Dear Art History community,
What happens when you ask twelve hundred students to look carefully at a single work of art?
This issue of the newsletter profiles the Department’s innovative team-taught introductory course, “Monuments of Art History.” The course offers students across the university a rigorous grounding in art from antiquity to the present, with lectures by faculty members and tutorials led by teaching assistants. The popularity of this course shows students are hungry for serious engagement with the artistic traditions that have shaped civilizations.
This appetite shouldn’t surprise us. At a time when the world is saturated with images, the ability to look closely and think historically is more valuable than ever. Art history cultivates these capacities, propelling students into careers in museums, galleries, technology, publishing, education, and beyond. In this issue you will read about several of them, and about the teachers and librarians who make this education possible.
You’ll also read a tribute to the late Professor Maria Shaw, whose decades of fieldwork and mentorship helped establish the University of Toronto as a global center for Aegean archaeology. Her legacy reminds us that the best scholarship is also an act of generosity passed from one generation to the next.
This year, our Brieger Memorial Lecture entered its fifth decade, with a dialogue between two eminent scholars of mediaeval art, Paul Binski (University of Cambridge) and Elina Gertsman (Case Western Reserve University). Strengthening this lecture so it can continue bringing leading art historians to Toronto is a priority for the Department. Our University of Toronto–France Art History Collaboration continues to thrive, and dozens of students are preparing to study in France this summer through the undergraduate scholarship program. We are grateful to Fondation DRG for making these transformative opportunities possible.
Building a department that can offer all this takes sustained investment. If you value what we are doing, please consider a gift to support our students and our mission.
Thank you for being part of our community.
Warm regards,
Joseph L. Clarke
Chair, Department of Art History
