The Department of the History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University prepares students to undertake journeys into visual culture through traditional areas of study such as ancient, Medieval and Renaissance art, as well as through the integration of recent fields of theory and research. Students explore the history of cultural interactions as manifested in visual culture both inside and outside the West, from antiquity to present.
Emma Amos. Stars and Stripes, 1992. Laser transfer photography, oil on paper
Gift of Sylvan Cole, Jr., Class of 1939. 2001.022. Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art
History of Art Majors' Society Exhibits:
From 1991 to 2018, the History of Art Majors’ Society (HAMS) provided a way for Cornell history of art majors to enhance their knowledge about the discipline of art history beyond the classroom. These students met at the Johnson Museum one evening each week throughout the academic year to develop an annual exhibition drawn from the permanent collection and to research, write, and publish an accompanying exhibition brochure.
Cornell University students in a practicum seminar curated an exhibit “Indonesia Embodied: Performing the Space Between” at the Johnson Museum. Students produced the show, highlighting Southeast Asian works and research on performance and provenance.
Cornell’s College of Arts & Sciences honors the winners of its 2026 teaching and advising awards. Faculty members Nicole Giannella, Karola Mészáros and Landon Schnabel stand out this year, earning major awards for excellence; many instructors and teaching assistants received recognition, as well.
The Native American Art Studies Association gave artist and art historian Jolene Rickard, professor in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences and in the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program (AIISP) in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, a lifetime achievement award. A citizen of the Skarù·ręʔ / Tuscarora Nation (Hodinöhsö:ni Confederacy), Rickard is honored for work that has had a profound impact on contemporary Indigenous art and scholarship.
Image caption:
Funerary Relief with Busts of Popillius and Calpurnia, A.D. 1–20. Roman. Marble. 65 × 96 × 24 cm. Object Number: 71.AA.260. Getty Museum
