EOY Newsletter

Fall 2023- Spring 2024
HISTORY
OF ART &
ARCHITECTURE
Seasonal
Newsletter

Fall 2023
Spring &
Summer 2024
Editors
Carina Haden
Kat Procopio
Nancy Safian
Noah Saltzman

TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Publications
Sheila Bonde and
Evelyn Lincoln,
Retirement
Celebration
New Faculty
Spotlights
Faculty & Grad
Student Awards
Events
Summer Course
Instructor Profiles
New Grad Student
Profiles

ITOHAN
OSAYIMWESE
Department Chair, 23-26
Associate Professor of History
of Art and Architecture,
Urban Studies
Professor Osayimwese took on
the role of Chair in the summer
of 2023. Her research interests
include Modern Architectural
History & Theory, African
Architecture & Urbanism,
Colonial and Postcolonial
Designed and Built
Environments.
Her most recent book,
Colonialism and Modern
Architecture in Germany,
(University of Pittsburgh Press,
2017) considers the effects of
colonialism on the development
of modern architecture in
Germany from the 1850s until
the 1930s.
Currently, Osayimwese is
working on a new book project,
From Barbados to Boston, which
explores the transformative
effects of migration on Anglo-
Caribbean built environments
and societies after
Emancipation.

GRAD PUBLICATIONS
Mohadeseh Salari Sardari
Sardari’s article, “Andre
Godard and Maxime Siroux:
Disentangling the Narrative of
French Colonialism and
Modern Architecture in Iran"
was featured in Cambridge
University Press, Iranian Studies
Journal.
Feier Ying
Ying published writing
throughout 2023 and early
2024 with the Zhejiang
University Journal, a
translation for the MFA Boston,
as well as a contribution to the
catalog entry of the Southern
Paradise exhibition at the
Cleveland Art Museum.
ALUMNI PUBLICATIONS
Suzanne Scanlan (‘10)
Esther Pressoir: A Modern
Woman's Painter is the first book
to present and contextualize
Esther Pressoir’s vast oeuvre,
including paintings, drawings,
prints and ceramics. The book
came out February 2024 with
Lund Humphries Publishers.
PAGE 1

Faculty Publications
Lindsay Caplan
In February, Caplan reviewed
multimedia artist Sarah
Rosalena’s exhibition at the
Columbus Museum of Art at
the Pizzuti in The Brooklyn
Rail.
In "Likeness and Liking",
Lindsay Caplan wrote about
the significance and
challenges of contemporary
generative art for Outland
Magazine, in September 2023.
Hommage to Paul Klee, 1965,
Early generative art by Frieder Nake
Dietrich Neumann
Neumann’s newest book, to be
released this September, is on
German-American architect
Miles van der Rohe.
Mies van der Rohe: An Architect in His Time
by Dietrich Neumann
Neumann also contributed an
essay and artist interview on the
work of Jamie Carpenter in the
Italian architecture magazine
DOMUS.
PAGE 2

Sheila Bonde
and Evelyn
Lincoln,
Retirement
Celebration
HIAA hosted retirement celebrations for professors Sheila Bonde and
Evelyn Lincoln, who retired from Brown after each serving 30+ years on
our faculty. As part of their retirement celebration, the department
hosted conversations with scholars and artists who reflected on the
work of these two exceptional women. This included HIAA graduate
and Professor Laurel Bestock, who explained how Professor Bonde’s
impact reached both art history and archeology. Jamie Gabbarelli,
associate curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, and Professor Andrew
Raftery of the Rhode Island School of Design spoke to Professor
Lincoln’s influence on the printmaking world.
PAGE 3

Persische Textilmalerei (Decke), 1846, by unknown
New Faculty
Spotlight:
Margaret Graves
Graves is a specialist in the art of the Islamic world,
with a particular research focus on museum objects,
the plastic arts (ceramics, metalwork, stonecarving),
and the acts and contexts of making in the medieval
and modern eras. Her current book project, Invisible
Hands, explores the craft skills of ceramics faking
and forgery for the nineteenth- and twentiethcentury
antiquities market. Before joining the
department in 2023, Professor Graves taught at
Indiana University.
PAGE 4

Faculty & Grad
Student Awards
Holly Shaffer Wins
Historians of British
Art Award
The award for a single-authored
book with a subject between 1800–
1960 was awarded to Shaffer’s
book, Grafted Arts: Art Making and
Taking in the Struggle for Western
India, 1760–1910.
Regina Noto Presented
with Schallek Award
and Kress Fellowship
In March, Noto was presented with
The Schallek Award by the
Medieval Academy of America and
The Richard III Society American
Branch for her research on latemedieval
Britain. Noto is also
traveling this summer to study in
Flanders on a fellowship from the
Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
PAGE 5

Events
Light In Theory and Practice
Through the work of art and architectural historians,
practicing architects and artists, photographers,
and poets, this lecture series considered how art
and architecture can be materialized through the
immaterial qualities of light and also dematerialized
by way of its illusions.The series was presented
between October 2023 and Spring 2024 by guest
speakers Anne Feng, Bridget Alsdorf, Krista
Thompson, and Nassos Papalexadnrou.
Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior with an Easel,
Bredgade 25, detail. 1912.
Authorship in the Age of
Generative AI
Professor Lindsay Caplan (left) participated in a
university-wide conversation about AI in the
academy and in our data-driven society. Aligned
with this work, Professor Lindsay Caplan also cotaught
a fall 2023 course and participated in an
associated faculty reading group on artificial
intelligence.
The Historians of Eighteenth Century Art
A conference in October 2023 hosted by scholars from around
the country, as well as graduate students from Brown and around
the region. HIAA grad students led participants on tours and
object sessions with local cultural leaders from around Rhode
Island. Support from the Anonymous Family Fund was crucial to
the success of this event.
PAGE 6

The Glass Mosque
A series of public gatherings in
Spring 2024 led by Assistant
Professor Holly Shaffer brought
together visual artist Shahzia
Sikander, writer Yasmeen Siddiqui,
and composer Vijay Iyer to discuss
the concept of the “glass mosque”
as an artistic practice, and a trope
in storytelling. This course also
featured a performance and
lecture by musicians Ria Modak
and Apoorva Mudgal.
2024 Anita Glass
Memorial Lecture
On April 15, HIAA alum Byron
Ellsworth Hamann ‘94 (right) gave the
Anita Glass Memorial Lecture. His talk,
“Rebuilding Rome, Rebuilding
Tenochtitlán: Two Post-Sack Sacred
Cities in the 1520s” details the sacking
of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, as
well as a similar raid of Rome just a few
years later. Hamann explains the
challenges of rebuilding cities in the
16th century after invasion and
looting, and how that process differed
between the two distant cities.
Disruption as Rapture Aga Khan Museum
Nuit Blanche Festival, Toronto 2017
PAGE 7

Pre-College Courses
in HIAA
HIAA graduate students taught pre-college classes to high schoolers this summer
Dominic Bate
The Grand Tour: Art and Travel in Eighteenth-Century
Italy and Beyond
Students explored the influx of tourism in Italy during
the eighteenth century, primarily by northern
Europeans. Students looked at the effect the Grand
Tour had on artistic sensibilities and widely held
notions of identity in Europe.
Mohadeseh Salari Sardari
Exploring Gendered Spaces in Modern Architecture
Through this course, Hosna worked with students to
examine how architectural design is used to reinforce
or challenge systems of oppression against women
and other marginalized communities, both visibly
and invisibly.
Dandan Xu
Stepping In and Out of Ink Painting
Dandan, along with her co-instructor Si Jie Loo,
looked at ink painting as a medium that spans a
range of cultures and aesthetics. Dandan led
discussions and readings on the history of ink
painting, while Si Jie taught students traditional and
unconventional water-based painting techniques.
PAGE 8

The Grand Tour: Art & Travel in
Eighteenth-Century Italy & Beyond
The course traces the origins of
modern tourism to the eighteenth
century and the European
phenomenon of the Grand Tour,
with an emphasis on the British
experience in what is now Italy. One
of the main questions asked in this
class was about how the experience
of travel has shaped people's sense
of themselves and others. Students
learned how the visual arts played an
important part in this process.
Grotto by the Seaside in the Kingdom of Naples with Banditti, Sunset,
1778 by Joseph Wright of Derby
Dominic was thrilled with his first opportunity to
design his own syllabus, and found sharing his
passion on the topics of the class deeply
rewarding. He tried to keep each class as varied
as possible, involving museum visits, analysis of
primary sources, discussion of new scholarship,
and small-group activities. The final project for
the class was a presentation on a work of art
currently on display at the RISD Museum, with
which the students connected the readings and
themes of the class.
PAGE 9

Exploring Gendered Spaces
in Modern Architecture
In this course, Hosna and her students explored the
interplay between gender and space in20th century
modern architecture. They explored how architectural
design reinforces and challenges the oppression and
control experienced by women, through a diverse
range of global and lesser-known architectural
examples, beyond the well-known masterpieces. This
course taught students to think broadly, making
connections between architecture, history, politics,
and society.
Each day, students presented on the
concepts they’d learned about featuring
examples from their hometowns. They
then connected the new material to
their previous work and engaged in
meaningful group discussions and
open Q&A sessions. For the final project,
students could either design a modern
bedroom or analyze and compare a
historical house designed for a woman
with a modern house designed for a
woman.
PAGE 10

New Grad Student
Profiles
PAGE 12

2024 HIAA
Commencement
Awards
Ann Belsky Moranis Prizes
Andrew Lu, HIAA
Grace Xiao, HIAA
Kermit S. Champa Memorial Fund
Awards
Yannick Etoundi, PhD
Max Meyer, PhD
Rebecca Molholt Vanel Awards
Matthew Kluk, PhD
Thomas Dimayuga ‘26
Nini Pharsenadze ‘25
PAGE 13
Flexible Flyer Awards
Nini Pharsenadze ‘25
Kayleigh Danowski ‘25
Outstanding Honors Theses
Angela Sha, HIAA
Jasmin Lin, Architecture
Outstanding Paper
Lillian Yanagimoto ‘25
Outstanding Architectural Design
Christian Wu

2024 PhD and
Master’s
PhD Graduates
Ciprian I. Buzilă
Dissertation: Imagining the
Modern Nation: Architect Nicolae
Ghika-Budești and the Neo-
Romanian Style
Oliver Coulson
Dissertation: Blind Sticks and
Dead Stones: Iconoclasm and
Religious Art and Architecture
in England, c.1382-1500
Masters Graduates
Julie Lassond, Integrative Studies
Mohadeseh Salari Sardari
Nainvi Vora
Peter Levins
Dissertation: Fascism’s Adriatic
Empire: Modern
Architecture and Cultural
Production in the
Interwar Western Balkans
Allison Pappas
Dissertation: “Considered Only in
Its Ultimate Nature”:
Photography Between Object
and Idea
PAGE 14

Looking Ahead To
2024-2025
Cécile Fromont Residency
Fromont, Professor of History of Art at Yale University,
will be in the department as a short term visiting
professor in October, 2024. She focuses on the
cultures of Africa and Latin America in the early
modern period. She has published two books, as well
as a co-edited issue of the journal Art History on the
“Vast Early Modern Atlantic,” just published in 2024.
The Glass Symposium: Futures of the Past
New Perspectives on the Arts of the Pre-Modern
World
Organized by Assistant Professor Gretel Rodríguez and Department Chair
Itohan Osayimwese
For decades, art and architectural historians have discussed declining
interest in the study of the pre-modern era and the growing emphasis
among emerging scholars and in current undergraduate curricula on
modern and contemporary art. The symposium will reflect on the state of the
field with a focus on the study of pre-modern art and architecture all across
the world.
Light in Art and Architecture Symposium
As part of the Brown Art Institute's IGNITE series, this symposium
celebrates Leo Villareal's LED light sculpture “Infinite Composition” in
the Nelson Atwater Lobby at the Lindemann Center. On September 27,
2024, Leo Villareal will place his work at Brown University in the larger
context of his oeuvre and examine the potential of artificial light as it
transforms architecture.
PAGE 15

Meet our New
Visiting Faculty!
Annie Maloney
Prof. Maloney is a specialist in seventeenthcentury
Italian art, with a focus on the history
of antiquarianism and early modern
painting. Maloney will be offering courses
on Global Baroque Art, Italian Baroque
architecture, antiquarianism, and cabinets of
curiosity at Brown this year. She completed
her doctoral work at Emory University in
2023.
Pamadu Tennakoon, PhD
candidate
Prof. Tennakoon is teaching a fall class
called Designed in English Style: Colonial
Architecture of South Asia. This course takes
a journey through time, highlighting the
different roles played by colonial
architecture in the evolution of South Asia.
Fosca Maddaloni, Dean's
Faculty Fellow in Spring 2025
Prof. Maddaloni is teaching Patterns of
Exchange: Ornament in Art and
Architecture Between Local and Global.
This seminar will explore design history
through the study of selected decorative
motifs and design tropes.
PAGE 16