History of Art

History of Art

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History of Art at the University of Oxford draws on a long and deep tradition of teaching and studying the subject. The core academic staff of the History of Art Department work on subjects from medieval European architecture to modern Chinese art. Over fifty associated academic staff (e.g. in Anthropology, Classics, History, Oriental Studies, and the Ruskin School of Drawing) include teachers and researchers across the full global and historical range of art and visual culture. This offers students exciting possibilities to take courses and receive supervision on a very wide range of topics, and to develop their own interests in art history. Dr John Blakinger talks about demonstrations against the Whitney Museum of American Art related to its connections with the tear gas manufacturer Safariland. In November 2018, an image of migrants fleeing tear gas at the US-Mexico border ricocheted across the internet, inspiring protests against the Trump administration’s immigration policies but also against a more unlikely target: the Whitney Museum of American Art. The artist-activist collective Decolonize This Place stormed the museum in demonstration against the Whitney’s connections to Safariland, a manufacturer of tear gas. Andy Warhol’s silkscreen canvases, then on view for a major retrospective, took on new meanings during these events. The artist’s “Death in America” paintings depicting turmoil in the 1960s came to life in the gallery.

Recent Episodes

  • Terra Foundation Lectures in American Art 2019 - A Contest of Images: American Art as Culture War (1) Warhol in Safariland

    5 years ago
  • Terra Foundation Lectures in American Art 2019 - A Contest of Images: American Art as Culture War (2) The Body of Emmett Till

    5 years ago
  • Terra Foundation Lectures in American Art 2019 - A Contest of Images: American Art as Culture War (3) Dismantling the Gallows

    5 years ago
  • Terra Foundation Lectures in American Art 2019 - A Contest of Images: American Art as Culture War (4) The Stones of Civil War

    5 years ago
  • Terra Foundation Lectures in American Art 2018: The Body of a Nation: (1) Suicide in white and black: Thomas Cole’s Destruction and the American empire

    6 years ago
  • Terra Foundation Lectures in American Art 2018: The Body of a Nation: (2) Skin and absence: the radical ceramics and poetry of the enslaved Dave the Potter

    6 years ago
  • Terra Foundation Lectures in American Art 2018: The Body of a Nation: (3) Modernism disfigured: cult and illicit ritual in New Mexico in the works of Georgia O’Keeffe and Martha Graham

    6 years ago
  • Terra Foundation Lectures in American Art 2018: The Body of a Nation: (4) The great disappearing George Washington: history and the head of state in contemporary American art

    6 years ago
  • Core Course: Architects or Artisans? The Builders of the Medieval Cathedrals

    7 years ago
  • Terra Foundation Lectures in American Art 2017: Picturing a Nation: (1) Riding into History, Marching into Oblivion: The Civil War, Racial Justice, and the Shaw Memorial

    7 years ago