. this fall.
Nicole Hunt (B.A. Art History ’21) received a Faculty Choice Award from the Department of Art History.
Lucía Iglesias (B.A. Art History/Medieval and Renaissance Studies ’21) was awarded an internship at the Met Cloisters this spring. Lucía has been working with Assistant Curator Andrea Achi, who is planning a new exhibition at the Cloisters that displays Ethiopian artworks of the twelfth through fifteenth centuries, focusing on the connections between Ethiopia and Europe during this period. The internship has been extended into the summer, so Lucía will get to work in person with the curatorial staff of the Met Cloisters.
Oliver Jacob (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) will begin the M.Arch. Program at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) this fall.
Honglu Jiang (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Raisy Jrada (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’22) received the Kayla Stotzky Memorial Award from NYU’s Dept. of Art History and Program for Urban Design and Architecture Studies. The award is presented to an outstanding junior in our Urban Design and Architecture Studies program.
Max Kingsley (B.A. Art History ’21) received the Sam Gates Art History Award, presented to an outstanding graduating student in the field of art history. Max also was elected to Phi Beta Kappa this year.
Kristine Klein (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Daniel Kuzinez (B.A. Art History ’21) successfully defended his honors thesis, which he wrote under the supervision of Professor Julia Robinson. Daniel was a co-president of the Fine Arts Society this year and received a Faculty Choice Award from the Department of Art History.
Anna Sujin Leckie (B.A. Art History ’21) received a Faculty Choice Award from the Department of Art History. Anna was a co-editor-in-chief of Ink & Image 13 and a co-president of the Fine Arts Society this year.
Zoe Lee (B.A. Art History ’21) received a Faculty Choice Award from the Department of Art History.
Niall Lowrie (B.A. Art History; Studio Art minor ’22) was a co-editor-in-chief of Ink & Image 13 this year.
Ann Lukyanova (B.A. Art History; Business Studies minor ’21) was a co-editor of Ink & Image 13 this year.
Jennifer Meyer (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Emma Nicholson (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Marie Normand (B.A. Art History; Chemistry and Studio Art minors ’21) successfully defended her honors thesis, which she wrote under the supervision of Professor Dennis Geronimus. Marie was a co-editor and a design editor of Ink & Image 13 this year.
Alisa Nurmansyah (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ‘21) was awarded a CAS Deans Undergraduate Research Fund Grant this academic year. Alisa will begin the Masters program in Urban Planning in Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) this fall.
Mari Otsu (B.A. Art History/Psychology/French/Global Liberal Studies, with a concentration in Arts & Literatures; minors in Studio Art and Child & Adolescent Mental Health Studies ’21) received the Department of Art History’s Douglas F. Maxwell Award, presented to a graduating senior for excellence in the study of art history, for travel outside of the USA to see and study original works of art. Mari also was awarded a CAS Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund Grant to support her project, “Sketching the Fin-de-Siècle Self: Embodied Identity in the Self-Portraiture of Albrecht Dürer and Egon Schiele.” Mari was named this year’s Herman J. Wechsler Research Scholar in Fine Arts and presented her research (remotely) for this project at this year’s virtual Undergraduate Research Conference. Mari also presented a paper titled “Becoming Eternal: Bodily Metamorphosis in East Asian Corpse Chrysalides” at the University of Toronto Art History Symposium; this same paper was published in U of T’s art history journal. Additionally, her paper, “Restoring Integrity: How Kintsugi-ware Encapsulates the Vicissitudes of Time” was published in NYU’s Ink & Image 13.
Banessa Ramirez (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Clara Reed (B.A. Art History/BFA Tisch Photo; Hellenic Studies minor ’21) successfully defended her honors thesis, which she wrote under the supervision of Professor Shelley Rice. Clara was the recipient of the Barbara and Ben Aliza Award, presented to a deserving graduating art history major whose NYU studies have been multidisciplinary, and who has demonstrated a commitment to seeing the world through many prisms. In addition, Clara was a co-editor and a design editor of Ink & Image 13 this year.
Suzanne Ries (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Jaiden Sanchez (B.A. Art History ’22) was a member of the e-board of Ink & Image ’13 this year.
Mauro Schenone (B.A. Art History ’21) received the Jane Costello Memorial Award, presented to a graduating senior for excellence in the study of the history of art.
Arezoo Shalchian (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Arvind Sindhawani (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) was the recipient of the Ada Louise Huxtable Award from NYU’s Department of Art History and Program for Urban Design and Architecture Studies. The prize is presented to an outstanding graduating senior with the highest grade-point average and most promise for future success in the field of Urban Design and Architecture.
Eleanor Spruill (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Sara Stackhouse (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Ying Su (B.A. Art History ’21) received a Faculty Choice Award from the Department of Art History.
Katie Svensson (B.A. Art History ’21) successfully defended her honors thesis, which she wrote under the supervision of Professor Meredith Martin.
Joe Tuano (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) successfully defended his honors thesis, which he wrote under the supervision of Professor Mosette Broderick. Joe was elected to Phi Beta Kappa this year and was a co-recipient of the College of Arts and Science Alumni Award in the Humanities. He also was awarded a CAS Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund Grant, and received a Faculty Choice Award from the Department of Art History and Program for Urban Design and Architecture Studies.
Mariah Trujillo (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’22) was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Natalie White (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) will begin NYU’s MA program in Historical and Sustainable Architecture this fall. Natalie was awarded a Jill Lever Memorial Tuition Scholarship by NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science.
Ryan Wilkinson (B.A. Metropolitan Studies/Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’21) will begin the University of Toronto’s MSc in Planning this coming fall.
Sang “Sunnie” Zhang (B.A. Art History/Psychology ’21) was a co-editor of Ink & Image 13 this year.
Leo Zhu (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’23) was awarded a NYU Gallatin Global Fellowship this year.
We have more great news to report from our alumni! Many thanks again to those who responded to the call for news and who contributed to or corrected this post, and hearty congratulations to all of our alumni on their achievements. The next post will appear in fall, 2021.
Sara J. Oshinsky (B.A. Art History ’96; M.A. History of Decorative Arts and Design, Cooper-Hewitt/Parsons ’05) was invited to participate in The Preservation Society of Newport County/Newport Mansion’s upcoming online lecture series, “Creativity from Crisis: Design in Times of Need.” Sara will be presenting on April 22 at 1:00 PM on “Disease & Décor: How Epidemics Shaped the Look of the Victorian Middle-Class Bedroom.”
Sara Allain-Botsford (B.A. Art History ’09) sends this news: “I’m currently working as an intern at Louvre Abu Dhabi in the Research Department while finishing the Master’s in History of Art and Museum Studies at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi. I am also a certified yoga instructor. During the summer months I started teaching yoga online with an online studio, the Mindful Life Practice Community.”
Ksenia Nouril (B.A. Art History ’09; Ph.D. Rutgers University ’18), who is Jensen Bryan Curator at The Print Center in Philadelphia, was one of ten early-career curators from the United States, Japan, and Germany named a Mentee for 2020 by The Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC).
Ashley Lehrer (B.A. Art History/B.F.A. Experimental Theater, Tisch School of the Arts ’11) will complete her Masters of Science in Parson’s Design and Urban Ecologies program in May. She will continue her thesis work at her partner organization, Universe City NYC, as the Strategic Design and Project Manager. There, Ashley is helping to build a regenerative food economy in East New York, Brooklyn.
Alicia Caticha (B.A. Art History ’12; M.A. Art and Architectural History, University of Virginia ’15; Ph.D. Art and Architectural History, University of Virginia ’20) began a position as Assistant Professor of Art History at Northwestern University in September, 2020. As her bio notes, Alicia specializes in “eighteenth-century sculpture and decorative arts, “with a particular focus on the intersection between Enlightenment aesthetic theory and artisanal production outside of the academic sphere.” Her book project, derived from her doctoral dissertation and tentatively titled “Sculpting Whiteness: Marble, Porcelain, and Sugar in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” focuses on the career of the eighteenth-century French sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet and “the replications and reverberations of his work in marble, porcelain, and sugar.”
Kaylee Alexander (B.A. Art History, ‘13; M.A. History of Art & Architecture ’15, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU) recently completed her Ph.D. in Art History and Visual Culture at Duke University, having successfully defended her dissertation, “In Perpetuity: Funerary Monuments, Consumerism and Social Reform in Paris, 1804–1924,” in February, 2021. She is now working on revising the dissertation for publication. In 2020, Kaylee published an article related to her dissertation in Early Popular Visual Cultureand, in March, 2021, she presented some of her work at the Middle Atlantic Symposium in the History of Art, co-sponsored by the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. For the 2020-21 academic year Kaylee is working as the Eleonore Jantz Reference Intern at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. She additionally serves as an at-large board member for the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art, spearheading their new Emerging Scholars Working Group, and as an editorial board member for the Collective for Radical Death Studies. Kaylee co-chaired a panel at the CAA annual conference earlier this year on “Death in Visual Culture, Visual Cultures of Death (1800-present).” More information about Kaylee’s work can be found on her website.
Marlee Miller (B.A. Classics/Art History ’13), currently a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art and Archaeology at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, was awarded the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2021-2022 Marica and Jan Vilcek Fellowship. Marlee will use her fellowship award to examine the artistic representation of gladiatorial training and its relationship to the architecture of the gladiatorial training school, emphasizing function and social hierarchy.
Emily Young (B.A. Urban Design and Architectures Studies ’14) will begin the M.Arch program at Pratt Institute this fall.
Kola Ofoman (B.A. Urban Design & Architecture Studies ’16) completed her Master in Architecture at the Yale School of Architecture. Since 2019 she has been an Architectural Professional at Skidmore Owings & Merrill in New York.
Emma Holter (B.A. Art History ’17) recently began a position as a research assistant at Sotheby’s in the Impressionist and Modern Art Department. “I’m working closely with the two co-Heads of the Department in organizing the evening and day sales,” Emma reports. “On my first day, I was introduced to Amy Cappelazzo (B.A. Art History ’89) who I was thrilled to learn is a fellow NYU DAH alumna!” Previously Emma was Curatorial Assistant to the Chief Curator at the Frick Collection, and before that, Administrative Assistant in the Office of the Chief Curator at the Frick. This coming fall Emma will begin the Masters program at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, and will pursue their Renaissance option.
Sarah Mackay (B.A. Art History ’17) will begin the Masters program at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London this coming fall, and will pursue their Renaissance option.
Xiaoli Shirley Pan (B.A. Art History ’17) completed the concentrated Masters program in Religion and the Arts (visual arts) in Yale University’s Divinity School last year. In fall, 2020 she began the Ph.D. program in Art History at Case Western Reserve University, where she is studying medieval art with Elina Gertsman. As her bio states, Shirley is interested in “late medieval sculpture and its relationship to the pictorial arts during the time when oil painting began to gain supremacy over the plastic arts.”
Rebekah Coffman’s (M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’18) recent essay, “The Sacred Shift: Expanding Heritage Narratives through Adaptive Reuse,” earned a commendation from The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB). It was an entry for the Society’s James Morris Prize, “Awarded to the best essay submitted in competition that uses postcolonial critical approaches to architecture and the British Empire, aimed at students, academics and professionals in architectural history, heritage and conservation practice.”
Luming Guan (B.A. Art History ’18) will complete the M.A. program in Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University this spring. She is writing a Masters thesis on the Late Gothic vaults in the parish church in Ingolstadt, Bavaria. Luming has been accepted to the Ph.D. program in History of Art at the University of Cambridge, where she will study Northern Renaissance art and write a doctoral thesis provisionally titled “Artists as Tricksters: Jokes and Humor in the Art of Hans Baldung and Urs Graf” under the supervision of Alexander Marr. Luming will begin her studies in the U.K. Michaelmas Term 2021 (begins 5 October 2021).
Kevin Tang (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’18) was accepted to Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). He will begin the M.S. program in Architecture and Urban Design this coming fall.
Danny Balough (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies’19) will begin the Masters program in International Relations at the University of Chicago this coming fall.
Maame Boatemaa (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’19) will begin the Masters program in City Planning at the University of California, Berkeley this fall, and will be a member of the Luce Scholars Program in the 2021-22 academic year.
J.P. Scanlon (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’19) will begin the M.A. in NYU’s Historical and Sustainable Architecture program this fall.
Julius David Venuti (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’19) will begin the Masters in Urban Planning program in the Weitzman School of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania, this fall.
Sabina Vitale (B.A. Art History ’19) held an internship with the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation internship program in Venice in November and December. Sabina writes, “Despite the museum being closed, it was a wonderful experience, as I got to spend more intimate time with the collection and archives and enjoy an empty Venice.” Now she is back in the U.S. and, while job-hunting, she is contributing arts and culture coverage to an online-only publication called Air Mail. Here is Sabina’s piece on the exhibition “Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint,” scheduled to open on May 17th at The British Museum. Sabina studied the cult of Thomas Becket, including the Becket miracle windows in Canterbury Cathedral, in Professor Smith’s “Gothic Art in Northern Europe” course in spring, 2019.
Talia Abrahams (B.A. Art History ’20) was accepted to the Masters program in the History of Art at Williams College. She will begin her studies this coming fall. Take the opportunity to read Talia’s recent article, “Voices of a Kong Power Object,” published in issue 12 of the online journal Witty Partition.
Laura Barlow (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’20) will begin the M.S. program in Construction Administration at Columbia University this fall.
Talia Bush (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’19; M.A. Historical and Sustainable Architecture ’20) received the inaugural Margaret Richardson, OBE, Award for an Outstanding Thesis in the Field of Architectural History for her thesis, “From the Ashes, She Will Rise: Assessing Reconstruction Approaches to Notre Dame de Paris after the Fire of April 2019 and the Importance of Structural Engineering in the Gothic Vernacular.” Currently Talia is a volunteer at Taliesin Preservation, WI, and a Cataloguer in the Impressionist and Modern Art Department at Sotheby’s New York. She recently published an article titled “Wright’s Influence in Fairfield & Westchester Counties” in Antiques and the Arts Weekly (September 25, 2020).
Max Chavez (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’20), who was awarded the Gavin Stamp Memorial Thesis Prize, has been named the first Director of Research and Special Projects at Preservation Chicago, an organization dedicated to “protect[ing] and revitaliz[ing] Chicago’s irreplaceable architecture, neighborhoods and urban green spaces.”
Emily Conklin (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’20) will begin the M.S. program in Preservation in Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) this fall.
Danielle Elbaum (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’20) was accepted to NYU’s Schack Institute (SPS), and will begin the Masters program in Real Estate this fall.
Naomi Metzger (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’20) will begin the M.Arch. program at Parsons/The New School this fall.
Julia Mines (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’20) will begin the M.A. in NYU’s Historical and Sustainable Architecture program this fall.
Edgar Rodriguez (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’20) will begin the
M.Arch. program at Pratt Institute this fall.
Shawn C. Simmons (B.A. Art History; Urban Design and Architecture Studies minor ’20) will begin the Masters program in Art History at the University of Colorado at Boulder this coming fall. While pursuing his studies Shawn will have the opportunity to TA for an undergraduate survey course.
David Zhang (B.A. Urban Design and Architecture Studies ’20) will begin the M.Arch. in Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) this fall.
Ray Zhong (B.A. Art History ’20) will begin the Masters program in Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement (XE) in NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science this fall.
Kudos to the Fine Arts Society for sponsoring a year of exciting activities, even in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Fine Arts Society is the CAS student club of the Department of Art History and Program for Urban Design and Architecture Studies. The goal of the Society is the creation of a community of NYU students interested in art, art history, and visual culture. Through visits to museums and galleries both within and without New York City, as well as walking tours, lectures, symposia, and film screenings, the Fine Arts Society brings art history majors and non-majors together, with lively discussions.
Tremendous thanks and hearty congratulations go to all of the club’s officers and board members for their enthusiasm, commitment, and creativity during this challenging academic year. This year’s officers are Co-presidents Anna Sujin Leckie and Daniel Kuzinez, both Art History majors and graduating seniors (congratulations!). Lux Blum, a sophomore in Gallatin, was Social Chair, while junior Art History major Jaiden Sanchez, senior Mathematics major Fahy Gao, and Gallatin sophomore Maddie Ericksson served on the Society’s Executive Board. Great thanks also go to Professor Michele Matteini, who served again this year as the club’s faculty advisor.
The Society hosted a number of virtual events in fall. Officers kicked off the new academic year with a general meeting, followed by a tour of the Frick Collection, a virtual viewing and discussion of the TEFAF (The European Fine Art Foundation) fair (November 1), a Fine Arts Society Art Quiz (December 8), and a Metropolitan Museum of Art Highlights Tour (February 4).
The Society’s rich roster of spring, 2021 activities included an event on “Race, Gender, and Intermedia Art Practice in Paris c. 1900” organized by Jaiden (February 26); a Kamoinge Workshop Talk by Lux (March 3); a viewing of FIAC (International Contemporary Art Fair), with discussion led by Lux (March 6); analysis by Professor Matteini of Christie’s Asian Auction Week Highlights, an event organized by Daniel and Anna (March 16); and a virtual tour of the Armory Show led by Fahy (March 28). Daniel organized a reading by Professor Pepe Karmel from his new book, Abstract Art: A Global History (April 1). Jaiden led a virtual tour of the Indigenous Art Show at the Museum of Indian Arts (April 10), while Anna and Maddie led the David Hockney virtual tour at the Morgan Library at the end of the month (April 29). The Society closed out the year on May 6 with its popular Career Symposium, organized by co-presidents Anna and Daniel.
Thanks again go to all involved in the Fine Arts Society for making this unusual year such a success.
Fields of Vision 