Professor Pan authors new book "Transcending Fragments"
Professor Pan authors book-length study titled "Transcending Fragments, Fong Chung-Rays’ Artistic Journey" published by Asian Art Center in Taipei.
Read More
Traditional areas of study integrated with modern fields of theory and research.
The Department of History of Art and Visual Studies
Our department studies areas traditionally central to the discipline such as ancient, medieval and Renaissance art, and the integration of recent fields of theory and research to the study of global visual culture. Students further their understanding of the discipline of art history, its roots, its methodologies, as well as its historical and critical connections with other disciplines.
History of Art Links
Department News
Shirley Samuels named the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies
On Oct. 17th, Cornell University’s Board of Trustees appointed Prof. Shirley Samuels as Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies. This professorship, inaugurated by Prof. Glenn Altschuler in 1998, honors the Litwins’ passion for the study of literature, culture, and American herit...
Read More
Cheryl Finley co-curates exhibition at National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
"‘Free as they want to be’: Artists Committed to Memory" considers the historic and contemporary role that photography and film have played in remembering legacies of slavery and its aftermath and examines the social lives of Black Americans within various places including the land, at home, in phot...
Read More
Professor Alexandridis co-edits new book, "Destroy the Copy"
Based on two international conferences held at Cornell University and the Freie Universität of Berlin in 2010 and 2015, this volume is the first ever to explicitly address the destruction of plaster cast collections of ancient Mediterranean and Western sculpture.
Read More
Salah Hassan co-curates African modernist artist Kamala Ibrahim Ishag’s exhibition at the Serpentine, London
Kamala Ibrahim Ishag has forged a unique and expansive practice that is not defined by a singular style or movement.
Read More
Iftikhar Dadi co-curates major exhibition on Pop art from South Asia
Pop South Asia: Artistic Explorations in the Popular is one of the first major exhibitions to provide a substantial survey of modern and contemporary art from South Asia engaging with popular culture.
Read More
ARTH 4351, Problems in Byzantine Art, S23
Topic: Portraiture. Byzantine artists produced a wide variety of images that modern interpreters have recognized as “portraits.” These images illuminate individual identity and visual representation in Byzantium.
Read More
ARTH 3803 Urban Interfaces, S23
Art, Architecture, and Urbanism in China at the turn of the 21st Century. How does art, architecture, and urban space interface with one another and what is the role of art in public space and public life?
Read MoreHistory of Art Events
Land Acknowledgement
Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' (the Cayuga Nation). The Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' are members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign Nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York state, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' dispossession, and honor the ongoing connection of Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' people, past and present, to these lands and waters.
This land acknowledgment has been reviewed and approved by the traditional Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ' leadership.