National Gallery of Art

New Publication

The Global Reception of Heinrich Wölfflin's Principles of Art History
Studies in the History of Art, Volume 82
Edited by Evonne Levy and Tristan Weddigen, summer 2020

Can the reception of a single, widely disseminated book offer a historical road map for a global art history? This is the question posed by the editors of this volume of essays, which charts the enduring response to the Swiss art historian Heinrich Wölfflin’s Principles of Art History, first published in German in 1915. Translated into 22 languages and still in print in many of them, Wölfflin’s book inaugurated an art history based entirely on “forms of seeing” and employing a comparative method. Many of the translators and transmitters of the text are represented in essays on the book’s readership in Europe, North and South America, and South and East Asia. From its reception, positive and negative, the first genealogy of a global art history emerges.

New Article

CASVA Curates

CASVA is not only committed to supporting the research and development of art historians of all backgrounds and fields, but also all art historical practices and professions. This piece by Dean Elizabeth Cropper discusses how CASVA endeavors to bring academic and museum practice together and highlights recent predoctoral fellows who have joined the ever-evolving and expanding curatorial profession.

This feature was originally intended for the spring 2020 issue of the Gallery’s Bulletin, which could not be published due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

New Video Presentation

Thomas Kren on Giovanni d’Alemagna’s Saint Apollonia Destroys a Pagan Idol (c. 1442/1445)
Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor, 2016

From the series Reflections on the Collection: The Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professors at the National Gallery of Art

New Translation

Chinese Painting and Its Audiences (Princeton University Press, 2017), a Bollingen Series publication based on The Sixty-First A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts by Craig Clunas, has been translated into Chinese by Guangxi Normal University Press.

Learn more (in Chinese)

New Visiting Senior Fellowships

The creation of the Leonard A. Lauder Visiting Senior Fellowships will support scholars researching historically underrepresented areas of art-historical study. The first cycle of fellowships will support those focusing on the arts of African Americans, Africa, and the African diaspora.

Read the press release
Learn more about CASVA Fellowships

Postponed: The Sixty-Ninth A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts

Transparence and Ambiguity: The Modern Space of Axonometry
Yve-Alain Bois, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ

Fall 2021 dates to be announced.

New Video Presentation

Cecilia Frosinini on Giotto's Madonna and Child (c. 1310/1315)
Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor, 2013

From the series Reflections on the Collection: The Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professors at the National Gallery of Art

New Audio and Video

Wyeth Lecture in American Art

Art Is an Excuse: Conceptual Strategies, 1968–1983
Kellie Jones, Columbia University

Watch / Listen

New Dean Announcement

Professor Steven Nelson Announced as New Dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts

The National Gallery of Art announced the appointment of Steven Nelson as dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA). Nelson is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at CASVA (2018–2020), on leave from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he is professor of African and African American art history and director of the UCLA African Studies Center. Nelson will become CASVA's third dean since its founding in 1979 and will succeed Elizabeth Cropper, who will retire in late May 2020. Nelson will begin his tenure in July.

New Audio and Video

Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art

Andrea Mantegna’s Stones, Caves, and Clouds
Gabriele Finaldi, National Gallery, London

Watch / Listen

New Endowment

$1 Million Received by the National Gallery of Art from the Edmond J. Safra Foundation to Endow the Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professorship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts

The National Gallery of Art announced a $1 million grant from the Edmond J. Safra Foundation to support the Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professorship at CASVA. This generous gift coincides with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's endowment challenge grant to the National Gallery of Art on the occasion of the Gallery's 75th anniversary. Matching funds will permit the professorship to be fully endowed. See the press release for more information.