Professor Annabel J. Wharton | |
---|---|
Born | Annabel Jane Wharton |
Occupation | William B. Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Art History at Duke University |
Academic background | |
Education | University of Wisconsin (BS) University of Chicago (MA) The Courtauld Institute of Art (PhD) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | History of Architecture |
Sub-discipline | History of design,Medieval architecture,History of art,Cultural studies |
Annabel Jane Wharton (also known in print as Ann Wharton Epstein) is an American art historian with wide-ranging interests from Late Ancient &Byzantine art and culture through to modern architecture and its effect on ancient landscapes. She is currently William B. Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Art History at Duke University,North Carolina and has been working on a project regarding the use of new technologies for visualising historical materials. [1]
In the 2014/2015 academic year,Wharton was Vincent Scully Visiting Professor at the Yale School of Architecture [2] and the Harry W. Porter,Jr. Visiting Professor of Architectural History,University of Virginia School of Architecture in 2019. [3]
Wharton studied for a Bachelor of Science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison before transferring her allegiance to the humanities. She read for her Master of Arts degree at the University of Chicago,completing it in 1969,and then moved to England to undertake a PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London [4] Her thesis,completed in 1975,was entitled ‘The Date and Context of Some Cappadocian Rock-cut Churches’. [5] While at the Courtauld,Wharton (recorded as A.W. Epstein) contributed photographs to the Conway Library [6] that are currently being digitised by the Courtauld Institute of Art as part of the Courtauld Connects project. [7]
Whilst undertaking her studies in England,Wharton lectured at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts at Birmingham University and has taught throughout her long career;the Marquis ‘Who’s Who’ lists her as a noteworthy humanities educator.[ citation needed ] She moved back to America and took up the post of Assistant Professor at Oberlin College,Ohio until 1979 when she moved to Duke University [8] where she has remained in various posts in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences either in the Art,Art History and Visual Studies Department or the Duke Centre for Jewish Studies. [4]
She has also undertaken the post of editor of the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, [9] was on the Board of Directors of the International Centre of Medieval Art (1986-1989) and has been involved with the Byzantine Studies Conference (now part of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America) both on the governing board (1979-1982) and as its president during the 1980–1981 term. [10]
Wharton has written numerous books,papers,and journal articles.
Her 1986 and 1988 books,Tokali Kilise:Tenth-Century Metropolitan Art in Byzantine Cappadocia and Art of Empire:Painting and Architecture of the Byzantine Periphery are cited in the second edition of Byzantine Art,part of the Oxford History of Art series. [11]
Wharton's 1991 study of university campus architecture argued that the "landscaping and layout" of the West Campus at Duke (formerly the men's campus) encourage and facilitate "a supremacy of intellectual rigour",while the "lack of creative planning" evident at the East (women's) Campus showed a "disregard for and inattention to women students' intellectual needs". [12]
Wharton's 2015 book Architectural Agents considered topics and architectures as varied as 20th- and 21st-century Las Vegas,the virtual worlds of Second Life,and ancient buildings in Jerusalem. Reviewing the book for The Times Higher Education,Richard J. Williams "provocative and entertaining book shows how buildings may have “agency”,and how “agency”may be destructive as much as constructive." [13] Developing ideas formulated by Henri Lefebvre and Bruno Latour,Wharton examines how buildings,or other inanimate things,"do not have to be conscious to have agency". [13]
In 1969,Annabel Wharton married the British historian James Epstein[ citation needed ] who is now Distinguished Emeritus Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. [16] Wharton's long-term partner of nearly 30 years,Kalman P. Bland,Professor Emeritus of the Department of Religious Studies at Duke University,died in England in June 2017 after becoming ill whilst the couple were travelling together in Europe. A memorial celebration in his honour was held at the National Humanities Centre,North Carolina in September 2017. [17]
Dumbarton Oaks, formally the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, is a historic estate in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was the residence and gardens of wealthy U.S. diplomat Robert Woods Bliss and his wife Mildred Barnes Bliss. The estate was founded by the Bliss couple, who gave the home and gardens to Harvard University in 1940. In 1944, it was the site of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference to plan for the post-WWII United Nations. The part of the landscaped portion of the estate that was designed as an enhanced "natural" area, was given to the National Park Service and is now Dumbarton Oaks Park.
Elizabeth Mary Jeffreys was a British scholar of Byzantium. She was Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature, University of Oxford, and a Professorial Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, 1996–2006.
Cyril Alexander Mango was a British scholar of the history, art, and architecture of the Byzantine Empire. He is celebrated as one of the leading Byzantinists of the 20th century.
Göreme is a district of the Nevşehir Province in Turkey. After the eruption of Mount Erciyes about 2.6 million years ago, ash and lava formed soft rocks in the Cappadocia region, covering a region of about 20,000 square kilometres (7,700 sq mi). The softer rock was eroded by wind and water, leaving the hard cap rock on top of pillars, forming the present-day fairy chimneys. People of Göreme, at the heart of the Cappadocia region, realized that these soft rocks could be easily carved out to form houses, churches, and monasteries. These Christian sanctuaries contain many examples of Byzantine art from the post-iconoclastic period. These frescos are a unique artistic achievement from this period.
A cross-in-square or crossed-dome plan was the dominant architectural form of middle- and late-period Byzantine churches. It featured a square centre with an internal structure shaped like a cross, topped by a dome.
Robin Sinclair Cormack, FSA is a British classicist and art historian, specialising in Byzantine art. He was Professor in the History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1991–2004.
Paul Magdalino is a British Byzantinist who is Bishop Wardlaw Professor (Emeritus) of Byzantine History at the University of St Andrews. He received the 1993 Runciman Award for his monograph on the reign of Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180), which challenged Niketas Choniates' negative appraisal of the ruler.
Yoram Tsafrir was an Israeli archaeologist. His research has included the Byzantine influence on ancient synagogues, demography of Palestine in the Byzantine period, mosaics at Horvat Berachot, excavations at Beit She'an, and excavations at Rehoboth. A Professor Emeritus of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
The Romanos Ivory is a carved ivory relief panel from the Byzantine empire measuring 24.6 cm by 15.5 cm and 1.2 cm thick. The panel is currently in the Cabinet des Médailles of Paris. Inscriptions name the figures of the emperor Romanos and his wife Eudokia, who are being blessed by Christ. However, there were two imperial couples by these names and scholars have yet to agree which is shown. It was first believed to represent Romanos IV and therefore dated between 1068 and 1071. Discoveries of other carved relief works in the 20th century led researchers to think that it represents the earlier Romanos II, changing the date of creation to somewhere between 945 and 949.
Cecily Jane Hennessy, FSA, is the Academic Director of Christie's Education, London. She has promoted studies on the imagery of children and is an authority on the representation of children, adolescents and the family in Byzantium.
Anthony Applemore Mornington Bryer was a British historian of the Byzantine Empire who founded the journal Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies and the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Birmingham.
Leslie Brubaker is an expert in Byzantine illustrated manuscripts. She was appointed Professor of Byzantine Art at the University of Birmingham in 2005, and is now Professor Emerita. Her research interests includes female patronage, icons and the cult of the Virgin Mary. She was formerly the head of Postgraduate Studies in the College of Arts and Law, University of Birmingham. Professor Brubaker is the Chair of the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies. Her work is widely stocked in libraries around the world.
Charalambos Bouras was a major Greek restoration architect, engineer and professor of architectural history. Amongst his most notable contributions are his restoration work on the Acropolis of Athens, in the ancient city of Brauron and on the monastery of Hosios Loukas, as well as his many books and scientific articles.
Roger Andrew Stalley is a scholar and teacher in medieval architecture and sculpture. His speciality is Early Gothic and Romanesque architecture and sculpture in England and Western Europe with a particular focus on Irish architecture and art. He has published numerous papers and books including Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland in 1987, for which he was awarded the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion in 1988 by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, and Early Medieval Architecture in 1999 for the Oxford History of Art series. He is noted for his innovative teaching practices for example, The Medieval Architecture Online Teaching Project, and is recognised in the 2021 publication Mapping New Territories in Art and Architectural Histories, Essays in Honour of Roger Stalley.
Erica Cruikshank Dodd is a Canadian academic who has published several studies on Byzantine, Middle Eastern and Islamic art. She was Professor of Byzantine and Islamic Art at American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Henry P. Maguire is an English art historian, specialising in Byzantine art, and Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences in the History of Art Department. Between 1991-1996, he was Director of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, a research institute of Harvard University.
Alice-Mary Talbot is an American Byzantinist. She is director of Byzantine studies emerita, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.
Ann Marie Yasin is an Associate Professor of Art History and Classics at the University of Southern California specializing in the architecture and material culture of the Roman and late antique world. She studies materiality, built-environments, landscapes, and urbanism as they pertain to the ancient and late ancient religious worlds.
Julian Richard Gardner is a British art historian and Professor Emeritus at the University of Warwick. A scholar of late medieval and renaissance Italian art, particularly patronage, and a Giotto di Bondone specialist whose expertise has led to a number of scholarships and appointments as visiting professor at various institutions both in Europe and America.
David Crampton Winfield MBE was a British conservator and Byzantinist who specialised in wall paintings. The first part of his career was spent abroad, mainly in Turkey and Cyprus, and he was awarded an MBE in 1974 for his conservation work in Cyprus. In his obituary in The Times, David Winfield was described as “an investigative archaeological explorer cast in the mould of the great 19th-century scholar-travellers”.