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the eye the hand the mind
The Eye the Hand the Mind 100 Years of the College Art Association edited by susan ball
the college art association New York and rutgers university press New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London
Unless otherwise noted, the illustrations in this volume have been provided by the owners of the works of art or by the College Art Association. Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of all works reproduced in this book. Photographers’ names are provided where they have been accessible. All efforts have been made to contact photographers. This collection copyright © 2011 by The College Art Association and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Visit our Web site: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Printed in China through Four Colour Print Group, Louisville, Kentucky Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The eye, the hand, the mind : 100 years of the College Art Association / edited by Susan Ball. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8135-4787-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. College Art Association (U.S.) I. Ball, Susan L. II. Title: 100 years of the College Art Association. III. Title: One hundred years of the College Art Association. N11.C575B35 2011 706´.073—dc22 2009052303 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.
Dedicated to three key mentors robert herbert my dissertation adviser, who stood by me when I decided to abandon the academic career for which he had so generously trained me anne coffin hanson another dissertation reader and CAA president (1972–1974), who recruited me for the job at CAA and paul b. arnold CAA president (1986–1988), without whose support, friendship, and good counsel I would not have been so well-launched on my twenty-plus-year odyssey at the College Art Association —Susan Ball
contents
Acknowledgments ix Introduction susan ball 1 1. The Learned Society Enterprise steven c. wheatley 11 2. The Beginnings “Art for higher education, and higher education for Artists” susan ball 19 3. A Stimulating Prospect CAA’s Traveling Exhibition Program, 1929–1937 cristin tierney 33 4. Cooperative Relationships with Museums barry pritzker 41 5. The Changing Face of Scholarly Publishing CAA’s Publications Program craig houser 47 6. Uniting the Arts and the Academy A History of the CAA Annual Conference julia a. sienkewicz 89 7. Mentoring the Profession Career Development and Support ofelia garcia 129
8. Art in an Academic Setting Contemporary CAA Exhibitions ellen k. levy 145 9. CAA, Pedagogy and Curriculum A Historical Effort, An Unparalleled Wealth of Ideas matthew israel 155 10. Visual Resources for the Arts christine l. sundt 181 11. Governance and Diversity judith k. brodsky, mary d. garrard, and ferris olin 12. CAA Advocacy The Nexus of Art and Politics karen j. leader 225 Conclusion: The Next 100 Years paul b. jaskot 239 Appendix A. Purposes 245 Appendix B. Presidents 247 Appendix C. Administrators 250 Appendix D. Editors of CAA Publications 251 Notes 254 Bibliography 291 Contributors 306 Index 311
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acknowledgments
Literally dozens of people have played a role in making this book a reality. First and foremost among those to whom I am indebted are members of the College Art Association (CAA) Executive Committee and Board of Directors, who accepted my proposal to step down as executive director after twenty years and become the director of the CAA centennial book project. I am grateful to them for their confidence in my ability to execute the project and their support of my endeavors over the past two-plus years. I am also thankful to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, which has generously supported the publication of this book. I quickly realized that the scope and enormity of the project could not be accomplished in such a short time, so I commissioned fourteen authors to help me tell the rich and complex history of the association’s first century. Their contributions provide the substance of the book itself, and without them, of course, this Festschrift to CAA would not exist. The authors compose a diverse group of individuals in terms of their voices, backgrounds, and interests. All but one of them have been directly involved with the organization, and in many instances they were thus able to provide a more detailed and thoughtful history than might otherwise be possible. Seven of the authors served on the board of directors (Judith K. Brodsky, Ofelia Garcia, Mary D. Garrard, Paul B. Jaskot, Ellen K. Levy, Ferris Olin, Christine L. Sundt—three as president, Brodsky, Jaskot, Levy), two were former staff members (Craig Houser, Cristin Tierney), and one was a constant ally at the American Council of Learned Societies (Steven C. Wheatley). Five of the authors represent the next generation of scholars (Houser, Matthew Israel, Karen J. Leader, Julia A. Sienkewicz, and Tierney). Every one of the authors, myself included, is indebted to the staff of the association, who generously facilitated our research and put up with interruptions, answering our endless questions, directing us to files, and making a space for us to conduct research. I am also grateful to my many friends and family who have put up with my obsession with the CAA since 1986. My daughter, Emily ix
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Kaufman, who was fifteen months old when I began working at the association, and her father, Ned Kaufman, had to share me with the organization for twenty years, spending many nights and weekends without me. Their support for my work was essential. The list of friends and family members who endured my endless talk about CAA and its history—more fascinating to me than to many others, I suspect—is too numerous to itemize. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. A special note of recognition must go to Kenneth Silver, Mary McLeod, Judith Brodsky, Craig Houser, Charles and Catherine Ball, James Ball, Jacqueline Ashurst, Mary Ellen Lane, Wendy Feuer, Lisa Ackerman, Paul Jaskot, and Leslie Mitchner at Rutgers University Press.
the eye the hand the mind
introduction Susan Ball
he seed for this book was first planted in January 1986, when I began working as executive director at the College Art Association (CAA). I was scheduled to overlap for one month with my predecessor, Rose Weil, who had been the head of the association for twelve years. In her infinite wisdom, she sat me at the round Saarinen pedestal table in her sunny office on the corner of Madison Avenue and 32nd Street in New York and told me the best way to learn about my new employer was to read the minutes of the organization’s meetings. I spent the next month with my nose buried deep inside the numerous bound volumes of minutes, beginning with the minutes of a “special meeting” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Friday, October 10, 1930, eighteen years after CAA’s founding, to consider a new draft of the constitution and bylaws. These official records document the meetings of the board of directors and the executive committee, as well as some, but not all of the annual business meetings, committee meetings, and a few special meetings. Prior to 1930, the best source for information is Art Bulletin, which published, starting in 1913, the organization’s constitution and bylaws, lists of individual and institutional members, annual conference programs and abstracts, reports of committees and the annual members’ meeting, and news of members. A second journal, Parnassus, which began publication in 1929, took over the reporting of association business. Although the archives are somewhat inconsistent and spotty, especially in the early years, the documents that do exist, such as the minutes and reporting on association business in the publications, are very rich indeed, as they reveal the history of a complex, multifaceted organization. My reading was interrupted now and again by Rose drawing me into her work leading up to the 74th Annual Conference in New York City in 1986, where she was going to pass the baton to me. The liveliest discussion concerned a conten-
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tious issue related to finances that would be presented at the annual members’ business meeting. An uncharacteristically large crowd was present to address the topic at hand—the divestiture of stock held in companies doing business in South Africa. At a previous meeting of the board of directors, “passions [had run] high in the course of this lengthy discussion,” according to the minutes. Although everyone had found “the policy of apartheid abhorrent,” the concern was whether or not the board members, as “educators,” knew “enough about the effects of divestiture to make an intelligent decision.” 1 In the end, the organization voted to divest, without much opposition, and, despite some angry voices on both sides expressing themselves from the floor, the meeting was uneventful. I will always be deeply in debt to Rose. No training could have prepared me better for the enormous tasks I would have to face as the executive director: not only did I have to fill Rose’s considerable shoes, but, as Honorary Counsel Gilbert Edelson told me when he offered me the job, I also had “to take the association to the next step.” My adventure, which began with some trepidation, lasted twenty years, until the summer of 2006, at which time I became the executive director emerita and the director of the CAA Centennial Book Project—the result being the book at hand. Although I was leaving the organization, I chose to extend my involvement because I had such a long history with it and felt that throughout my tenure so many people working in the visual arts, both members and nonmembers of the organization, really didn’t know enough about the organization as a whole—either its past or present history. While I was the executive director, a major part of my job was to serve as the historian of record for the association. Oftentimes at various meetings I found that I would have to clarify the policies of the organization and their original purposes. Another part of my job was to serve as the editor-in-chief of CAA News. Inside this bimonthly newsletter, I often published bits and pieces of the association’s history so that members would have the opportunity to learn more about the association. The idea to celebrate CAA’s one hundredth anniversary by publishing a comprehensive history of the organization therefore seemed like an exciting opportunity, especially given the fact that there is a dearth of histories of academic disciplines and the institutions whose members have been so avidly engaged in these discussions—the learned societies. Ever since Michel Foucault’s pioneering studies in the 1970s, institutions have been a major focus of critical theory. Yet, although institutional history is at the cutting edge of cultural studies, the discourse has rarely embraced individual academic disciplines explicitly and the learned societies that support and foster them. The current book is a cultural and political history of such an institution founded to serve both artists and historians of art and architecture. It also provides a history of the growth of what have become two distinct but intrinsically interwoven academic disciplines—visual arts and art history. Al-
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though several publications have covered specific developments in the history of art history, studio art, and art education, rarely have they incorporated the history of the CAA and its direct involvement. CAA had its origins in a joint committee formed by the Western Drawing and Manual Training Association (WDMTA), the Eastern Art Teachers’ Association, and the Eastern Manual Training Association in 1907. The organizations had joined forces to investigate the conditions of art instruction and art workers in colleges and universities.2 The college art teachers met informally at subsequent annual meetings of the WDMTA, and in 1911 a committee was appointed to draft a constitution for a new association. Signed on May 4, 1912, in Cincinnati, the document gave birth to the College Art Association. In the beginning CAA’s purpose was simple and straightforward, reflecting the general interests of the membership. The organization’s first constitution stated only one purpose—“to promote art interests in all divisions of American colleges and universities”—and offered one active membership category—“all instructors in the history, practice, teaching or theory of the fine arts in a college or university of recognized standing.” 3 However, the founders had also established an associate membership category open to “all persons interested in the object of this Association.” 4 When the constitution was published next, in 1917, the active membership included not only instructors of art in universities and colleges but also those “engaged in educational work on the staff of any museum or art gallery of recognized standing.” 5 By 1931, when the organization was incorporated under the provisions of the Membership Corporations Law of the State of New York, the original purpose of the organization had been further expanded to include “the promotion of art through research and publication.”6 The latter no doubt reflected the association’s activities as a publisher of journals, including Art Bulletin and Parnassus, and its role in establishing a Research Institute of Fine Arts that provided fellowships to postdoctoral scholars.7 In 1934, the constitution and bylaws were rewritten in much broader terms, revealing the wide range of the organization’s activities in the decades to follow: “The particular object of this Association, as an educational, philanthropic, non-profit-making body, is to further and promote the study and appreciation of art in all its phases by such means as lie within the Association’s power and are judged to be proper under the circumstances.” 8 Such a change in purpose may have stemmed from the fact that the organization had begun to accept institutional members to help finance its endeavors. The category for institutional membership first appeared in 1934 and was open to “any institution desiring to secure a membership in the College Art Association.” 9 Categories for “foreign” and “student” members were also added at this time. As the membership grew, the purposes became more expansive, culminating in a dramatic revision in 1962–1963, when thirteen itemized purposes replaced
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the one single purpose that had been modified periodically over the previous five decades, “in view of the increasing activities and responsibilities of the Association.” 10 These revisions grew out of a working paper on “Policy and Purposes” reported in the association’s minutes that had solicited input from a wide variety of sources, and that was debated at length over several months by the board and executive committee, then drafted in itemized form by the CAA counsel, who referred to the expanded version as “modernized.” 11 The new expanded “Article II: Purposes” was submitted to the membership for a vote, ratified unanimously at the annual meeting in Baltimore in January 1963, and published in full in Art Journal. Over the course of a century, the membership roles grew dramatically. Today the organization comprises not only college and university professors of art and art history, but also a growing number of nonacademically affiliated visual artists and art historians—museum professionals, art librarians, visual resource curators, independent scholars and artists, collectors, dealers, conservators, and noncollege educators. As the membership expanded, the goals and interests of the organization became ever more complex, addressing multiple concerns affecting all these people working in the visual arts. Indeed, with a membership as vast and diverse as it is, invariably contentious relationships developed among factions of members with mutually exclusive interests, as will be revealed in the following chapters. Furthermore, as the organization welcomed smaller discipline- or cause-specific organizations as affiliates, the association began to take on some of the characteristics of a federation or umbrella organization, as discussed in the first chapter by Steven Wheatley and in the sixth by Julia Sienkewicz. Since 1963 the purposes have continued to expand in due course from thirteen to its current sixteen purposes.12 These sixteen purposes themselves are the most concise representation of the institutional history of the association and, concomitantly, of the growth of the disciplines of visual art and art history. Because it has multiple purposes, the organization can readily mean different things to different people. This history is not organized in a standard chronological manner, but rather the sixteen purposes provide an architectural framework that elucidates the specific concerns of the association’s members, both individual and institutional. The historical journey therefore moves on a pathway from purpose to purpose, one room connected to the next, with various asides serving as niches in the fabric of the construction. Although the sixteen purposes provide the skeleton for this history, their numerical order as they are listed in the constitution does not dictate the structure of this book; rather, they are sometimes combined and presented in an order that best reflects the development of the association and the disciplines it serves. From the beginning, this has always been a learned society and a professional organization, supporters of one position or the other occasionally falling
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into two opposing camps on the board of directors, committees, and among the membership. Likewise, the relationship between the two major disciplines represented by CAA is also in itself a historically intriguing topic, fraught with a creative healthy tension that at times is neither healthy nor creative, but more often than not has been a force of great creativity and a catalyst for growth. This tension is reflected throughout the individual chapters as the various membership constituencies come together and drift apart in different configurations, collaborating one day and competing the next for funding projects or publications. The authors of the following twelve chapters, each of which focuses on one or more of the sixteen purposes, tackle the daunting task of synthesizing and analyzing decades of information on each topic. This book does not purport to be a comprehensive record, but rather a presentation of highlights, some of which appear in more than one chapter, but discussed in different contexts by different authors—morsels extracted from the multilayered and complex stories that compose the rich and deep history of CAA, leaving further exploration to subsequent curious scholars. The first chapter, “The Learned Society Enterprise” by Steven C. Wheatley, establishes the wider context in which CAA exists as a learned society in the humanities, an academic membership association, and a professional organization. Wheatley lays the groundwork for the subsequent chapters in his exploration of the evolution of learned societies in the humanities in the United States and CAA’s participation in the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). In the second chapter, “The Beginnings: ‘Art for higher education, and higher education for Artists,’ ” I introduce the big picture—the founding and early years of the association and the first and most comprehensive of the current sixteen purposes in the association’s bylaws: Purpose 1: To encourage the highest standards of creativity, scholarship, connoisseurship, and teaching in the areas of studio art, the history and criticism of the visual arts and architecture, and exhibitions; and to further these objectives in institutions of higher learning and of public service such as colleges, universities, art schools, museums, and other art organizations. In the general discussion of the origins of CAA, I touch upon two other purposes that deal with the administrative functions of the association, numbers 13 and 14, and three more purposes, numbers 7, 8, and 10, which relate to the association’s involvement in its early years with the world outside the academy. The next two chapters deal with specific examples of this involvement. In chapter 3, Cristin Tierney discusses CAA’s active traveling exhibition program in the 1930s, the nearly decade-long venture into what board member Walter W. S. Cook dis-
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dainfully dismissed in 1941 as “pseudo-museum” activities. In chapter 4, Barry Pritzker, writing on “Cooperative Relationships with Museums,” deals with the paucity of formal, as opposed to extensive informal, relationships with the museum community, focusing on a notable exception—a major collaborative study of artists and museums—CAA’s Joint Artists-Museum Committee in the 1950s. Although there are a myriad of other examples of CAA’s involvement with the world at large, many of which appear in the other chapters, Wheatley, Tierney, and Pritzker’s chapters are indicative of the wide range of collaborative activities in which CAA has participated and set the stage for the dramatic growth of affiliated societies in the late twentieth century. Chapter 5, “The Changing Face of Scholarly Publishing: CAA’s Publications Program,” is by Craig Houser, who provides a comprehensive presentation of the history of the organization’s scholarly publications, which began in 1913 and is mandated by purposes 4 and 5. Houser analyzes the history and publication record of the five primary scholarly publications—The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, Parnassus, caa.reviews, and CAA’s Monographs on the Fine Arts. He also addresses complex governance issues that surrounded the association’s publishing activities, from the controversial decision to cease publication of the popular Parnassus, to debates about the purposes of and audiences for The Art Bulletin and College Art Journal and its successor Art Journal, to the establishment of an in-house publications function and the restructuring of the governance of the journals and subsequent discussions about both governance and content, and more. Chapter 6, “Uniting the Arts and the Academy: A History of the CAA Annual Conference,” by Julia A. Sienkewicz, deals with the other major programmatic area covered by purpose 6, the annual conference, which, like publications, was mandated from the beginning. Sienkewicz presents a complex analysis of the growth of the annual conference from a handful of papers presented in 1913 to what the current director of programs, Emmanuel Lemakis, calls a “three-ring circus”—more than one hundred program sessions, a trade show with more than one hundred booths, and a large job fair. The process of growth is well documented in the chapter. Sienkewicz also incorporates a discussion of CAA’s affiliated societies, whose activities within CAA are, for the most part, intrinsically linked to the annual conference. In chapter 7, “Mentoring the Profession: Career Development and Support,” Ofelia Garcia discusses the vast and complex professional support activities of the organization encompassed by purposes 12 and 15. Chapter 8, “Art in an Academic Setting: Contemporary CAA Exhibitions,” by Ellen K. Levy focuses on one aspect of career development—organizing and supporting exhibitions of work by members, both students and professionals. Chapter 9, “CAA, Pedagogy and Curriculum: A Historical Effort, An Unparalleled Wealth of Ideas,” investigates the role of CAA in art and art history curri-
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cula and policy statements, standards, and guidelines, as mandated in purposes 9 and 16. The author, Matthew Israel, traces the involvement and influence of CAA on the development of the art and art history curricula in the United States through publications, annual conference presentations and discussions, committee activities, and collaborative projects with substantial outside funding. He also deals with the role and impact of CAA in establishing standards and guidelines. Chapter 10, “Visual Resources for the Arts,” by Christine L. Sundt, deals with an issue related to the organization’s involvement in pedagogy and curriculum— visual resources, libraries, and the often-thorny issue of copyright. In chapter 11 on “Governance and Diversity,” the three authors, Judith K. Brodsky, Mary D. Garrard, and Ferris Olin, address the governance structure of CAA, from its beginnings in 1913, through some turbulent times in the 1970s, to the strategic planning process in the 1990s, when identity politics were in vogue, and purposes 2 and 3 were drafted and added to the bylaws to address issues of inclusion and exclusion, discrimination and recrimination, both in the field and in the association. In chapter 12, “CAA Advocacy: The Nexus of Art and Politics,” Karen J. Leader tackles the complex involvement of the association in political issues from the outset. Taking a stand on political issues that have affected members now falls under the rubric “advocacy.” This purpose 11, which was adopted as recently as 2001, is much more specifically defined than the others, stating the official policy that governs what would and/or could be taken on by the association.13 As with most membership organizations of any size, the history of CAA is the outcome of collaborative work, participatory governance, and an enormous commitment of time and expertise by numerous volunteers and employees. The organization, with its board of directors, committees, editorial boards, and countless other committed volunteers, along with a very dedicated staff, has accomplished an enormous amount as is evident by the very ambitious list of purposes. The heroes and heroines in this large body of people are above all the members who have served in so many roles over the years. Members of the board of directors are elected from the membership and by the membership to serve for four-year terms, extended only if elected to serve as an officer—president, one of four vice presidents, or secretary. As the minutes clearly demonstrate, the association’s board members have shaped the organization, playing major roles in the development of not only policy, but also the programs and services of the organization. Members of committees and awards juries have also played significant roles in the history. On the programmatic side, the scholars, critics, curators, and artists who have worked as editors of the organization’s journals and served as members of editorial boards as well as those who have served as
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conference program and session chairs have helped shape the disciplines that comprise the membership. Many members have also functioned as ambassadors of sorts, representing CAA within the larger visual arts and humanities communities in higher education, the ACLS, the museum world, and the larger cultural community. Likewise, thousands of scholars and artists both from within the organization’s family and from the larger artistic, academic, museum and gallery, learned society, and library communities have played a crucial part in defining who and what CAA was, is, and will be. Last, but not least, the staff has carried out the policies established by the board of directors. As part of their jobs, the staff has worked closely with the board of directors, committee and editorial board members, editors and authors, conference chairs and speakers, awards jurors and winners, fellowship jurors and fellows, funders and potential funders, legislators, and members of the public, to name some, but by no means all of the people with whom staff have dealt. As is typical of most start-up organizations, the board initially ran the organization, hiring the first paid administrator in the late 1920s. The staff remained small well into the second half of the twentieth century, growing slowly as both the membership and the programs and services increased. My own involvement began in 1972, when, as a graduate student in art history, I proudly joined my own professional organization. I received my first academic job offer through an interview at the annual conference in 1978. While I was executive director from 1986 to 2006, I was privileged to preside over a very exciting period of expansion, when individual membership more than doubled from six thousand to fourteen thousand, and an active and engaged board responded with enthusiasm to growing demands from the membership for more services and programs. A larger and more comprehensive association required a larger professional staff and a concomitantly more sophisticated and professional governance structure. As CAA approaches the centennial of its founding in 1911, my successor, Linda Downs, is faced with the same challenge that the search committee gave me in 1986, that is, to take the organization to the next level. My tenure began at a time of prosperity, relatively undiminished by Black Monday—the stock market crash of October 1987. Fifteen years later it was a different picture entirely. The economic downturn of 2001 and its aftermath took its toll on the association. Fewer academic jobs were advertised, fewer national searches were conducted, fewer listings in CAA Careers were published, and fewer people attended the annual conference to seek and/or interview for jobs. All resulted in less revenue for the association at a time when a dichotomy existed: members were demanding more services yet they were reluctant and/or unable to pay higher fees for these desired services. CAA rose to the challenges and performed very well, but not
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without important self-reflection and necessary prioritizing and refocusing on its mission, core values, and sixteen purposes in the bylaws. Downs took over as executive director in the summer of 2006, four months after I had left, not having the benefit that I had of an unpressured overlap with her predecessor. She inherited a strategic plan that was unrealistic in its focus on workforce issues, given other competing demands, in particular a much-needed but under-funded association management database project. In late 2008, as I write this introduction, CAA is in the midst of another strategic planning process, as the world is faced with the worst economic crisis since 1929. CAA and its members are going to face enormous difficulties in the months and years to come, as the organization and its members struggle to redefine themselves in relationship to this economic development. Typically during a strategic planning process, the mission, vision, core values, and purposes of an organization are examined and, more often than not, reaffirmed. Throughout the organization’s long history, the purposes have been examined and debated—sometimes heatedly—but, in the end, remained remarkably consistent. At the same time, those examinations, debates, and reaffirmations all served to clarify the underlying mission and the association’s commitment to it. Furthermore, the focus and emphasis of programmatic activities has changed over time, reflecting the current needs of the membership and the constituent fields at large, expanding and contracting programs and services, in response to both members’ needs and economic realities—both in times of abundance and scarcity. In the conclusion to the book, “The Next 100 Years,” written by the association’s President Paul B. Jaskot (2008–2010), the future needs of the members and the capacity of the association to meet them is addressed. None of us knows what the future will hold in terms of the economy, the academy, or the broader world of the visual arts, but we do know that CAA has played an essential and seminal role in the political and cultural history of the disciplines of art history and the visual arts in the United States since its founding and that the need for such a professional association—as publisher, convener, and advocate—will always exist.
1 The Learned Society Enterprise steven c. wheatley
hat is the role of the CAA? Before one can begin to examine the unique cultural history of the College Art Association (CAA), it is necessary to understand its larger context, addressing the development of learned societies in general and their function within the larger scope of academia. The formation of the CAA marked a time when the United States research university first came into being. This is not a coincidence, because the modern learned society was deeply enmeshed within the development of higher learning in America. The United States system of higher education was, and continues to be, globally distinctive for its decentralization. Its mixture of public and private funding and its variety of institutions, including huge state universities, small liberal arts colleges, and community colleges, have led some foreign observers to wonder whether a system is in play at all. Amid the buzzing confusion, where have academics been able to find common standards, values, and ideals? A new form of academic association provided one answer. The collection of “modern” learned societies that emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries helped form the nervous system of the new, more muscular body of higher education taking shape at the same period. The activist scholars leading the new learned societies were partners with the cohort of university presidents, called “captains of erudition” by Thorstein Veblen, who sought to import the research ideals of the German university to America.1 Their joint efforts, crucially aided by individual and foundation philanthropists, helped transform tertiary education in this country. The American university
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turned out not to be a replication of the German model, but a hybrid of new imports and domestic experiments that melded graduate and undergraduate education; combined teaching, research, and public service; and supported both the liberal arts and professional and disciplinary specialization. Once this new system was established, learned societies played a critical role in its maintenance, expansion, and evolution. American higher education is driven largely by market forces. Universities and colleges compete for students, faculty, prestige, and support. Faculty compete for salaries, support, and prestige. Disciplinary learned societies quite literally provide the marketplace for those entering the academic workforce by organizing employment listings and designing their annual meetings as, in part, job fairs. The honors bestowed by such a society—prizes, election to leadership, and publication and reviews in the association’s journal—help set the metrics by which university leaders measure success in the competition for prestige. Societies developed and promulgated standards and best practices in research and teaching. Learned societies also provided portals to membership in the academy. As émigré scholars fleeing Nazism sought refuge in the United States, learned societies provided new professional homes and colleagues. When women and minority scholars sought to take their place in the academic vanguard, learned societies were one vehicle for advancing change. The political character of most learned societies, CAA included, has rendered them both flexible and, sometimes, fractious. Their predecessor institutions, the scholarly academies of Europe or American societies founded in the eighteenth century, such as the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, had (and continue to maintain) self-selected exclusive memberships based on election. The new model of learned society is inclusive in its membership; anyone willing to pay her dues can join the society and vote for its leadership. Its paid staff notwithstanding, an academic learned society is an essentially voluntary organization. The history of any one learned society naturally marks much the same tempo as the broad history of the American university system of which it is a critical component. But each society also exhibits the particularities of the fields it represents, and the history of each society identifies special contingencies of leadership and development. The several chapters of this volume describe the history of the CAA’s distinctive features. This chapter places the organization in the broad path along which United States learned societies evolved.
antecedents European academies and royal societies of Europe showed how individual intellectuals, gathered together outside the college and university, could share,
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disseminate, and expand knowledge. But these bodies, deriving their corporate form and patronage from a relatively powerful state, could not easily be transported to eighteenth-century America. What developed more naturally was local congeries of like-minded physicians, lawyers, naturalists, and experimenting autodidacts who met regularly to share their enthusiasms. The best-known example of this form, the Philadelphia “junto” convened in a tavern by Benjamin Franklin, led to the founding of the American Philosophical Society in 1743, today the oldest continuing learned society in the United States. The Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded in Boston in 1780, were only the most prominent sprouts of a luxuriant growth of local academies, institutes, lyceums, societies, athenaeums, and associations in which wide segments of the middle and upper classes participated in the early nineteenth century.2 Historian Thomas Bender has described how these “vernacular” local institutions helped shape a rich urban culture of popular learning and public exposition distinct from the intellectually narrow confines of traditional colleges of the time.3
learned societies stake their claims “In the long run, of course,” Bender notes, higher education changed and “the professional pattern of science triumphed over the vernacular.” 4 The passage by Congress in 1862 of the Morrill Act, providing funds with which states could found “agricultural and mechanical” universities, was one blow to the primacy of the classical college curriculum. Charles W. Eliot’s introduction of an elective curriculum and reform of Harvard College was another. The founding of Johns Hopkins University in 1876, explicitly dedicated to German research ideals and originally intending to eschew undergraduate education, set a standard which other institutions soon aspired to. The older form of learned society, where amateur and expert shared authority over broad intellectual territories, such as “social science,” “natural science,” or “arts and sciences,” could accommodate neither the expansion of knowledge nor the ambitions and style of young academics eager to specialize. The new model of an academic learned society represented a generational shift from its predecessors. The young Edward Ross, returning to the United States from study in Germany, was delighted to find at the first meeting of the American Economic Association in 1891 that the membership was not dominantly “graybeards,” but men under the age of thirty-five.5 The new learned societies were natural partners with the nascent research university in building new curricular, organizational, and faculty structures. J. Franklin Jameson, one of the early leaders of the American Historical Association, reflected in 1932 on the changes he and his colleagues brought about:
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Now, nearly all professors have a two fold loyalty, to the college in which they teach and to the profession to which they belong. It is, of course, not in history alone that this beneficent expansion of mind has taken place. The organization of the American Historical Association was but one of a dozen or more instances in which. . . . the votaries of this or that academic subject, scientific or humanistic, drew together by the formation of national societies. It was an important general movement, the value of which to the intellectual life of America has perhaps not been duly estimated.6 The learned society reinforced the very idea of “research.” It provided the league of intensely competitive research universities with external reference points for determining their standing. It was concerned with setting national standards for the emerging disciplines of study. “If there is a single crucial point in the process of academic professionalization,” writes historian Roger Geiger, “it would be of a national association with its attendant central journal.”7 Jameson, who served as the first editor of the American Historical Review, put it succinctly in 1902: it is not the primary mission of the journal “to evoke originality to kindle the fires of genius.” Its most important job, rather, was “[t]o regularize, to criticise, to restrain vagaries, to set a standard of workmanship and compel men to conform to it.” 8 Historian Laurence Veysey has observed that, by 1910, “the structure of the American university had assumed its stable twentieth-century form,” with departmental organization straddling both graduate and undergraduate education, research and teaching being intertwined as the university’s mission.9 CAA was thus founded near the end of the formative period of the American research university and, indeed, was one of the last of the societies representing a humanities discipline to stake its claim to specific territory within the new structures of higher education.
maintaining their claims Once established, learned societies helped reshape and reposition the disciplines they represented. The research university included the disciplines of the humanities, but often seemed to consign them to a distinctly secondary place. Advocates for maintaining humanistic studies as an essential dimension of education have pressed their suit regularly. In 1944, a CAA committee issued “A Statement on the Place of the History of Art in the Liberal Arts Curriculum,” which deployed wartime themes to make its case. “All the humanities are seriously challenged,” the statement noted, challenged by “the tendency of American higher education throughout the twentieth century to become more practical and to emphasize
The Learned Society Enterprise ∏ 15
science and vocational training.” The value of those aims notwithstanding, the association asserted that “[t]he war has focussed attention on an issue that has existed in American education. . . . The growth of a democratic culture requires idealism and a sense of values among the young” that must come from liberal education.10 “The history of art is an indispensable part of the liberal arts curriculum because the purpose of that curriculum is the development of wisdom, responsibility and judgment.” 11 Visual materials, placed in their proper historical context, introduced students to the idea of cultural diversity across time and space. The winter 1955 issue of the College Art Journal includes two “miscellaneous reports” that together exemplify the concerns of the postwar academy vis-à-vis the federal government. The first report is a digest of testimony provided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) before the House Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations (the Reece Committee), which had convened to expose alleged subversive influences among endowed philanthropies. The chairman of the ACLS board, President C. W. de Kiewiet of the University of Rochester, complimented the committee “for at least recognizing that humane studies are powerful forces in any society,” that they are “an influence that cannot be suppressed,” for “[o]nly those societies try to do so that are fearful of freedom.” The College Art Journal’s editor predicted that the committee’s attack on foundations and scholarship was not “the last gasp of a dying American anti-intellectualism,” and, therefore, “the intellectual must fight back.” 12 But just as the academy’s leadership feared government’s captious interference with scholarship, it was concerned also to increase federal financial support of the arts and humanities. The journal gives extensive coverage to the report of another Congressional committee on hearings concerning the possibility of federal funding of the arts. While the majority report concluded that this “is not a proper area for the expenditure of Federal funds,” the journal editors gave extensive space to the minority’s position that the “development and fostering of our cultural life cannot be dismissed as a luxury,” and the success of the National Science Foundation, begun in 1950, provides a template for the nonpolitical government support of specialized knowledge.13
expansion, controversy, and transformation The professional objectives of the first half of the twentieth century—establishing a recognizable and defined discipline, claiming educational and research space in the new university system, developing advocacy appealing to the public and private funders of higher education—assumed a new urgency as American higher education after World War II expanded from a system that served social
16
∏ Steven C. Wheatley
elites to one open to the mass public. The G.I. Bill, intended originally as a measure to combat unemployment, had dramatic educational effects as the prospect of higher education became, for the first time, imaginable for a much wider population. In the quarter century between 1945 and 1970, American colleges and universities became more numerous, more complex, and richer. In the prosperous 1950s and 1960s, the growth rate of the aggregate income of all institutions of higher education was twice that of the gross national product.14 Public university systems created new campuses and established institutions expanded their capacities to meet the demand of returning servicemen and servicewomen, who were shortly followed by the demographic bulge of the baby-boom generation. How could learned societies help ensure that the fields they represented were properly replicated in the expanded educational terrain? Most societies grew in membership as they provided the burgeoning professoriat with common purpose. (In 1922, the total academic workforce of United States higher education numbered 56,000 individuals; by 1970, that figure was reckoned at more than 500,000.15) With the contours of higher education already determined at the beginning of the century, societies no longer needed to argue for inclusion of their discipline in the university. Now the services and operations of societies offered new universities and departments opportunities to represent themselves in the structure of the disciplines. The role of disciplinary societies as sites of the academic labor market became more critical. National scholarly associations were sources of advice and standards for university administrations undertaking new graduate programs. The roster of a society’s leadership and the distribution of its awards became increasingly important arbiters of university prestige in a larger, more stratified system of higher education. Scholarly specialization grew along with the size of the professoriat, and new learned societies came into being to advance interdisciplinary, subdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary lines of inquiry. Many of these new societies affiliated with the larger disciplinary associations; societies such as CAA or the American Historical Association became small federations of multiple scholarly organizations. The so-called golden age of postwar educational expansion crashed upon the shoals of political confrontation and economic constriction.16 The Vietnam War, the Civil Rights struggle, and a generalized delegitimation of all authority provoked campus clashes that soured state and federal legislators on colleges and universities. The unsteady economy of the 1970s revealed that many universities were fiscally overextended and not prepared to deal with “a new depression in higher education.”17 Demographic changes aggravated the difficulties. In 1975– 1976, with the crest of the baby boom graduating from college and the artificial stimulation of draft deferments ending, enrollment in higher education declined absolutely for the first time since 1951, when the initial surge from the G.I. Bill had ebbed.18
The Learned Society Enterprise ∏ 17
Many of the conflicts of the era were played out within learned societies, whose democratic governance invited the formation of caucuses advocating for particular causes or populations. At the 1971 CAA meeting, a group from the National Art Workers Community seized the microphone from the association president at the business meeting “in order to chant a list of demands directed to the board.” “We may be disappointed in their drama, but the content of their ‘demands’ cannot be overlooked,” commented Yale Professor Anne Coffin Hanson in the Art Journal.19 One durable consequence of this period was the advent of a more pluralistic profile of society leadership as women, racial and ethnic minorities, scholars of different sexual orientations, and, in some cases, students won representation on association boards, councils, and among senior staff.
This broadened leadership of learned societies confronted difficult challenges as the American research university entered its second century. The last quarter of the twentieth century saw a slow-motion privatization of higher education as public support declined. Costs were shifted to tuition payers, private funders, and faculty, especially the “contingent faculty,” the full- and part-time instructors not on the tenure track who made up a growing fraction of higher education’s instructional staff. Concerned about the implications of this phenomenon, a group of learned societies, including CAA, formed the Coalition on the Academic Workforce to analyze the problem and identify best practices in academic employment.20 The rise of digital technologies unsettled established practices of scholarly communication, even as they promised new means by which learned societies could build community among their members. Escalating travel costs threatened the economic viability of annual meetings. Learned societies will thrive in the twenty-first century only if their members continue to find value in their voluntary allegiance. On that question, there are some hopeful indicators. In 2001, the ACLS surveyed scholars who had at least five years’ tenure in at least one of its constituent societies. What, the subjects were asked, are their motivations for membership? The results, perhaps surprisingly, suggested that material rewards—journal subscriptions, reduced costs for goods and services—were not the primary motivations. Scholars maintained their membership in learned societies out of a sense of solidarity with their colleagues and with the aim of advancing knowledge in their field: the very same motivations that led to the founding of the CAA nearly a century ago.21
2 The Beginnings “Art for higher education, and higher education for Artists” susan ball
The College Art Association of America has a great work to accomplish. We stand for the right of the American student in our higher institutions of learning to instruction in that subject which is at the same time most cultural to the minds of the learners and most practical in its effects on their lives . . . the infinite field of art. . . . So we will turn our weapons, not towards each other, but towards the common enemy, the commercial, the vicious, and the ugly and adopt as our slogan: Art for higher education, and higher education for Artists.1
his chapter presents the big picture—both the context in which the College Art Association was founded in 1911 and the first and most comprehensive purpose—“to promote art interests in all divisions of American colleges and universities.” With minor alterations, this purpose stood alone for fifty years. Five additional purposes, adopted at later dates, are also addressed in this chapter, two dealing with administrative and financial matters and three with CAA in the wider world.
T
the hand: art education in the united states Starting with the Great Exhibition of Works of Industry of All Nations in London in 1851, the United States began to mobilize itself as a stronger force in the newly 19
20
∏ Susan Ball
industrialized world. The country chose to rapidly expand its vocational art education program in numerous ways, looking to England initially for models to train American vocational teachers. In 1872, Walter Smith, who had been the head of the South Kensington School of Industrial Drawing and Crafts at Leeds, was hired to be the first state director of art education in Massachusetts. Smith later went on to found the Massachusetts Normal Art School in 1873 to train drawing teachers.2 In 1881, the United States Bureau of Education noted the existence of thirty-seven such schools specializing in art and design, twelve of which had been established following the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Among these twelve schools, several were connected with colleges and art museums: the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Art School of Smith College, the School of Design at Vassar, and the Rhode Island School of Design.3 In 1883, the National Education Association, founded as early as 1857, organized a Department of Art, providing a forum for art and industrial art teachers at its national conventions.4 These developments demonstrated a more concerted effort on behalf of the United States to foster art and design education in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It should be noted that instruction in the manual arts and the cultural value of the arts had already been a stable part of American elementary school education. Since colonial times, the founders of the United States had supported the principle of elementary school education for everyone and free public schooling for the poor, which was rare in other industrialized countries.5 Because a broad educational system had already been in place in the United States, the establishment of stronger training in the arts was able to progress quickly and efficiently in secondary schools and colleges in the late nineteenth century within the American school system. The importance of education in the industrial arts and attention to its aesthetic appeal would become increasingly important factors in the twentieth century. Despite the fact that the United States exhibited a staggering seven thousand items at the Paris Exposition of 1900—more than any other country— critics charged that the lack of aesthetic appeal of the Americans’ clever inventions led to a questioning of their quality. This criticism eventually convinced American industries that aesthetically appealing and well-designed manufactured objects were a matter of sound business in order to compete successfully in a world market.6 Establishing and developing the links between the fine arts, design, industry, and vocational education therefore became key factors in the early twentieth century.7 As more vocational and normal schools were established specifically to teach art and design, the growing body of teachers in this field formed regional associations. These associations focused at the outset on either drawing or manual
The Beginnings ∏ 21
training and included not only elementary school teachers, but also secondary school and college-level teachers. The regional associations were all committed to establishing standards in manual and industrial art education in order to improve the training in American school systems, yet the agenda of each association and its individual members varied. Within these associations, several instructors became increasingly interested in establishing educational standards within the fine arts as separate from the industrial arts, especially at the college level. Furthermore, an additional split occurred between those whose primary focus was on pedagogy—training teachers of the arts—and those who made the art itself. As the participants in this newly organized amorphous movement began to define and refine their roles, reconfigurations in the arts associations began to occur along content lines as opposed to strictly geographic ones.8
the mind and the eye: the origins of the caa The origins of the CAA can be traced to the creation of the Committee on the Condition of Art Work in Colleges and Universities in May 1907, at a joint meeting of the Western Drawing and Manual Training Association (WDMTA), the Eastern Art Teachers’ Association, and the Eastern Manual Training Association at the 14th Annual Meeting of the WDMTA in Cleveland. The committee’s final report was published by the WDMTA in 1910 and presented at its annual meeting of that year. The committee members, John S. Ankeney, chair, Edward J. Lake, and William Woodward, wrote that they had begun their work by appealing to 175 art educators throughout the United States, the majority of whom “have at last given art instruction a place in their midst,” and concluded that “the most important factor toward the final solution of the problem of art education in universities is the unity of effort which may be developed in the teaching corps itself.” 9 Woodward was an ardent believer that an organized teaching corps would be the force that could promote art education in colleges and universities. Both he and Ankeney had participated in a landmark symposium held in London in 1908 called Art Education in the Public Schools of the United States, which was organized by the American Committee of the Third International Congress for the Development of Drawing and Art Teaching. In the published proceedings of the symposium, numbering four hundred pages, Woodward addressed the training of future art educators, basing his paper on responses to a questionnaire he had sent to all the colleges and universities named on the U.S. government list of 1906.10 His findings demonstrated that there was significant instruction in both art history and art technique, especially drawing, which was required for entrance to the study of architecture.11 Woodward argued that colleges and uni-
22
∏ Susan Ball
versities, with their requirements for liberal arts and sciences, were preferable to normal schools and art schools with their narrower, and thus limiting, focus on pedagogy and/or technical skills.12 His conclusions demonstrated a need for the establishment and growth of art schools and teachers colleges within universities. He felt art schools were essential within the university system because of their “close association with the religious, social, musical and literary life of the university,” and within the teachers colleges for the “broadening contact they give with many departments of study.” 13 His goal as urged in the 1910 report to the WDMTA was to mobilize these teachers to proselytize for both art and art history, to demand that they be included in the regular curriculum in all colleges and universities, not just in specialized technical and teacher training institutions. At the 1910 WDMTA meeting, Holmes Smith, later the first president of CAA, urged the “formation of a permanent organization of college art-workers.” 14 This did in fact happen at that meeting, as reported by Ankeney, Lake, and Woodward, who noted that the college art teachers had indeed responded to their call by forming “a College Art Association” that the committee “earnestly hoped” would “expand into a national movement.” 15 The newly formed CAA invited to its membership “all those interested in the formation within the university of a true art spirit.” 16 With the submission of the report in 1910, the committee handed over responsibility for action to the new organization of college art teachers. The following year the new group met at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, close to the WDMTA meeting being held simultaneously in Springfield, to declare their intention of becoming a formal organization. In Cincinnati in 1912, the college art teachers declared independence and signed the “Constitution of the College Art Association,” whose purpose was “to promote art interests in all divisions of American colleges and universities” for “all instructors in the history, practice, teaching, and theory of the fine arts in a college or university of recognized standing.” 17 CAA held its first annual meeting in December at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh in 1912, electing officers, adopting bylaws, establishing committees, and approving occasional scholarly publishing and an annual conference. Given that the impetus for the secession came from the WDMTA, based in the Midwest, the composition of the first board of directors was remarkably diverse— including among its nine members one woman, equal numbers (four) from the Midwest (Washington University in St. Louis, University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, University of Iowa) and Northeast (Harvard, Wellesley, Princeton, Dartmouth), and one from the South (University of West Virginia). The membership committee included more people from southern universities and one from Stanford. The six new committees dealt with a wide range of activities, their names expressing their basic functions: “Membership and Publicity” and
The Beginnings ∏ 23
“Time and Place of the Next General Meeting.” Other committees addressed the substantive problems raised in the report of 1910, such as “On Investigation of Conditions of Art Instruction in American Universities and Colleges” and “On Typical Art Courses,” which had three subcommittees, one on “liberal culture” (primarily art history), one on the practice of art, and a third on “experimental work” (not defined). The founders initially agreed to publish an occasional publication—finances permitting—largely to publish the proceedings of the annual meeting and occasional “notes,” which eventually became the Art Bulletin. The founders also agreed to the regular presentation of papers at the annual meeting. The papers at the first meeting were a mix of professional and practical issues, the latter reflecting the work of the committees, such as “The Place of the Study of Art in American Universities” and “Teaching the Fine Arts in Universities and Colleges.” Scholarly papers fell into the areas in which the report concluded that the majority of art history courses were taught—classics, archaeology, and Renaissance: “The Tomb of Ilaria del Caretto” and “The Fine Arts and the Classics.” 18 This general mix of topics, which reflected both the governance concerns and the professional interests of the members, as discussed in chapter 6, remains the fundamental model, with varying emphases, of the annual conference. The first issue of the Bulletin of the College Art Association, published in 1913, published the constitution and bylaws and one five-page article entitled “Problems of the College Art Association,” by President Smith, in which he recounted the founding of the organization and concluded, as Woodward had before him, that the aim of the organization should be “to influence our board of governors, our faculties and our student bodies that the university may eventually occupy a leading position in artistic thought, such as it has already attained in the other great branches of national activity.” 19
funding caa The founders of CAA came together with an ambitious agenda; new members joined with expectations of products, programs, and services, all of which required funding. Impecuniousness is a frequent topic in early reports on CAA published in Art Bulletin and appears in the recorded minutes from 1930 onward, frequently with a tone of concern about the association’s financial stability. Dues have never represented 100 percent of CAA’s revenue, a situation that requires the association’s leadership to seek both earned and contributed income as reflected in two of CAA’s sixteen purposes: Purpose 13: To seek support from foundations, philanthropic organizations, or individuals for specific programs or activities of merit in the arts.
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∏ Susan Ball
Purpose 14: To administer funds contributed to the Association in order to finance pertinent conferences, meetings, symposia, publications, surveys, studies, exhibitions, residencies, scholarships, and similar activities. The annual dues for active members in the newly formed CAA were $3.00, roughly equivalent to the lowest of the current income-based regular membership categories in today’s dollars. In 1913, President Smith reported that the cost of the first issue of the Bulletin of the College Art Association had been “defrayed by special subscriptions.” He optimistically predicted that by the time of the second issue, the membership “will have grown to such dimensions that the cost of the second and succeeding numbers of the series can easily be borne by the treasury of the Association so that no further call for voluntary subscriptions will be necessary.” 20 Smith’s optimism that the cost of publication could “easily be borne” by members’ dues proved to be false. In his presidential address at CAA’s 8th Annual Meeting in 1919, John Pickard, Smith’s successor as president of CAA, explained the four-year hiatus between the first and second issues of the Bulletin as “owing to the bankrupt state of our treasury.” 21 By 1918, when the fourth issue of the Bulletin appeared, the board had added a third membership category, “sustaining,” specifically to support publication of the journal. Among the six sustaining members listed were Pickard; John Shapley, managing editor and CAA secretary; and Paul Sachs, board member and editorial board member. The next record of membership dues was thirteen years later in the bylaws of 1930, where annual dues were listed at $15 per year (the equivalent of $185 in 2008).22 Similar discussions occurred at meetings of the board of directors and the executive committee, leading inevitably to revisions in the bylaws, nearly all of which dealt solely with dues increases. Dues discussions continued, of course, as part of the ongoing challenge of funding an increasingly complex organization, with dues typically accounting for approximately 40 percent of total revenue and staying fairly consistent with those of similarly sized learned societies and as adjusted for inflation. On the other hand, academic salaries, adjusted for inflation, have not increased across the board to the same extent, adding to the economic burden on members. Moreover, the association’s costs of producing the annual conference and the costs to attend the annual conference—travel, registration, and accommodation—have risen well beyond equivalent costs a decade and more ago. The annual conference, once an important source of revenue, made it possible to keep membership dues at an affordable level. However, the event has generated fewer funds in recent years because of rising production costs and a desire to keep registration fees as low as possible. CAA has benefited enormously over its history from outside project-specific funding from foundations and the government, initially and consistently for
The Beginnings ∏ 25
support for publications and later for collaborative research studies, exhibitions, capacity building, fellowships, annual conferences, and various careerdevelopment activities. Throughout the following chapters as programs and activities are discussed, credit is given to specific funders without whom projects may never have taken place. Mention must be made here of some of the most generous foundation funders over the past century, among them the Carnegie Corporation, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the J. Paul Getty Trust. Other foundations that have been supportive include the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art. Art Bulletin has always published the names of its contributors—foundations, colleges and universities, museums and galleries, corporations, and individuals. Art Journal started a similar publications subvention program in the summer of 1999.23 Although individual members, usually past board members, have occasionally made bequests to the association (the most notable being $500,000 from Millard Meiss in 1974 to establish an endowed Publications Subvention Fund), CAA, like most learned societies, does not have a formal planned giving program to solicit bequests. However, some form of giving over and above regular dues has been in place from the beginning, as noted above, with more than four hundred sustaining, sponsoring, and patron members currently supporting CAA’s general operations. A formal annual giving campaign was established in 2004. Board members have always been generous benefactors of the association, usually in the form of membership at one of the higher levels and sometimes additionally with contributions to programs of specific interest to them. Moreover, board members have made significant in-kind contributions. The typical not-for-profit requirement of board members to “give or get” a minimum amount of funding each year was not instituted at CAA until February 2000, when Michael Aurbach, the vice president for external affairs, made the motion that would mandate a $500 annual contribution from all board members, the significance of which he emphasized by writing a check for $500 on the spot.24 The motion passed, but with some notable dissent. As Aurbach pointed out, with CAA relying more and more on foundation funding, it was essential to be able to demonstrate 100 percent support from the board of directors. CAA has several invested funds, some donor restricted, some board restricted, that are generically referred to as “the endowment,” which is collectively governed by a formal investment policy with a mandated annual payout. The first of these funds was the Meiss bequest, which awards subventions to art historical publications; the second was established in 1976 with a grant that H. W. Janson secured from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to support the monograph series; the third, started in 1982, was also for publications—the Art Bulletin Endow-
26
∏ Susan Ball
ment Fund—with a pledge from CAA of $50,000 per year for five years; the next project-specific fund was established in 1992 with challenge grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund the Professional Development Fellowship Program. In addition to these restricted programs, CAA also has a board-restricted invested fund that contributes to the general operating costs of the association.
the academy and beyond Purpose 1: To encourage the highest standards of creativity, scholarship, connoisseurship, and teaching in the areas of studio art, the history and criticism of the visual arts and architecture, and exhibitions; and to further these objectives in institutions of higher learning and of public service such as colleges, universities, art schools, museums, and other art organizations.25 It is not only economic pressures that place significant demands on CAA’s financial resources, but also the increased demands from members for programs and services that are inevitable, given the growth in numbers and interests among the members. Although the organization was, as the name and initial purpose suggest, for college art teachers, the founders included from the beginning an associate member category open to “all persons interested in the object of this association,” no doubt in recognition of the fact that college and university museums and art libraries were often staffed by the professors themselves. The membership and concerns quickly grew to extend beyond the ivied walls of the academy to reflect the more inclusive focus adopted by the founders. An amended constitution, published in 1917, included among active members “all who are engaged in educational work on the staff of any museum with or art gallery of recognized standing.” 26 One of the founding board members, Edith R. Abbot, then affiliated with Wellesley College, was identified on the next published list of directors and committee members in 1917, as an instructor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Abbot served on the committee for reproductions for the college museum and library and was chair of the committee for arrangements for the 7th Annual Meeting, held at the Metropolitan Museum.27 The committees, their activities, and annual conference sessions and papers reflect the inclusion not only of museum workers, but also of libraries and librarians. In his presidential address at the 8th Annual Meeting in May 1919, held for the second year in a row at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pickard reinforced that inclusiveness, declaring that “As the years have passed our vision has grown clearer and our sympathies broader. We have learned that we must coordinate the art work in colleges and universities with the educational work in our muse-
The Beginnings ∏ 27
ums and art galleries.” 28 The intrinsic intertwining and overlapping of art museums, libraries, and college and university visual arts and art history instructors is reflected in CAA’s current seventh and eighth purposes: Purpose 7: To acknowledge and develop the fundamental mutual interests between museums and other academic institutions.29 Purpose 8. To encourage curators, librarians, collectors, dealers, public officials, and all others entrusted with the custody of works of art or documents associated with works of art to make these available for study to scholars, artists, and students. The tenth purpose expands that circle beyond libraries, museums, and galleries: Purpose 10. To encourage professional relationships with other learned societies and with international, national, and regional organizations which serve similar purposes in the fine arts or allied areas. Although CAA largely represented the interests of United States art historians and artists, the organization became interested in international affairs and chose to develop relationships with like-minded organizations. In 1930, when the bylaws and constitution were revised for application for incorporation, membership included four categories: life, annual, student, and also foreign. The inclusion of “foreign” as a category no doubt related to the influx of émigrés coming over from Europe, who were referred to frequently in minutes of board meetings as “refugee scholars.” As a reflection of the growing interest in international affairs, a membership brochure of 1933 describes the association as an “International Organization.” In 1942, CAA was admitted to membership in the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) and was therefore represented internationally by the latter organization, which had been established in 1919 by thirteen learned societies to represent the United States in the Union Académique Internationale.30 In 1953, CAA became directly involved with international affairs when it held one of the cherished seats on the United States National Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).31 The addition of a foreign membership category in 1930 also coincided with the establishment of the Comité international d’histoire de l’art (CIHA), a federation of national committees that was established in the same year to act primarily as a means of maintaining contact among scholars between CIHA’s triennial congresses on the history of art. Although the United States had rep-
28
∏ Susan Ball
resentation in planning the CIHA triennial congresses from the beginning, the United States did not have its own national committee until 1950, when it was invited by CIHA to form one. The CAA board of directors appointed five of its members to the committee: Walter W. S. Cook, Sumner Crosby, Frederick Deknatel, Rensselaer Lee, and Henry R. Hope.32 CAA’s moment of triumph came when the United States members convinced CIHA to hold its 1961 Triennial Congress in the United States. The board minutes report that Meiss, chair of the United States National Committee for the History of Art (NCHA), had obtained a $50,000 grant from ACLS and $10,000 from “other sources” in an effort to convince CIHA to meet in New York.33 Meiss also convinced the CAA board to change the date of its annual conference to immediately follow the CIHA meeting in September 1961, to take advantage of the presence of international scholars. Fund-raising for the international congress continued with Richard Krautheimer reporting at the CAA board meeting of October 29, 1960, that the State Department had agreed to contribute “to making it possible for foreign scholars to come.” Krautheimer also reported that “foreign governments might sponsor additional participants.” 34 Sixty-five European and one hundred fifty American scholars participated in the first United States–hosted CIHA congress.35 The international congress did not meet again in the United States until 1986 after the NCHA was incorporated as an independent not-for-profit organization in 1980 so that it could raise funds to support the event (CAA being unable to justify taking on such a large fund-raising effort for one of its several constituencies).36 Although the NCHA was independent, it maintained strong ties with CAA, eventually revising its bylaws in 1996 to mandate representation from the CAA board of directors, Art Bulletin, and the international committee. It also became a formal affiliate of CAA, all through the concerted efforts of Irving Lavin, CAA board member and president of NCHA, and Judith Brodsky, president of CAA.37 Under Brodsky’s leadership “international involvement” became one of eight specific areas of focus in the CAA Long Range Plan, 1996–2006.38 As reported in CAA News in January/February 1996, the association’s efforts to create an international presence included the following: (1) establishing a standing international committee, (2) developing a formal alliance between NCHA and CAA, (3) creating an international database, and (4) working actively for the United States reentry into UNESCO. The latter led to an invitation to Susan Ball to be part of the fifteen-member United States Civil Society Observer Delegation to UNESCO in Paris on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of its constitution, November 16, 1995, where she was able to make valuable contacts with senior officials at UNESCO, including Director-General Federico
The Beginnings ∏ 29
Mayor.39 These efforts culminated in a letter of intent with UNESCO, signed on July 8, 1996, in Paris, “regarding a joint initiative to facilitate the participation and engagement of artists and art historians in the educational and cultural institutions of interested Member States of UNESCO.” 40 Unfortunately these initiatives were dependent on “assuming adequate funding,” which, given that the United States was not a member state of UNESCO, proved impossible to obtain. CAA continued to support United States reentry into UNESCO, and in 1997 successfully applied to be admitted to consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).41 CAA News reported regularly on participation in international activities.42 However, unlike before the United States’ withdrawal from UNESCO, when reentry in UNESCO did occur in 2001, neither CAA nor ACLS received a seat on the U.S. national commission. The subsequent CAA strategic plan did not include international involvement as a priority, and instead relied on affiliate organizations like NCHA and ACLS to represent the international interests of CAA members.43 In her chapter on advocacy, Karen Leader also addresses CAA’s international goals and the United States reentry into UNESCO, seeing the latter in terms of larger political issues. There is no mention of ACLS in the CAA board minutes before the association joined in 1942, when the board selected two delegates from among its members—surprising perhaps, but understandable given that CAA scholar members belonged to other ACLS learned societies—notably the American Philological Association (founded 1869, joined ACLS 1919), the Archaeological Institute of America (founded in 1879, joined ACLS in 1919), and the Medieval Academy of America (founded 1925, joined ACLS 1927)—and published articles in the scholarly journals of those associations as well as in those of CAA.44 Moreover, between 1923 and 1927, CAA held its annual meetings in conjunction with other learned societies: the Archaeological Institute of America (1923–1926), the American Philological Association (1923–1927), the Linguistic Society of America (1925, 1926), and the Modern Language Association (1926).45 From the time it did join, however, CAA was consistently an active member of ACLS, both through its scholarly delegate’s participation in the Council of Delegates and the executive director’s participation in the Conference of Administrative Officers (CAO), in addition to the involvement of numerous individual art historians who have served on fellowship juries and projects of the ACLS. CAA’s role in ACLS leadership was at its height in 2004, when there were three art historians on the ACLS Board of Directors—former CAA president Lucy Sandler in her capacity as chair of the delegates; Susan Ball as chair of the executive committee of the CAO; and John Clarke, former CAA president, elected at large.
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conclusion The complexity of CAA as an organization and the breadth and scope of the professional interests of its members are reflected not only in CAA’s wide range of participation in and collaboration with other organizations, but also in the extensive list of affiliated societies, many of which are discussed in Julia Sienkewicz’s chapter on the annual conference. The complexity of the organization and the diversity of its members are reflected in all of the programs, services, and publications of the association as is evident throughout the subsequent chapters. The diversity of CAA is one of its great strengths. However, this very strength has also contributed to an identity crisis that reappears with consistency throughout CAA’s history and reinforces the efficacy of reexamining and reaffirming the organization’s mission, core values, and purposes periodically. On more than one occasion art historians have argued incorrectly that CAA was “founded by art historians with the idea of promoting the history of art.” It is important to keep in mind that, unlike the other members of the ACLS, CAA did not have its origins in scholarly pursuits. Rather, CAA, as we learned at the beginning of this chapter, had its origins in drawing and manual training, with its primary, but not exclusive, focus on pedagogy and the occupational aspects of teaching—that is, the teaching of teachers of art. These debates have affected CAA and its purposes at different moments in its history. On March 15, 1941, Meiss and Crosby, as well as Lee, Erwin Panofsky, and Marion Lawrence, all of whom were art historians, argued for the supremacy and exclusivity of art history as the purpose of CAA. Cook condemned the organization’s traveling exhibition program—a subject that Cristin Tierney addresses in her chapter—as an inappropriate activity for an association founded for art historians. Cook equated CAA’s involvement with “educating artists” as a “pseudo-museum” activity, an example of what one would now call mission creep. Crosby, on the other hand, observed that the membership did include “creative artists” and “educators,” implying that this was not an inappropriate activity. Myrtilla Avery, a champion of the Wellesley College art history curriculum, which included a required component in art-making, argued that “any student of art should have a preliminary technical training,” and that creative art should therefore not be excluded from the aims of CAA. Joseph Sloane championed “tolerance,” pointing out that “the Association either had to have some system of including creative artists or of doing something else.” In the end, the board accepted Panofsky’s proposal that CAA and its publications “would be in line with the policy of the organization as art historians.” 46 Nevertheless, the artists steadfastly remained members, and their ranks grew; eventually they joined the board and assumed leadership roles that enabled them to promote their own interests and maintain the diversity of CAA.
The Beginnings ∏ 31
The dichotomy between the scholarship and criticism of art and the practice of it, as well as the role of pedagogy as it relates to both, have existed since the founding of CAA and will emerge in each chapter.47 Heated words have frequently been exchanged, sometimes with threats of secession, but the diversity has remained, and the only secession was the involuntary one of the Women’s Caucus for Art in 1972, which is discussed in Judith Brodsky, Mary Garrard, and Ferris Olin’s chapter on governance and diversity. Passion and intensity of feeling and opinion are consistent throughout as well, with frequent appearances of proselytizing vocabulary, from the initial rallying cry of the founders to President Pickard’s entreaty at the 5th Annual Meeting on April 21, 1916, at the opening of this chapter, to his presidential address at the 8th Annual Meeting in May, 1919. In his presidential address of April 21, 1916, Pickard declared that we who represent our higher institutions of learning look forth on the infinite field of Art through almost as many windows as there are pairs of eyes that do the looking. This very multiplicity of view points may be a cause of weakness or it can be a source of strength to this Association. . . . a source of strength if all the classes here represented . . . realize that the field of art is as wide as is the range of life and that no one little coterie has the monopoly of wisdom.48 Again, in 1917 Pickard called upon members to “forget that you are historians, critics or technicians, to unite your forces and consider earnestly this important educational question.” 49 And in 1919 he declared that “we have come more thoroughly to know that for every citizen of the Great Republic art is not a luxury but a necessity” and argued for CAA as the great communicator. “The one great, crying insistent need of this association today is an adequate means and method of carrying on our propaganda, of teaching our members, of influencing educators, of convincing the multitude.” 50 Even in the debate of 1941, one director remarked, “There is a lot of missionary work to be done.” 51 Indeed, for a large and complex organization comprising professionals with such different interests to have thrived for nearly a century, a lot of missionary work has been done by all.
3 A Stimulating Prospect CA A’s Traveling Exhibition Program, 1929–1937 cristin tierney
n october 1929, Parnassus magazine featured an extensive article detailing the most recent undertaking of the College Art Association, a series of traveling exhibitions. The exhibitions focused on contemporary art and were to be circulated among colleges and universities throughout the country. The article explained the reasoning behind this new endeavor as follows:
I
One advantage that the study of literature has over the study of art is that the actual examples are nearly always accessible to the student. . . . In the case of art, however, the examples to be studied are often unique and in a fixed location, so that a good deal of time and money is required if they are to be studied first hand. . . . If this situation is to be alleviated, if the student is to leave college with the idea that art can be a permanent interest, and not merely data to be remembered until an examination has been passed and then dismissed from the mind, the works of art must be brought directly to him.1 The exhibitions were originally proposed as a form of object-based education for advanced students. CAA intended for these exhibitions to increase interest in the arts generally and encourage the development of art and art history departments within academic institutions. Over the course of its eight-year existence, this exhibition program expanded exponentially, and its audience broadened 33
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well beyond academia. Its impact was farther reaching than any of its founders could have anticipated, and it contributed significantly to a nationwide increase in art appreciation. To help facilitate the organization of these exhibitions, the association formed a committee that included well-respected members of the art community such as Paul Sachs, Charles Rufus Morey, and Duncan Phillips. Audrey McMahon, executive director of the CAA, served as the unofficial committee chair and oversaw the planning and execution of the new project. Initially four exhibitions circulated, each consisting of approximately fifty oils and watercolors, twentyfive prints, and, in some cases, sculptures and drawings. Every effort was made to keep the costs of these exhibitions to a minimum, not only to allow for the maximum amount of institutional interest, but also to afford students the opportunity to purchase works directly. These exhibitions were democratic in nature, with artworks offered for sale at the lowest possible price and no commission returned to the association. It was hoped that young Americans would begin to view art as “something in which [they] can participate and which need not be admired only in the museum atmosphere.” 2 Four years later, in a paper presented in June 1933 at the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums, McMahon reported that CAA was sending fifty exhibitions to approximately one hundred universities and colleges and fifty-five museums in the United States, Canada, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Major shows often had five venues or more.3 In comparison, the American Federation of Arts (AFA), the association that first introduced the notion of a traveling exhibition to the United States in 1909, circulated approximately one hundred exhibitions in 1933, and these were shown in three to six venues over the course of the year. Thus, within a four-year period, CAA’s exhibition program had expanded to the point of rivaling even the AFA, whose dominance in the field had previously been unquestioned.4 It must have seemed as if the possibilities were endless for such a successful program, and McMahon herself concluded her 1933 presentation by saying “We feel that the major development of our exhibition program lies ahead. With changing conditions, new situations will arise and there will be new problems to be solved. It is a stimulating prospect.” 5
the development of fine arts curricula at colleges and universities In 1929, CAA was an organization uniquely suited to the task of developing a traveling exhibition program for universities and small museums. Since its founding, one of the association’s main goals had been to promote the study of art in colleges and universities throughout the United States. Parnassus conspicuously celebrated the advances made in the development of arts-related cur-
A Stimulating Prospect ∏ 35
ricula around the country and, in particular, it trumpeted the need for colleges and universities to develop their own art museums. In a paper presented at the CAA annual meeting in 1934, Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., wrote: There can be no vital teaching in the history and appreciation of art unless the student has experience of originals. . . . [W]e must bring together the undergraduate and his real teacher—the work of art itself. Colleges so favorably situated that a good museum can be visited in half a day and at an expense possible for the run of students—such colleges have no serious problem. . . . Colleges virtually shut off from museums, by distance and cost, must have their own museum.6 In his promotion of object-based learning, Mather was careful to keep within the realm of the financially possible. For those institutions with limited funding available for arts-related programs, Mather considered the installation of traveling exhibitions to be the most prudent course of action: In discussing the organization and conduct of College Art Museums, I mean to keep well within the bounds of the possible and practicable. . . . If the college will supply a gallery, and he or she can find every year from five hundred to a thousand dollars, with the aid of the American Federation of Art, the College Art Association, and the many friendly and generous art dealers, an excellent series of such exhibitions can be provided. This is the beginning of righteousness in teaching art.7 Mather was not alone in his belief that direct experience with art objects was essential for an education in the arts. In 1933, The Arts and American Life was published under the direction of the President’s Research Committee on Social Trends. This national study examined the arts in a variety of contexts, including educational institutions. According to the survey, between 1920 and 1930 enrollment in art and art-related programs increased dramatically at the university level, a trend understood to reflect the increasing interest in the arts within the larger population. The increases in enrollment necessitated changes in teaching methods. The study identified a pronounced trend toward “learning by doing” in art and art history departments.8 Lectures were supplemented by sessions in the studio, or with discussions in front of actual works of art. The best-known example of this “laboratory method” was the Barnes Foundation, whose 1922 charter stated as its purpose: “To promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts.” 9 Albert Barnes was greatly influenced by the educational theories of John Dewey, who advocated experience-based learning. Accordingly, the galleries of the foundation were in
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fact the classrooms, and all class discussions occurred in the presence of art objects, supplemented by reproductions and textbooks. Many other institutions developed similar education programs through alliances with area colleges and universities. The Cleveland Museum of Art, in conjunction with Western Reserve University, offered object-oriented classes for credit, due in no small part to another Dewey-influenced scholar, Thomas Munro.10 And in 1931, the Metropolitan Museum of Art recorded 91,600 “persons [who] received instruction from museum teachers or from class teachers who accompanied them” in their galleries. During the 1931–1932 school year, the museum offered six courses for teachers or other qualified adults, with credits that transferred to Columbia University, New York University, or the City College of New York.11 The tremendous workload involved in an extensive exhibition program such as CAA’s necessitated not only ideological support, but also financial support. During its brief history of existence, the program was funded primarily through grants from the Carnegie Corporation and exhibition rental fees.12 The corporation, under the direction of Frederick Paul Keppel, greatly expanded its support for the arts beginning in the mid-1920s.13 Corporate reports, dating from 1924 to 1937, list a wide range of art-related grants, including funding for museum education programs, and during this period the CAA received grants for a variety of projects, all targeted at the development of art and art history departments at the university level.14 In particular, there were large amounts of money specifically allocated for circulating exhibitions.15 Under Keppel’s leadership, the corporation also allocated funds for recruiting knowledgeable teachers and providing “teaching equipment” to interested colleges and universities. The following year the corporation reported that twenty teaching collections had been assembled and offered to institutions across the country and in Canada.16 The CAA traveling exhibitions, with their educational intent and targeted student audiences, were yet another kind of “teaching equipment,” and a logical extension of the Carnegie Corporation’s plan to bring the arts into the curricula of American colleges and universities.
exhibition content and reception Meeting the needs of a broader audience was one of the biggest challenges CAA faced when assembling exhibitions. A 1931 CAA survey indicated that the majority of participating institutions could afford only one or two exhibitions each year, and, as McMahon noted: The exhibition takes on greater significance. It must be wider in scope. It must have an appeal for the entire student body, the faculty, and the
A Stimulating Prospect ∏ 37
community at large, as well as for the art majors. It has a social as well as an art connotation and is a major responsibility for us as well as for the exhibitor.17 A quick examination of the exhibitions assembled by the CAA between 1929 and 1933 is instructive in this respect. Initially, the exhibitions assembled were typical in their division of art and artists into national categories. Although European works were featured in some shows, an emphasis on American art is evident. This is attributable to a variety of factors, the two most obvious being the greater availability of American art, and the desire to patronize living artists during a period of economic hardship. The majority of shows were surveys, such as Portraits of Young People, Exposition of Indian Tribal Arts, or Self-Portraits. The more historically grounded exhibitions, such as Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings, or Drawings from the Collection of Dan Fellows Platt, usually traveled to major institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. As the exhibition program evolved, its scope broadened to include exhibitions of Asian art and even exhibitions of applied and popular arts, for example, the Art of Walt Disney exhibition (1933), and an exhibition of book jackets (1934–1935). Many of these exhibitions were favorably reviewed by the New York press before going on tour, and the intent behind the project was generally met with understanding and approval. In reviewing the first exhibition for the Herald Tribune, Carlyle Burrows stated: Here is a project calculated, it seems, to arouse wide interest in art creation and at the same time to plant in the minds of thousands of aesthetically inclined college students the germ of the collecting idea. . . . [T]he hope of increased national consciousness of the fine arts lies more perhaps in the developing minds of students, particularly the more advanced, than in any other source, as the College Art Association has perceived.18 Perhaps most indicative of the CAA’s didactic intent are the thematic exhibitions, which were rooted in classroom practices. For example, the 1932 exhibition entitled Comparisons and Contrasts included forty paintings, hung in pairs throughout the gallery. Each pair of paintings represented a similar subject executed in a distinctly different style. The intent was to demonstrate how a variety of approaches to the same stimulus result in unique pictorial expressions. The exhibition format was well received, and Edward Alden Jewell, who reviewed it positively in the New York Times, called it “agreeably spiced with the element of surprise.” 19 Although comparison of two works of art is a standard mode of
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instruction in the study of art history, it is typically reserved for viewing slides in the classroom during the course of a lecture. This exhibition took a familiar method of study and made it fresh by applying it to actual artworks. In addition, the catalogue that accompanied the exhibition included quotes from critics, curators, academics, and artists about each of the participating artists, providing reading material with additional points of view to further classroom discussion. The most ambitious of all the exhibitions mounted by CAA was the International 1933, which opened to the public at the Worcester Art Museum in January 1933. An expanded version of this show opened one month later in New York on February 5, 1933, at the new RKO Building in Rockefeller Center. From there it traveled to Cleveland, Cincinnati, Atlantic City, Toledo, Baltimore, Chicago, and Milwaukee. The exhibition comprised three hundred thirty-six recent paintings by artists from twenty countries, including representatives from South America and most of Europe. A substantial exhibition catalogue was published, containing an exhaustive checklist, artist biographies, and scholarly contributions from a number of prominent curators and academics. The list of honorary and patron committees for the exhibition was extensive, including directors of major museums and educational institutions, ambassadors from each of the countries represented, and many of New York’s social and cultural elite. The association of such prominent figures with this exhibition ensured heavy coverage in the press, most of which was quite favorable. In his remarks at the exhibition opening in Worcester, the artist Walter Pach stated that by placing this exhibition amid more historic artworks and in a museum context, CAA was “performing the most valuable service to the public and to the artists.” 20 The ARTnews critic Ralph Flint agreed. Despite his misgivings about the CAA program in general, he reviewed this exhibition favorably, and praised CAA for the undertaking: For once the College Art Association has completely justified its existence as an agent for the dissemination of the fine arts. After two years of indifferent manoeuvring [sic] with variously devised exhibitions, destined mainly for the provinces and often of mediocre stature, this enterprising association . . . has gone the limit in getting together such a varied and intricate array of canvases. . . . [W]e are indeed indebted to [Audrey McMahon] and her various co-workers for bringing to the United States such a representative showing.21 Jewell, in his reviews for the New York Times, concurred: The 1933 International is unquestionably an exhibition to be seen, in part because it is the only International on this season’s calendar, and
A Stimulating Prospect ∏ 39
principally because—though deficient in spots—it contains a great many thoroughly good paintings and has much of interest to report concerning contemporary activity up and down the world.22 Art Digest reprinted much of Jewell’s review, along with the news that Karl Hofer’s painting Girl with Melons had been purchased out of the exhibition by the Worcester Art Museum.23 News of this acquisition was repeated often in the press, as if it suggested institutional approval for the exhibition as a whole. Not only did the press respond positively to this large-scale traveling event, but the general public did as well. Austrian Day, Children’s Day, and a lecture series were among the special events sponsored in conjunction with this exhibition in New York, and all events were well attended. It was reported that as many as eight thousand people visited the show in one day while it was on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Throughout the run of International 1933, it was regularly compared to the Carnegie International and the Venice Biennial, the two premier venues for international modernism in the eyes of most United States critics. The strength of this exhibition and its reception, widely viewed as the association’s “most ambitious undertaking to date,” 24 encouraged McMahon’s aspirations and allowed her to expand CAA’s programming. Despite the success of these traveling exhibitions, the CAA board voted in February 1937 to discontinue the program. This was the result of a variety of factors, most crucially a lack of available funds and administrative support.25 In 1935, McMahon had become the New York region director for the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project, which meant her time and energy were increasingly focused elsewhere. Without her leadership and vocal support for these exhibitions, the board shifted its priorities, and instead encouraged the development of art history via conferences, lecture programs, and publications. Increasingly CAA moved out of the realm of contemporary art and museum practice and into the world of academia. But in spite of its short life span, the CAA traveling exhibition program had a tremendous impact, and by its conclusion the program had toured several hundred exhibitions to venues as diverse as Howard University, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Oberlin College, and the Dayton Art Institute. Through the efforts of McMahon and her staff, the CAA provided opportunities for innumerable artists, art world professionals, and students, and expanded the audience for art tremendously at a critical time in United States history.
4 Cooperative Relationships with Museums barry pritzker
he college art association’s intent from the beginning was “to promote art interests in all divisions of American colleges and universities” for “all instructors in the history, practice, teaching, and theory of the fine arts in a college or university of recognized standing.” 1 This “big-tent” formulation included museums both on and off campus, since from the outset scholars working in museums, either as full-time employees or as guest curators, have been involved with CAA. Nevertheless, despite the integral involvement of museum professionals and despite the obvious relationship between art historians and practitioners and museum professionals, for most of its existence the organization has served the latter constituency less well than it has the former. From its early years, CAA maintained formal relations with two of the most prominent museum organizations, the American Association of Museums (AAM) and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), for the purpose of collegiality as well as mutuality of interest. CAA has had several museum directors on its board over the years, and each association has provided formal liaison positions for the other. For instance, AAMD has had from time to time a formal liaison on CAA’s board of directors, and the executive director of the latter is invited as a guest to AAMD’s board meetings. CAA became an affiliate of AAM, and thus a member of the Council of Affiliates, in 1990,2 arguing in the application for affiliate status that although the requisite percentage of museum professionals did not appear in the organization’s membership, its members were involved in larger numbers in museums, especially as guest curators. The
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membership of all three associations has overlapped, and continues to overlap to a certain degree. Moreover, issues of art education and college museums were, not surprisingly, debated in the pages of College Art Journal from the early days of the organization. A 1942 review of College and University Museums, by AAM Director Laurence Coleman, for instance, noted that “plans for a college museum should reflect the nature of the courses offered” and the “exclusion of modern art cannot be justified, particularly when courses in the practice of art form a considerable part of the teaching.” The reviewer further noted that “art historical courses and the purchases of a college museum should not only be parallel but should also supplement one another.” 3 In a 1944 essay titled “Of Education in an Art Museum,” Roberta M. Fansler warns against the threat of “vocational education” to the “wholeness of a college student’s education.” 4 In general, however, despite formal and informal linkages and shared interests, the degree of cooperation between CAA and professional museum associations has not been strong. The status of a formal Museum Committee within the organization reveals that ambiguity. The first (and last for nine decades) mention of an Exhibitions Committee occurred as early as 1919.5 Fifteen years later, a Committee on Museum Activities was proposed, although this committee appears to have languished as well.6 In 1956 the first mention of a Joint ArtistsMuseum Committee appeared in the minutes, but despite a spectacular burst of initial energy and activity (see below), this committee died out within just a few years.7 The record does not show when the current Museum Committee was established, but there is mention of its existence as early as 1971, when John Spencer, director of the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College (who had just resigned from the board), wrote to the CAA board pleading for CAA to “provide a home for the University and College Art Museums within the organization by way of sessions devoted to appropriate topics at the annual meeting.” The plea was echoed in an additional letter from the president of the Association of Art Museum Directors. Mr. Spencer was appointed chair of a committee to investigate the formation of a subgroup within CAA.8 A “Report of the Museum Committee to the Board of Trustees of the College Art Association” signed by Sherman Lee, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, is appended to the minutes of the board meeting two months later, but there is no mention of the report or its three recommendations, all of which involve the development of relations between colleges and universities and museums, nor is there a subsequent mention in the board minutes.9 According to CAA’s current Web site, “the Museum Committee represents the interests of public and private institutions in the visual arts sector, in order to exercise influence and share efforts on issues of mutual importance.”10 One reason for the historically ambiguous or conflicted relationship between the or-
Cooperative Relationships with Museums ∏ 43
ganization and the museum community may be the various inherent conflicts over issues such as governance, cultural property, and museum policy in which the interests of museum directors and artists and art historians run counter to each other. (For instance, art historians, not belonging to a typically remunerative profession, lobbied for years for scholars to receive free museum admission. The museum community, hard-pressed itself for dollars to keep the doors open and the collections growing and maintained, denied the request.) Indeed, an unpublished 1991 history of the AAMD provides only four references to the CAA.11 The organization’s minutes have frequent references to museum professionals, but few to professional museum associations, although there have been some fruitful collaborations over the years. For example, in the early 1970s, CAA and AAMD collaborated on guidelines for the sale and exchange of art.12 At about the same time, in response to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, CAA, AAMD, and AAM, as well as the International Council of Museums, the Archaeological Institute of America, and the American Anthropological Association, signed a resolution regarding the ethical obligations of museums.13 Perhaps the apogee of the cooperation between CAA and the museum community occurred in the 1950s in the form of the Joint Artists-Museum Committee, created “to consider the mutual problems of museums and artists.” The committee sprang from postwar energy at the 1949 annual convention of the AAM, where a symposium was held on artist-museum relations.14 This energy dovetailed with the founding of the Artists Equity Association (AEA) in 1947 out of a concern for the economic condition of the country’s artists. As a result of the 1949 conference, representatives of the AAM and AEA met in February 1950 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. AEA, encouraged by these meetings, devoted its upcoming September 1950 meeting in Woodstock, New York, to the theme of “The Artist and the Museum.” Sidney Laufman chaired the Conference Committee, which planned the program. Thirty museum representatives and fifty artists met over two days at this Third Woodstock Art Conference, and the result was a statement of resolutions and principles adopted by the whole. The final resolution read, “Whereas the mutual interests and problems of artists and museums require more study and deeper probing than were possible in this Conference, it is resolved that the resolutions and recommendations of the Conference be referred for further study and appropriate action to the American Association of Museums, the American Federation of Arts, the Association of Art Museum Directors, the College Art Association of America, and Artists Equity Association, with the recommendation that a joint committee of representatives be formed to study the whole question.” 15
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All five organizations agreed to appoint representatives to the new committee, which held its first meeting at the Whitney Museum in March 1951. The committee proceeded to meet regularly to debate and discuss the Woodstock resolutions. In April 1957, it published its conclusions in a volume titled The Museum and the Artist: Principles and Procedures Recommended by the Joint Artists-Museums Committee, with an introduction and notes by Lloyd Goodrich, co-chairman. Major suggestions included increasing the number and variety of contemporary American art exhibitions, reducing artists’ transportation and insurance costs, promoting sales through museums, providing regular and expanded museum purchase funds for contemporary American art, encouraging the use of museum space for varied community art activities, and encouraging the decoration of public and private buildings by American artists. As late as November 3, 1959, Goodrich, testifying on behalf of the Joint Committee before the Advisory Committee on Cultural Information of the United States Information Agency (USIA), noted that member organizations were “very much concerned about the relations between the art world and the governmental agencies responsible for international cultural exchange.”16 In other words, important exhibitions were being cancelled for political reasons. The statement he read into the record expresses “[serious concern] about the future of art exhibitions in governmental cultural exchange programs with other nations. [Members] advocate judging artworks on their merits, not the alleged political convictions of the artists.”17 The minutes of the CAA board of directors meeting on January 27, 1960, refer to the Joint Committee (CAA, AAMD, AAM, and AFA) as being still in existence. In 1963, however, the minutes record that the committee had been “abandoned.” 18 By the mid-1970s, the organization’s Museum Committee, firmly established at last, was proposing the development of both guidelines for an exchange program between universities/colleges and art museums, and an evaluative directory of museum training programs, which the board unanimously voted to endorse.19 However, in the late 1980s, the new executive director Susan Ball was attempting to “open a dialogue” between CAA and AAMD, revealing the state of that relationship after decades.20 Almost ten years after that, the organization was attempting to create a “Museum Task Force, whose purpose will be to address the needs of curators in the field and determine how the organization can better represent and serve them.” 21 Similarly, and revealingly, that same year concern was expressed about the “perception . . . that museum professionals were not well represented in the CAA.” 22 It seems clear that, informed by mutual interests and professional relationships, museums have been an important constituency of the organization from its inception. What is also clear is that this partnership has ebbed and flowed throughout the years. Individuals with a strong interest in bringing together mu-
Cooperative Relationships with Museums ∏ 45
seum organizations and the CAA periodically have been able to do so, with varying degrees of success. Although the association formally affiliated with AAM in 1990, the relationship has not led to any new collaborative projects. The apparent dichotomy between a significant membership constituency of museum professionals within CAA and the paucity of collaborative projects with AAM and AAMD is perhaps indicative of the primary reason most museum professionals turn to CAA, namely in their capacity as scholars. Museum professionals— largely curators—submit scholarly articles to the organization’s publications and present scholarly papers at the annual conference on art historical subjects, not museology, turning to the museum associations to meet their other professional needs. The one-hundred-year history of interaction constitutes a strong foundation upon which future interactions may rest firmly and productively, but such interaction is most likely to succeed if the reasons museum professionals belong to each different professional association are acknowledged.
5 The Changing Face of Scholarly Publishing CAA’s Publications Program craig houser
Purpose 4. To publish such journals as are desirable and feasible; to provide for the dissemination of the results of creative works, scholarly research, and exhibitions, the judgments of critical thought on the visual arts, and all other information valuable to the purposes set forth in this Article II. Purpose 5. To publish appropriate monographs, papers, bulletins, and reports of a scholarly, critical, or informative nature that the scope of the established journals may not permit. ince 1913, the college art association’s publications program has produced a diverse array of projects. As the organization worked to fulfill numerous needs within art publishing, its publications projects have changed and adapted over time, and as a result they have reflected not only the history of the association, but a number of larger issues in the visual arts. Most members are aware that CAA publishes The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, CAA News, caa.reviews, and, up until 2000, a book series titled Monographs on the Fine Arts. CAA has also published ongoing directories for graduate programs in art history and the visual arts and helps finance scholarly book projects through the Millard Meiss Publication Fund and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant. However, many members may not know that several years ago CAA produced an Index of Twentieth-Century Artists, a journal titled Eastern
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Art: A Quarterly, and the book Safe Practices in the Arts and Crafts: A Studio Guide. In addition, CAA was involved in the development of the art bibliography titled International Repertory of the Literature of Art (RILA), now the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA), and is currently participating in an e-book project produced by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). Because CAA’s publishing program has been so extensive, this text concentrates on the organization’s four main publishing projects, providing short histories of The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, CAA’s Monographs on the Fine Arts, and caa.reviews. Each of these publications has a distinct mission, serving a needed purpose within scholarly art publishing. While providing an overview of each project, my text examines some of the more significant episodes in their individual development and addresses some of the larger historical issues related to studio art education and art history. Although several historiographies of these academic disciplines already exist, few of them have considered the role that CAA and its scholarly publications have played. My research draws upon CAA’s archival documents and interviews, which add nuances to these existing histories and help elucidate some of the politics of academia that have affected the growth of studio art education and art history as academic disciplines in the United States.
the art bulletin at ninety-eight One of the oldest art publications still produced in the United States, The Art Bulletin serves as a peer-review “journal of record” for art history, publishing the “leading scholarship [in the field] in the English language.” 1 Inside Art Bulletin’s numerous bound volumes, a broad range of art objects and topics in the fields of art and art history have been discussed by various authors, often engaging in different types of methodological study. The history of the journal also relates to larger issues in the politics of CAA and scholarly publishing in general. The complexities of concerns that Art Bulletin encompasses therefore do not allow for a single, unified history, but numerous, varied histories. In an attempt to provide a more focused narrative of Art Bulletin, my text concentrates on the significant shifts that took place in terms of the content and format of the journal, from the 1910s, when the periodical served largely as a promotional tool for CAA, to the 1920s, when the publication began to focus exclusively on art history. In the 1930s art history in the United States became strongly influenced by European émigrés, and radical shifts took place in the editorial structure of the publication. By the beginning of World War II, Art Bulletin had established itself as the premier international journal of art history. However, in more recent decades the journal has struggled to maintain such a reputation and has had to reinvent itself, changing its format and content somewhat to address current scholarly trends and the needs of CAA’s members.
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The Art Bulletin: The Early Years Within its first ten years, CAA’s first periodical changed radically in terms of its size, format, and content, and many of these alterations related to the development of studio art and art history as academic disciplines in U.S. colleges and universities during the 1910s. Initially called the Bulletin of the College Art Association, the inaugural issue, published in 1913, looked remarkably different from what the scholarly journal would eventually become. A sixteen-page document measuring 7 × 4¼ inches, the first issue seemed to live up to its basic name—a bulletin. Serving largely as a promotional tool for CAA, the publication listed the organization’s officers and directors, committees and their members, colleges and institutions represented in the organization, information regarding the annual conference, and the association’s constitution, as well as a presidential statement by Holmes Smith, CAA’s first president. Smith discussed CAA and its general purpose, mentioning the Bulletin only briefly: “One of the important functions of the Association will be the publication, from time to time, of a bulletin,” which will reveal the work of “various committees that have been appointed by the executive board.” 2 Clearly the idea that this periodical might serve as a scholarly journal of record for art history had not been determined. Although this first issue may be perceived as seemingly insubstantial, much of the discussion at CAA’s 1912 conference had been devoted to how the publication would keep its nationally diverse membership in communication with one another and help establish the goals and promote the accomplishments of the association.3 By the early 1900s, the importance of publishing a journal for any new academic society was well understood. According to the education historian Roger Geiger, such publications served as the means by which an association was able to unite and fight for its causes. A journal also allowed scholars in a particular field to reach beyond the boundaries of their individual universities and establish a nationwide agenda with their fellow colleagues. In addition, it provided the opportunity for individuals to publish and gain recognition in their specific fields. Acting as the official voice for a discipline, the journal not only served as a learning tool to keep practitioners up to date in their fields, but also provided support and credible evidence for those who might need to pressure their college administrators to effect changes in their schools and programs.4 Because the first issues of CAA’s Bulletin served initially as a promotional organ for the association, they reflected not only the general history of CAA, but also some of the national trends in studio art education and art history in colleges and universities in the 1910s. Although CAA was a diverse organization, it principally represented the interests of professors of studio art and/or art history. As Susan Ball notes in chapter 2 of this book, the field of studio art education had in the early 1900s come to include both the fine arts and industrial arts, largely because public
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school teachers of both subjects had teamed together to form professional organizations, such as the Western Drawing and Manual Training Association (WDTMA) and the Eastern Art and Manual Training Teachers’ Association (EAMTTA).5 The discipline of art history was also experiencing a similar change during that period. Many of CAA’s art historians represented a new generation of scholar. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, such art historians as Charles Eliot Norton and Bernard Berenson had preached about morals and connoisseurship, yet by 1910 a new group of art historians, many of whom had trained in classical archaeology and philology, were turning to German educational models, with the purpose of establishing art history as a scientific discipline. At the time of CAA’s founding, U.S. universities were also beginning to award doctorates specifically in art history.6 Although teachers of studio art and/or art history were both working toward the same goal—to advance the study of art as an academic subject—some conflicts were apparent, and CAA’s Bulletin would factor in the battles among the constituents. The papers presented at CAA’s three conferences from 1916 to 1918, most of which were published in the Bulletin, addressed a wide variety of topics.7 However, the importance of establishing art as an academic discipline and developing clear standards for the teaching of studio art in colleges and universities held precedent over concerns related specifically to art history. Among the thirty-six papers for the three conferences, only seven, or roughly 19 percent, dealt with archaeological and/or art historical topics. As CAA attempted to address the specific concerns of its diverse membership, the significance of the publication and the specific nature of its content became a subject for debate. At the 1916 conference, CAA’s third president, John Pickard, noted that certain advisors had stated: Our Association could not hope to take important rank and position among the learned societies of our time until our meetings are characterized by profound discussions of the technical subjects—and not even then unless such learned papers are published as “original work” by our members. Original work. Original work. What crimes, what atrocities are committed by thy name!8 Pickard also countered that another group of members had said they found such papers “tiresome” and the organization should focus its efforts on discussing syllabi and textbooks to establish standards in the field.9 Although the exact content of Pickard’s “technical subjects” and what constituted “original work” were not clearly specified, the president’s words would eventually have a significant bearing on the Bulletin. Since the Civil War, academia in the United States had favored the sciences
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more than other disciplines, including the humanities, as the sciences were considered to have more practical applications in an industrial society. By the 1910s the fine arts and other disciplines in the humanities had already adopted a language related to science and industry in an effort to bolster support for their own interests.10 As a result, Pickard and others used the word “technical” repeatedly and referred to the artist’s studio as a “laboratory.” Within the pages of CAA’s Bulletin, the words “technical” and “original” referred predominantly to artistic production in the 1910s. On a larger scale, however, these terms served as the buzzwords of academia and could also be found in the Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America, where they referred specifically to the scientific precision of academic research and original scholarship.11 As time passed, the latter meaning of “technical subjects” and “original work” would take on a greater relevance for CAA and its Bulletin. In the aftermath of World War I, the importance of a college and university education increased dramatically in the United States, and CAA made significant changes in terms of its Bulletin.12 With the September 1919 issue, the publication was retitled The Art Bulletin, which marked the beginning of the journal as “an illustrated quarterly published by the College Art Association of America.” Pickard’s 1919 presidential statement explained the general character of the newly revised publication: We must have a periodical of our own, issued at first quarterly, ably edited, with trenchant articles by strong men, with departments of news and notes on all questions of interest in art education. No existing magazine is or can become what our cause needs. . . . Our own editors must decide what we will publish and this organization alone must dictate the policy of our publication.13 At this stage it was made clear that the editors—including the editor-in-chief and the associate editors (who would later be referred to as the editorial board)—had been given license to take charge of the journal’s content, although the organization supervised as the publisher. David M. Robinson, an archaeologist at Johns Hopkins University who had previously been the editor of Art and Archaeology, served as the first editor-in-chief of Art Bulletin, and simultaneously assumed the presidency of CAA.14 Although not much is known about his tenure, Robinson clearly had an influence on the Art Bulletin, given that he played both roles as editor and publisher of the journal. Unlike the previous issues of the Bulletin, which had operated as a promotional tool for CAA, the new Art Bulletin called for “contributions of scholarly interest and books for review.” 15 The tide was changing, and the journal, which published only five articles in its first issue, was becoming more selective in its editorial practices, striking a greater balance
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between studio art education and art history. In addition to Pickard’s address, two articles examined art historical subjects and two focused on technical matters for the artist. The two art historical topics reflected different types of subject matter and methods of scholarship. In “Sources of Romanesque Sculpture,” Charles Rufus Morey, who taught art history at Princeton University, examined the stylistic similarities between manuscript pages and sculptures from the early French Romanesque period. While Morey’s article relied on a formal analysis, Ananda Coomaraswamy’s “The Significance of Oriental Art” examined social issues. Coomaraswamy, who was working for the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, sometimes scolded his Western readers for their prejudice against and romanticization of the “East.” Examining the past and present roles of both artist and patron, Coomaraswamy stated that the social systems within South Asian civilizations and medieval Europe were more supportive of artists than those found in contemporary Western countries, which placed the artist in the “precarious position of a parasite.” 16 The two remaining articles covered technical issues in art practice and addressed larger national trends within academia, namely art’s relevance in terms of science and war. Edwin M. Blake’s “The Necessity of Developing the Scientific and Technical Bases of Art” argued emphatically for the importance of encouraging “the cooperation of scientists and technologists in the study of art problems.” Homer Saint-Gaudens’s “Camouflage and Art” addressed his recent role as a soldier-artist working in the camouflage section of the armed forces during World War I. While his article might initially have been seen as promoting art’s significance in wartime, Saint-Gaudens criticized the techniques and the materials that had been employed to create camouflage and felt that his role as an artist-soldier had been largely misunderstood by his superiors.17 Given that Blake and Saint-Gaudens were arguing for art’s relevance within mainstream culture and promoting various technical art practices, their texts loosely correlated—albeit very loosely—with artistic programs that were developing in Europe after World War I. In “The Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus,” Walter Gropius outlined his 1919 curriculum for his new school. Paralleling the thoughts of Blake, Saint-Gaudens, and other contributors to CAA’s journal, Gropius argued against “the isolation of the artist” and attempted to equate art with industry and craft. However, Gropius’s program was far more sophisticated than anything articulated by CAA’s members at this time. As part of his goal for the “unification of all training in art and design,” Gropius wanted to reconfigure the importance of the artist within the social structure of the state.18 By contrast, CAA and its various pedagogical missions represented, to put it bluntly, an assortment of sometimes innovative, sometimes traditional, and often repetitive pontifications. Although several articles in the early issues of Art Bulletin grappled with so-
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cial concerns related to art and current trends in U.S. culture, the type of scholarship that would eventually dominate the Art Bulletin seemed far removed from contemporary social issues, and most of the articles would eventually reflect the kind of scholarship found in Morey’s article: specifically factual and formal analysis, often focusing on ancient or medieval art objects.19 In 1921, John Shapley, an art historian teaching at Brown University, became the editor of Art Bulletin and in 1923 also served as president of CAA. He had previously been the managing editor of the journal and, as a student of Pickard at Princeton, had helped found CAA.20 Although CAA would continue to represent the somewhat eclectic spirit of its members, albeit to varying degrees, the journal would under Shapley’s leadership become more focused and more traditional in its mission. Writing in 1953, Erwin Panofsky, a German-émigré art historian, reflected on the development of U.S. art history in the 1920s, and his text is useful because it directly considers the role of CAA and Art Bulletin. Panofsky identified 1923 as the demarcating date when Art Bulletin began to focus less on the general concerns of CAA and its diverse membership and more exclusively on art history. Previously, approximately half the articles in Art Bulletin covered art historical topics, while the other features addressed a wide range of topics, including pedagogy, artists’ techniques, conservation, and pageants. However, in 1923, ten of the thirteen articles (77 percent) dealt with art historical topics—a significant increase from the 1910s—and shortly thereafter the journal would focus almost exclusively on art history. Because the larger scope of CAA was concerned with a multitude of interests in the visual arts, Panofsky stated the field of art history “had to fight its way out of an entanglement with practical art instruction, art appreciation, and that amorphous monster ‘general education.’ ” 21 (See Table 1, which shows a breakdown of articles in the Art Bulletin by subject matter within five-year periods.) Panofsky described 1923–1933 as “a Golden Age” for U.S. art history because this period marked the time when U.S. scholars “began to challenge the supremacy, not only of German-speaking countries, but of Europe as a whole.” Among his “founding fathers” of U.S. art history, Panofsky championed the scholarship of several individuals, many of whom composed the editorial board of Art Bulletin: Morey and Frank J. Mather, Jr., of Princeton, A. Kingsley Porter and Paul Sachs of Harvard University, in addition to others who had been added to the board in 1925: Fiske Kimball of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Walter W. S. Cook of New York University, and William Ivins of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.22 It should be noted that all of Art Bulletin’s board members at this time were men, although several women, including Georgiana Goddard King and Myrtilla Avery, contributed to the journal. These men were accomplished leaders in their respective areas of study, making invaluable contributions to the disciplines of art history and museum studies, and their institutional affiliations, almost all of which were located on the East Coast, became the premier places for the study
table 1. articles by subject matter
African Art Architectural History/ Historic Preservation Art of the Middle East/North Africa Art of the United States Chinese Art Visual Studies Decorative Art/Textiles/Design History Drawings/Prints/Photography/ Works on paper Early Christian/Byzantine Early Medieval/Romanesque/ Gothic Art Egyptian/Ancient Near Eastern Art Eighteenth-Century Art Greek/Roman Art Japanese/Korean Art Latin American/Caribbean Art Native American Art Nineteenth-Century Art Oceanic/Australian Art Outsider/Folk Art Pre-Columbian Art Prehistoric Art Renaissance Art Baroque Art South/Southeast Asian Art Twentieth-Century Art World Art
sept. 1919– june 1924
sept. 1924– dec. 1929
march 1930– dec. 1934
march 1935– march 1940– dec. 1939 dec. 1944
0
0
0
0
0
1 0 2 0 0 5
1 4 1 1 0 3
4 8 1 0 0 9
4 1 1 3 3 2
7 0 0 4 0 1
1 1
0 8
1 9
0 8
1 2
10 0 2 10 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 5 0 1 4 1
22 0 1 7 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 1 2 1 0
24 0 2 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 16 3 0 0 0
26 0 2 7 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 21 4 2 0 0
17 0 3 5 1 1 0 4 0 0 0 0 22 6 1 2 0
7 2 2 2 1 1 1 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
61
63
81
88
77
Other categories Pedagogy Artistic technical issues Art appreciation Art and pageantry Art collecting Conservation Presidential address Art and design Art and economics Jewish art
Total
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and/or display of art. Although not much is known about their individual roles regarding the journal, their dedication to Art Bulletin was demonstrated by the fact that many of them served on the board for twenty years, and several of them were frequent contributors. Throughout the 1920s Art Bulletin explored a variety of art-historical topics. Most of the articles focused primarily on Eurocentric topics, ranging primarily from classical to Renaissance art. This scope of study followed the general parameters of most art history courses offered in colleges and universities in the 1920s; classes addressing Baroque, modern, and American art were in the minority.23 Art Bulletin’s general focus was therefore a reflection of a larger national trend within art academia at the time. However, within this golden age of art history, medieval art had become quite popular. Thirty-two (26 percent) of the art-historical articles covered medieval art, which was nearly twice the number found in Greek and Roman art and almost three times that of Renaissance art. However, this emphasis on medieval art did not reflect statistics for courses in higher education. It should be noted that of the thirty-two medieval features, seventeen (53 percent) had been written by board members. As much as the editorial board members produced impressive scholarship and helped advance the field of art history in the United States, many of them clearly used their position with the journal as a means to advance their careers. Cook alone published ten articles there in the 1920s, and Morey five articles. Although several editorial board members may have been simply trying to fill Art Bulletin with enough articles, the emphasis on medieval art was clearly driven by their specific interests.24 The dominance of medieval art in the 1920s also signified a recent shift in the field of art history. Before World War I, art history courses had found their way into course catalogues through the more established fields of the classical languages and archaeology, and the subjects of Greek and Roman art had been popular. According to Millard Meiss, who would serve as the editor-in-chief of Art Bulletin between 1940 and 1942, the “true progenitor” of Art Bulletin was the American Journal of Archaeology. In the 1920s many art historians who had been publishing in both the American Journal of Archaeology and Art Bulletin chose to contribute to the latter journal more often. Their scholarship focused on early Christian, Byzantine, and medieval art, and these scholars, including Cook, Porter, Morey, as well as Chandler Post and Georgiana Goddard King, often chose to address as-yet unknown monuments in remote areas, such as the Pyrenees or the deserts of the Middle East.25 One can see a direct correlation between Art Bulletin and the American Journal of Archaeology. As more articles covering topics in early Christian and medieval art appeared in Art Bulletin, the American Journal of Archaeology focused more on antiquity. The mid-1920s therefore marked a transition not only for Art Bulletin, but also for the American Journal of Archaeology.
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Although the fields of archaeology and art history had come to distinguish themselves in terms of subject matter, their scholarship was still quite similar in the 1920s. As art history “established itself as a respectable branch of the humanities in forward-looking universities,” Meiss explained, “the Bulletin concentrated on medieval art, and especially on philological and ‘archaeological’ studies, whose success was the primary reason for the gradual acceptance of the discipline.” 26 In keeping with the theories of positivism, the typical art-historical scholarship published in Art Bulletin in the 1920s was largely based on the scientific method of archaeology, which had been developed in contrast to the ethical model championed by Norton or the connoisseurship of Berenson in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Articles tended to focus primarily on facts, materials, dates, and lengthy visual descriptions. Although stylistic and iconographic analyses were found in Art Bulletin in the 1920s, these methods of interpretation, which tend to distinguish art history from archaeology, were often utilized for the purposes of verification and classification, which belong primarily to the discipline of archaeology.27 In the mid-1930s U.S. art history began to undergo a significant change, expanding upon its pragmatic and practical methods. After Adolf Hitler’s appointment as chancellor of Germany in 1933, numerous European art historians began to arrive in the United States. Most of them were from Germany and specialized in the Renaissance. Among Art Bulletin’s editorial board members, Cook and Morey helped many refugees find employment. Cook was responsible for hiring the most German immigrants in the United States while he was the director of the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. According to Panofsky, Cook remarked in a joking manner: “Hitler is my best friend. . . . He shakes the tree and I collect the apples.” 28 Morey also invited foreign scholars to teach in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and nominated many more to work on research projects at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. In fact, Morey was generous to the extent that he invited Kurt Weitzmann in his department, in spite of the fact that the two had opposing views regarding medieval art.29 Some of the émigrés who contributed articles to Art Bulletin in the 1930s were Panofsky, Walter Friedländer, H. W. Janson, Ulrich Middeldorf, Hanns Swarzenski, and Martin Weinberger. Other noteworthy European immigrants, including Charles de Tolnay, Paul Frankl, Julius S. Held, Adolf Katzenellenbogen, Richard Krautheimer, Karl Lehmann, Wolfgang Stechow, Kurt Weitzmann, and Edgar Wind, would publish features at later dates. With these foreign scholars came new perspectives in scholarship. Although the U.S. art historians had previously made technical advancements and produced strong individual scholars who employed formalist and iconographical analyses, the German-speaking art historians were considered to be more theoretical. In addition, some Germans, including Panofsky, were practicing iconol-
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ogy, which had been initiated by Aby Warburg in Hamburg. Unlike iconography, iconology engaged in a more in-depth and interdisciplinary interpretation of art objects and their subject matter, which was much broader in scope than the archaeological analyses of U.S. art historians.30 As a result of these differences, the art historian Colin Eisler remarked that in the 1930s the Europeans were “about twenty years ahead” of the U.S. art historians, offering a “more intellectually challenging approach.” 31 While Eisler’s statement has some validity, his argument does not acknowledge that much of the art history of the German-speaking nations was already somewhat familiar to U.S. scholars in the 1930s. Before World War I it had been customary for many U.S. citizens to earn their graduate degrees in Europe. In the 1920s many articles in Art Bulletin cited the scholarship of European art historians extensively. In addition, U.S. art historians sometimes challenged the ideas of European scholars. Living on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean the U.S. scholars, according to Panofsky, were able to look at broader trends in art practices from a pan-European perspective, free from the petty scholarly politics and national biases that had been plaguing some of the Europeans’ scholarship.32 Morey’s 1924 article “Sources of Medieval Style” in Art Bulletin shocked many European scholars because he readily dismissed the somewhat controversial debates of three Austrian historians and deftly traced the changes and continuities between two styles—illusionism and classicism—as they developed in ancient, early Christian, and medieval art throughout Europe and the Middle East.33 In addition, Porter’s feature “Spain or Toulouse? and Other Questions,” also of 1924, criticized the French art historian Emile Mâle for his nationalist bias when he erroneously stated that “Toulouse was the generating center of Romanesque sculpture.” 34 Although these articles in Art Bulletin were perhaps somewhat brash in their theses, they nevertheless demonstrated that U.S. art historians were not only aware of the Europeans’ publications, but willing and able to assess and pass judgment on their scholarship.35 Many historiographers have recently reexamined the 1930s in U.S. art history.36 Among them, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann explains that many European refugees had to adapt to the academic milieu in the United States. In order to meet the needs of their U.S. students, who were more practical and material minded, the Europeans tended to simplify the conceptual nature of their lectures and abandoned the theoretical discussions that they had been developing in their homelands. Even Panofsky, who had been engaged in iconology while he was with Warburg in Hamburg, formalized his ideas in a somewhat different manner after he immigrated in 1934 to the United States, where he published Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance in 1939.37 Nevertheless, the influx of so many erudite European scholars enhanced the field of art history in the United States, and Art Bulletin in some respects served
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as a nesting ground for the field to flourish. In one case, the journal became a forum for a larger ongoing trans-Atlantic debate about the Ghent Altarpiece between Panofsky and Hermann Beenken, who had stayed in Germany.38 Regarding the 1930s, few historiographers have considered the complex role that CAA and Art Bulletin played in the reception of European émigrés, and some facts may prove surprising. It should be noted that several CAA members protested the growing number of Europeans publishing in the Art Bulletin. On April 7, 1936, a letter was submitted to the CAA board of directors by sixteen members, including Helen M. Franc, Meiss, and Meyer Schapiro, as well as two editorial board members, Cook and Dinsmoor. Among their varied concerns, they stated that given Art Bulletin was “the only scholarly art periodical in America, . . . it would only be fair to restrict the articles . . . to the work of American scholars.” However, they qualified their words, saying that articles by foreigners should be limited in number to those who were affiliated with United States institutions or were truly exceptional. They felt the journal had previously gained an international reputation because of the contributions published by U.S. scholars, and the recent inclusion of so many texts by foreigners made it more difficult for them to have their essays published and significantly slowed down the production process for everyone involved, sometimes by several years. Such a decree to protect the national identity of CAA and Art Bulletin was significant, especially because Cook, who was known for hiring so many Europeans, was one of the spearheads in this campaign.39 To help immigrant scholars find work, CAA ran a lecture bureau that created speaking engagements at various institutions throughout the United States.40 Although CAA’s new policy clearly discriminated against the German émigrés, many Europeans continued to publish in Art Bulletin. In fact, many of the members’ grievances related more directly to the editorial policies and practices of Shapley, who by 1936 had been in charge of the journal for fifteen years. After much discussion over the next three years, several changes were finally established for Art Bulletin, and subsequently for CAA’s other publications. The most significant modifications related to the editorial organization of Art Bulletin. The position of editor-in-chief was to be restricted to a three-year term, renewable once. After serving the journal a total of twenty years, eighteen as editor and two as managing editor, Shapley completed his duties with the December 1939 issue. He had also served as president of CAA for sixteen years and had received no compensation for any of his work in the various roles he played within the organization. A major reason for his departure was that some members simply felt that Shapley and his wife, Fern Rusk Shapley, who was also an art historian and involved in the editing process, had been in control of the Art Bulletin and CAA for too long.41 It was decided that the journal and the association needed to be run in a more egalitarian manner, as a national academic society should
The Changing Face of Scholarly Publishing ∏ 59
be. In the March 1940 issue, a short acknowledgment of John Shapley’s service and that of the first editorial board was mentioned. Shapley was then placed in charge of another one of CAA’s journals titled Parnassus for a brief time, and Meiss became the first editor-in-chief to serve a three-year term. The editorial board had been reconceived somewhat earlier, and by the time Meiss published his first issue, dated March 1940, the board had expanded from twelve to twenty members who represented a wider spectrum of art history than that of the first editorial board.42 Among the previous board members, Robinson and Kimball were retained, presumably for their expertise in their respective areas of study and to maintain a sense of continuity. Interestingly, significant newcomers included several German immigrants: Richard Ettinghausen, Friedländer, Held, Krautheimer, and Stechow, all of whom were affiliated with U.S. institutions. The modernist Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and the architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock were also listed as board members. In addition, two women were named: Dorothy Miner of the Walters Art Gallery and Sirarpie Der Nersessian of Wellesley College. Lastly, the editorial board also reflected a somewhat broader geographic distribution, with five of the twenty working for institutions in the Midwest. The new editorial board members were expected to review submissions within their specialized areas of study and “to make recommendations as to their acceptance, revision, or rejection.” 43 The early 1940s therefore marked the first time Art Bulletin explicitly adopted the editorial policy of being a peer-review journal. Regarding the content of Art Bulletin, it was decided that the features should cover a wider range of art historical fields and that the scholarship should differ from that found in the American Journal of Archaeology. As a result, fewer submissions were to be accepted in ancient art unless an article also addressed later periods in art or was significant for the art historian in terms of its content or method. In turn, scholarly articles that covered topics in modern art were particularly encouraged.44 In the early 1940s the most noticeable shift in the content of Art Bulletin was that the Renaissance began to dominate other fields, even medieval art, and many of these articles had been written by European émigrés. As much as the émigrés may have received a somewhat lukewarm reception from CAA and Art Bulletin, their influence clearly had an impact on the journal. By the late 1930s, as a result of the European exodus and the rise of Fascist politics in Europe, Art Bulletin would become “the world’s leading art-history periodical,” as stated in the Grove Dictionary of Art.45 The influence of the Europeans would also create a new generation of U.S. scholars, and such articles as Rensselaer Lee’s “Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting,” which engaged theoretical issues and acknowledged the advice of Panofsky, would be published in the 1940 issue of Art Bulletin.46
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The Art Bulletin: Then and Now Since 1913 one can see changes in all aspects of the journal, including its production and finances, its governance, and its editorial content and format. A brief reflection on some of these modifications can help explain the history of Art Bulletin, especially after World War II. The issues are relevant not only to the journal itself but also to the wider history of scholarly art publishing. As new technologies became available throughout the twentieth century, the production processes of Art Bulletin changed accordingly. Although these technological advancements may have reduced the manual labor involved in publishing and thus sped up the editorial and production process, the general cost for producing Art Bulletin nevertheless increased steadily over time, and the minutes from the meetings of the CAA board of directors express time and again the group’s ongoing distress over these rising costs.47 Put simply, the membership dues of the organization do not cover the cost of producing Art Bulletin. In order to pay for the journal, CAA has had to rely heavily on contributions from individuals and institutions. In the March 1925 issue, Art Bulletin first named these significant supporters. The Sustaining Institutions included the Frick Art Reference Library, Harvard University, the Hispanic Society of America, New York University, and Princeton University. The Contributing Institutions were Dartmouth College, Swarthmore College, and Wellesley College.48 In fact, before World War II, the cost of Art Bulletin was largely paid for by subventions.49 Over the years the list of supporters has grown substantially. Art Bulletin also received numerous grants throughout its existence. Among the foundations that have given CAA considerable support are the Carnegie Corporation and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. In 1933 the Carnegie gave money to CAA to help Art Bulletin pay its growing debt, which likely resulted from the Great Depression.50 In 1963, upon the journal’s fiftieth anniversary, the Kress Foundation provided grant money for a ten-year period to increase the journal’s page count. The reason for this was that the discipline of art history had substantially grown, and more manuscripts were being submitted to Art Bulletin.51 To this day the Kress continues to support Art Bulletin in its various initiatives. In the early 1980s, as a result of an economic study on the future rising costs of publishing, CAA decided it was necessary to establish the Art Bulletin Endowment Fund to help the organization adjust more easily to future cost increases. The Times Mirror Foundation was a tremendous supporter in this endeavor. The fund was later named in memory of the legendary H. W. Janson, whose famous History of Art was published by Abrams, then owned by Times Mirror. Although numerous people played significant roles in the continued development of Art Bulletin, Janson deserves to be singled out. He served as the book reviews editor from 1952 to 1955 and editor-in-chief from 1962 to 1965. He was
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therefore highly instrumental in the expansion of Art Bulletin when it secured funding from the Kress Foundation in 1963. Previously he had been on the editorial board of Parnassus from October 1940 to May 1941, during which time he wrote the book reviews section each month. He also served twice on the CAA board of directors, from 1959 to 1963 and from 1976 to 1980, and as president of the organization from 1970 to 1972.52 Throughout his involvement with CAA, he was well known for his entrepreneurial thinking. In the 1950s, Janson kept encouraging the organization to publish a textbook for the introductory art history survey course.53 Eventually, he wrote the book himself, publishing the first edition in 1962, and thereafter many college students were introduced to the discipline from his perspective. Beginning in the late 1960s, Janson served as chair of the Publications Committee (later called the Art Bulletin Committee), which during his tenure was responsible for governing not only Art Bulletin, but all of CAA’s publications. Members served on the committee indefinitely, which made it seem as if the committee might be operating as a closed society, or oligarchy.54 While Janson was chair, some individuals commented that he tended to manage CAA’s publications program somewhat single-handedly. When big decisions needed to be made regarding CAA’s publications, Janson was quoted as stating, “I used to meet with myself behind closed doors.” 55 Although he might have been a bit of a maverick for a membership organization, he was nevertheless extremely dedicated and accomplished in his leadership, making contributions to CAA and its publications that would benefit the organization for years to come. At various times in its history, CAA decided to examine its procedures and establish rules to make sure its publications were operating in the most efficient and egalitarian manner. As noted previously, in the late 1930s the editorship of Art Bulletin became limited to a three-year term, to make sure one person would not have control for an unlimited period, and new ideas and new voices would be included in the journal. Among all the editors-in-chief, only Creighton Gilbert served two terms, from 1980 to 1985. In 1989 CAA commissioned Susan F. Rossen, executive director of publications of the Art Institute of Chicago, to study the publishing program of CAA and write the “Report on the Publications of the College Art Association” (hereafter referred to as the Rossen Report). As a result, CAA hired a publications manager so that one professional in the field of publishing would oversee the production and budgets of CAA’s entire publishing program. The first publications manager, Virginia Wageman, served CAA from 1989 to 1996. In addition, CAA decided that the Art Bulletin editorial board would focus only on Art Bulletin. The board’s duties included evaluating the activities and needs of the journal each year, establishing long-range planning, generating and reviewing content, and selecting possible future candidates for the positions of editor-in-chief and book reviews editor. Members of the Art Bulletin editorial board would also serve limited terms, and the makeup of the
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group was supposed to reflect a scholarly and geographic diversity within the United States, so that the editorial board would not be dominated by one specialization in the field or favor people from the East Coast, which had been the case in the past. Furthermore, a new Publications Committee was established, which included editors from all of CAA’s publications, each of them serving limited terms. In 2001 a special Publications Task Force was mandated. Two important outcomes for Art Bulletin (and other publications) included: first, the creation of a position called the vice president for publications, who served on the CAA board of directors, acting as publisher for CAA and representing the interests of Art Bulletin (and CAA’s other publications); and second, the stipulation that editors and editorial board members were discouraged from publishing in their respective journals except in a limited capacity (for example, editorials, discussions, and interviews). The content and reputation of Art Bulletin changed during and after World War II. Because many European journals could not maintain publication as a result of the war, Art Bulletin became the leading international scholarly publication of art history in the late 1930s.56 Serving as the comprehensive journal of record for art history, Art Bulletin was the publication that the art historian typically read to stay current in the field. Publishing an article in the journal became a benchmark for scholars working in the field of art history and helped many new academics secure tenure in their college or university. However, scholarship and publishing changed over the decades, and so did Art Bulletin. Several past editors-in-chief recalled that their job was somewhat lonely.57 Although helpers were available—including an editorial board, outside readers, a manuscript editor, a manager/director of publications, proofreaders, and a production designer—the editor-in-chief, which is considered a half-time job, is responsible for the content of the journal. Richard Spear, editor-in-chief from 1985 to 1988, reported that he typically read each submitted article twice and those he accepted for publication at least five times; Creighton Gilbert, editor-in-chief from 1980 to 1985, said he worked every day of the week editing manuscripts.58 Submissions varied throughout the years. In the early 1960s approximately 50 articles were sent in each year.59 As art history became more popular and the number of doctorates grew in the 1950s and 1960s as a result of the GI Bill, submissions increased in the mid-1960s and throughout the 1970s, the numbers ranging between 90 and 108.60 In the 1980s, the submissions rose to an average of 122 per year and in the 1990s to 132. After 2000 the submissions fell slightly, averaging approximately 120 per year. Since 1980 the acceptance rates have varied year to year, spanning anywhere from 13 to 33 percent, with the norm being about 20 to 25 percent.61 The 1980s represented a transitional period for both the discipline of art history and the journal itself. The decade also happens to be one of the most well-
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documented periods from an editorial standpoint.62 According to the editors, the scholarship in Art Bulletin tended to focus mostly on medieval, Renaissance and Baroque, and nineteenth-century art.63 Ancient, non-Western, and contemporary art, as well as architecture and theory (including feminism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism), were subjects found far less often in the journal. Gilbert stated the main reason for this phenomenon was that certain areas of study received more submissions than others, and in the end the editors were largely bound by the submissions they received. Articles covering Renaissance and Baroque art were the highest in number.64 As a result, most editors-in-chief were specialists in these periods. Indeed, Art Bulletin employed ten consecutive editors who were experts in the fields of Renaissance and/or Baroque art, starting in 1956 with James Ackerman and ending in 1988 with Spear.65 However, Walter Cahn (1988–1991) broke the lineage as a medievalist, followed by Richard Brilliant (1991–1994) as a classicist, and Nancy J. Troy (1994–1997) as a modernist, all of whom were likely appointed to the job to change the status quo and help increase submissions in areas outside Renaissance and Baroque art. A few editors speculated that another reason Art Bulletin received so many submissions in certain fields and so few in others was that many new scholarly journals of a specialized nature had emerged during and after World War II, which created a sense of competition for Art Bulletin. Some examples include Art History; Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians; Gesta, which concentrates on art of the Middle Ages; The American Art Journal; Woman’s Art Journal; Artibus Asiae, which covers the art and archaeology of Asia; and October, which focuses on contemporary criticism and theory related to various art practices.66 Each of these journals was established by like-minded scholars with a specific interest or need, and their existence likely has robbed Art Bulletin’s piggy bank of potential submissions. However, some of these journals were created because it was felt that the subjects and ideas that they promote had been too often historically underrepresented in Art Bulletin. On another note, other specialized periodicals were established because their subject matter and/or art historical methods represented new trends in scholarship—sometimes called the “new art history”—which were thought to be less readily acceptable within the pages of the more mature Art Bulletin.67 Reflecting upon the situation in 1991, Brilliant asked the provocative question: “Can it be that the would-be contributors have assumed that only certain kinds of articles would obtain a favorable reading from the editor who, together with the anonymous reviewers, must represent the so-called art-historical establishment, and its traditional values? Such a ‘catch-22’ mentality is, of course, self-defeating.” 68 Yet Brilliant’s concern seemed to be the case, and some scholars actually preferred to publish in more specialized journals because they felt that they would receive greater recognition from their subgroup, however it was defined.
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Writing in 1994, Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt, who had been editor-in-chief of Art Bulletin from 1977 to 1980, explained how the discipline of art history had changed in the last twenty years. In the early 1970s the “socialization in the profession was largely a process of integration or initiation into a shared enterprise and a common language.” Such a phenomenon might explain why Weil-Garris Brandt said that no one had ever publicly acknowledged the fact that she had served as the first female editor-in-chief, despite the fact that feminism had been on the rise since the 1960s, and the Women’s Caucus for Art had been established in 1972. However, by the early 1990s, the so-called collegial enterprise of academia had withered away. Weil-Garris Brandt reported that “notions of unity and integration could well be construed, instead, as myths of ‘the Establishment.’ ” Art history had become factional, such that “the ritual of socialization and the rhetoric of scholarship became those of difference and opposition.” 69 Along these lines, Troy, who in the mid-1990s served as the second female editor-in-chief of Art Bulletin, did not want her gender to go unnoticed, and she purposefully chose the color pink for the cover of Art Bulletin during her first year to signify that a woman was in charge.70 With the fracturing of the field of art history, Art Bulletin was no longer the only journal that art historians read to stay current in their field or subfields. In fact, many scholars turned more readily to the journals in their subfields and read only relevant texts within Art Bulletin. As a result, Art Bulletin’s status among art periodicals had changed by the early 1990s. Although it was still well known for its rigorous scholarship, the journal had nevertheless become, in Brilliant’s words, “authoritative, a little stodgy, and, alas, all too often largely unread.” 71 Such a situation represented a major concern for the editors-in-chief, and many of them went to great lengths to invite the missing voices to contribute to Art Bulletin, publishing statements to that effect in CAA News and the journal itself, or even personally inviting scholars to submit manuscripts.72 Another concern for many editors was that most of the manuscripts came from junior scholars. Submissions were too often chapters or portions of dissertations, and, as such, they often read as incomplete articles, lacking a strong enough thesis and a logical beginning, middle, and end.73 As early as 1977 Howard Hibbard, editor-in-chief from 1974 to 1977, reported that publishing in Art Bulletin had become the main hope for new Ph.D.s “trying to get or keep a teaching job, and most of our contributions come from this group. We want to serve our membership in this way. . . . The present contents of the Art Bulletin, however, composed as it is of articles by relatively junior scholars, is at odds with its traditional place as one of the leading international journals of art history.” 74 Before and during World War II, many senior scholars, including editorial board members, contributed to the journal, some of them quite frequently. However, in the 1970s and 1980s the more accomplished academics no longer seemed in-
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terested in writing articles. According to Weil-Garris Brandt, they wanted to publish books, which had become more prominent in scholarly publishing after World War II.75 In an effort to breathe new energy and life into the journal, each editor-inchief tried to introduce new measures to make the journal more stimulating. However, change was sometimes difficult to accomplish in a journal that had such a grand history and a somewhat “stodgy” reputation. In some ways, Art Bulletin seemed unchangeable, impervious to the forces of innovation. The editors were dependent to an enormous degree on the contributions they received, and radical alterations to the journal’s format might be met with resistance from the Art Bulletin editorial board, the CAA Publications Committee, the CAA board of directors, and sometimes staff. Each modification, however simple it might seem, was therefore not always easy to effect. Although each editor made numerous and significant contributions, I have focused on the more obvious changes to show how Art Bulletin evolved from the mid-1980s onward. In 1986 Spear was the first editor to address his concerns publicly about the poor state of scholarship he found in the general submissions to Art Bulletin. In turn, he chose to revive “The State of Research” series, which had begun in the mid-1960s. Previously, the series examined the literature to date on specific topics, such as “Rubens Drawings” and “Recent Literature on the Chronology of Chartres Cathedral.” However, in an effort to encourage art historians to think on a broader scale, Spear commissioned texts that were meant to be “stocktaking” essays addressing “the current state of art-historical research. The aim is not bibliographic. Rather by providing a critical overview of representative new writings, the aim is to stimulate thinking about what research methods are producing the most promising results.” 76 Each of the essays explored a different period in Western art history, including ancient, medieval, Southern Renaissance, Northern Renaissance, nineteenth-century, twentieth-century, and American art, or focused on a methodological practice, specifically feminism and psychoanalysis. Spear felt the latter two topics were the most productive areas of new art historical study at the time. One result from his project was a substantial increase in the number of letters to the editor and discussions, which created ongoing and occasionally heated dialogues about some of the individual fields covered in his series. Because Spear’s “State of Research” had been so popular, some editors chose to continue the project but added their own twists as needed. In the late 1980s Cahn retitled the project “Views and Overviews.” However, he chose to commission fewer essays and made the topics more narrow and varied in scope, concentrating on Soviet art history, socioeconomic factors in Netherlandish Renaissance and Baroque art, and semiotics in relation to art history, to name a few. H. Perry Chapman, who was editor-in-chief from 2000 to 2004, called her
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project “The State of Art History” and often chose to examine topics that had long been ignored in Art Bulletin, including two essays on Japanese art and one on the history of photography. All of these series, however they were conceived, were significant because they provided a means to surmise larger issues in various fields of art historical scholarship and involve contributions from senior scholars in the Art Bulletin. Other editors developed similar types of commissioned projects but changed the format to a greater extent. In the mid-1990s Troy initiated “A Range of Critical Perspectives.” Although Troy said she was inspired by Spear’s “State of Research,” her project might be perceived as almost opposite in approach.77 Rather than commission one scholar to comment on a specific field, Troy invited several scholars to write short essays related to a broad theme in art history. Some topics included “The Object of Art History,” “Inter/disciplinarity,” “Rethinking the Canon,” and “Digital Culture and the Practices of Art and Art History.” As a result, Troy was able to involve numerous senior scholars and bring a multitude of new voices to Art Bulletin. From 2004 to 2007, Marc Gotlieb developed “Interventions,” which were organized somewhat like a series of roundtable discussions. Gotlieb’s “Interventions” consisted of an initial essay exploring a methodological or research practice within a particular field of art history. In the same issue he also included invited responses from other scholars, followed by a reply from the initial author(s). The idea was to foster a dialogue on a given topic and make it accessible within one issue of the journal. Given the complicated nature of the project and the number of pages it inevitably consumed within a single issue, Gotlieb developed a select number of “Interventions,” including “Toward a New Model of Renaissance Anachronism,” “The Boy in Bed: The Scene of Reading in N. C. Wyeth’s Wreck of the ‘Covenant,’ ” and “The Melancholy Art.” Following Gotlieb, Richard J. Powell, editor-in-chief from 2007 to 2010, chose to continue “Interventions,” but wanted to reach out to various constituencies and new and unusual subjects for the Art Bulletin, such as museum exhibitions, contemporary theater, and other venues where art is presented and represented.78 His topics included “Picasso’s Closet” and “Decentering Modernism.” Among the editors, Brilliant pursued an entirely different approach, writing a series of editorials in which he addressed many practical concerns facing the art historian and the discipline of art history at large. His topics included not only the scholarship found (or not found) in Art Bulletin, but also the growing number of independent scholars in the field, the use and abuse of footnotes, and the helpfulness and effectiveness of databases. Another major concern for several editors was the drab scholarly look of Art Bulletin, and many of them tried to change the design whenever possible, although they had to work within the limitations of the budget. Up until the mid-
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1980s, each journal was typically covered with a single color of matte paper with the title and date posted on the front and spine. Each volume was often assigned its own color. In an effort to create change, Spear commissioned a different line illustration on the cover of each journal to help signify that the publication was for and about art. However, this practice did not continue. John Paoletti, who served as editor-in-chief from 1997 to 2000, succeeded in producing full-color reproductions of art objects on the cover of Art Bulletin. Also during his tenure more color illustrations could be found inside the journal. In addition, footnotes were placed as endnotes to give greater clarity to the page design and allow for larger illustrations. In due course, the use of endnotes helped deter contributors from making “discursive arguments parallel to their text, to act as a scholarly battleground where views contrary to the authors are laid waste.” 79 Paoletti’s practice has continued to date. Throughout its ninety-eight-year existence, Art Bulletin evolved, changing and developing along with the discipline of art history, especially in the first few decades. The journal today is a far cry from its meager beginnings as a mere bulletin. In the late 1930s Art Bulletin matured, establishing itself as the international scholarly journal of record for art history. Although its identity has remained largely the same, the journal has continued to develop and grow in the last thirty years through the efforts of the editors working closely with the editorial board and the CAA staff. While producing the journal of record, many editors felt it was necessary to be somewhat critical at times of Art Bulletin to make sure it was serving its subscribers and the discipline it represents. Although it might have been difficult to create any long-lasting or substantial transformation within the restricted three-year time frame of the editorship, their conscientious, critical analyses and their notable changes have kept the journal active and vital within the field of art history.
the second journal: parnassus , a.k.a. college art journal , a.k.a. art journal The story of CAA’s second journal of record is substantially different than that of Art Bulletin. The latter matured at a somewhat early stage, and once it achieved an international reputation, it remained steadfast in its mission, undergoing slight changes now and again, to make sure that it attempted to reflect adequately the discipline of art history and the needs of art historians. CAA’s second journal, by comparison, was revamped, rehauled, and repackaged numerous times. Its mission, unlike that of Art Bulletin, was supposed to cater to the diverse needs of CAA’s membership at large, not only the art historian, but the artist, critic, museum professional, and numerous others working in or interested in the visual arts. The editorial focus was therefore much more wide ranging, sometimes
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addressing one or more of the following topics: national and international trends in art and art history; pedagogical concerns; visual studies; theory and methodology; artists’ projects, materials, and techniques; newsworthy information for CAA members; and other topics related to the visual arts. Throughout its history the editorial mission of the second journal varied, sometimes dramatically. These radical shifts are reflected in the changes in title from Parnassus (1929–1941) to College Art Journal (1941–1960) to Art Journal (1960–present). However, the journal also experienced significant changes in editorial purpose and design at other times. Indeed, one might struggle to find strong similarities between individual issues of Parnassus from 1931 and 1941 or Art Journal from 1995 and 2005. Therefore, the history of CAA’s second journal is, in some respects, a series of fragmented stories of not one, but many publications. One significant and ongoing element in the history of CAA’s second publication is that it tended to play a subordinate role to Art Bulletin. At transition points in the journal’s history, the second journal was sometimes referred to as “second string,” “a poor relation,” or “the step child” by comparison with Art Bulletin, which might explain why the second journal was so vulnerable to being revamped.80 Such favoritism is most evident in the budgets for the journals: CAA’s funds for its second journal were much more limited than those of Art Bulletin. However, the status of the second publication rose over time, particularly in the last twenty years. Among CAA’s members, the second journal (in this case Art Journal) became more popular than Art Bulletin. In the early 1990s statistics showed that more members chose to receive Art Journal over Art Bulletin as a benefit of their membership. In the last decade CAA’s Publications Committee also worked to establish a stronger sense of parity between its two journals. In addition, Art Journal received public recognition with the 2002 Utne Independent Press Award for its “coverage of arts and literature.” 81 In some respects, the history of CAA’s second publication represents a Cinderella story: it shows the transformation of a journal from one that was once relegated to playing second fiddle to one that became highly celebrated in its own right. Parnassus No records are available regarding the inception of Parnassus. The title was likely chosen as a reference to Mount Parnassus, which in mythology served as the home of the muses. First published in the winter of 1928–1929, Parnassus initially billed itself as a publication of “news and topical value devoted largely to art activities in Europe and edited by authorities in the field.” 82 France, Italy, the Soviet Union, and England were covered in the first issue, and Austria, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Transylvania followed thereafter. Articles offered a somewhat eclectic mix of newsworthy information addressing exhibitions,
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museum acquisitions, archaeological projects, restorations, and/or academic programs. Throughout the first several years, the monthly journal provided an ongoing calendar of current exhibitions in the New York City area. It also gave news about significant purchases in a special section called the “Art Market,” offered reviews of newly published books, and supplied abstracts of articles from current periodicals. Once a year Parnassus included the program of CAA’s annual meeting, sometimes publishing summaries of conference papers in the subsequent issues. In order to maintain its largely European focus, the first contributing editors represented a distinguished group of eleven international authors. Eight of them were affiliated with a prestigious European museum, academic institution, or magazine.83 The three representing the United States were Morey and Cook, who also served on the editorial board of Art Bulletin, and A. Philip McMahon, who was in charge of the book review section of Parnassus. John Shapley, the editor of Art Bulletin and editor-in-chief of CAA’s publications program, was also involved. Morey, Cook, Shapley, and McMahon were contributors to both Art Bulletin and Parnassus and were officers of CAA at different points in the organization’s history. However, the driving force behind Parnassus seemed to be Audrey McMahon, Philip’s wife, who served first as corresponding secretary, then managing editor, and, by the November 1929 issue, the editor. She continued in this role until 1939. Within a very short time during its first year, the journal’s initial focus began to grow and expand beyond mostly European art. In the second issue the original intention was no longer stated, and by the third issue the lead article addressed art activities in New York. In the October 1929 issue, Parnassus also began to dedicate several pages of each issue to Asian art. For a brief period from January through May 1935, the subtitle of Parnassus read “A Magazine of the Art of All Centuries.” As a result of the expanded editorial focus, a new group of contributing editors had been put in place as early as October 1931. A. Philip McMahon remained on board, but Morey and Cook were no longer named. Newcomers included Virginia Nirdlinger, Katherine Grant Sterne, Francis Henry Taylor, and Horace H. F. Jayne, who was a specialist in Asian art. Parnassus distinguished itself from Art Bulletin by publishing shorter articles that explored more topical concerns and covered a wider range of periods and regions in the visual arts. In some instances, Parnassus seemed to make up for the somewhat narrow focus of Art Bulletin, which in the late 1920s and 1930s was largely devoted to medieval art. In fact, Parnassus concentrated on the very areas that Art Bulletin seemed to overlook, especially modern, U.S., and Asian art, and, perhaps as a means to differentiate itself further from Art Bulletin, Parnassus covered little medieval art. The differences between the two journals were therefore clearly established. During the latter half of the 1930s, Parnassus largely maintained its inter-
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national editorial focus. As part of its commitment to covering Asian art, Parnassus produced several individual issues that were devoted almost exclusively to the subject.84 Addressing current issues in U.S. contemporary art, Parnassus published articles on the U.S. government’s involvement in the visual arts in the mid-1930s and the New York World’s Fair of 1939. As a result of its broad scope, Parnassus attracted advertising from numerous galleries and book publishers specializing in art from different periods and regions, although a hotel and a few other businesses also promoted themselves now and again. Advertising revenues played a considerable role for the journal, which was largely dependent upon such funds to maintain publication.85 By comparison, Art Bulletin featured no advertising in the 1930s, and the cost of the journal was factored into the larger budget of the organization or supplemented through grants and subventions. In the late 1930s, major changes occurred for both publications, and by the early 1940s, Parnassus would eventually cease to exist. These events transpired because of a letter sent to the CAA board of directors in 1936, complaining about the editorial policies of Art Bulletin, but not those of Parnassus. As a result a committee was formed to investigate these concerns. Three years later Shapley was deposed as editor of Art Bulletin and placed in charge of Parnassus in October 1939. Audrey McMahon, who had served Parnassus for ten years, resigned from her post and was named consulting editor. In all the ensuing discussions, the only complaint directed specifically at Parnassus was that the McMahons seemed to have been in control of the latter publication for too long.86 Another related concern, although not stated explicitly against Parnassus, was that many CAA members felt that the organization tended to favor the East Coast too much. Parnassus’s calendar of exhibitions focusing month after month on shows in New York City would have likely served as a case in point. While Shapley was editor of Parnassus from October 1939 to May 1940, the journal largely maintained its editorial focus. However, one noticeable difference was that Parnassus developed a new section titled “Contemporary American Artists.” Parnassus polled its readers, asking them to vote on which living American artists they wanted to see featured in a monographic article in the publication. Julian Levi, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Richmond Barthé, and Aaron Bohrod were among those chosen. All of them worked in a figurative style. Levi and Bohrod were painters, Kuniyoshi a printmaker, and Barthé a sculptor. As a result of the outbreak of World War II, the journal was beginning to concentrate more on U.S. art and less on European, Asian, and African art. More radical changes for Parnassus began to occur in May 1940. Lester D. Longman, a member of the CAA board of directors who had been involved in the restructuring of the publications, proposed a substantial makeover for Parnassus. He explained that “the College Art Association needs an organ which will give it unity and can serve as a ready means of propaganda. It should be a
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magazine which would assist in increasing the membership and supporting the regional associations, and in making the College Art Association genuinely national in scope.” 87 As a result, Longman replaced Shapley as editor, and the new Parnassus was released in October 1940. In this first issue, Middeldorf, CAA’s president, acknowledged that the organization needed to recognize the diversity of its membership, so that it might become “the common meeting ground for all art teachers, both scholars and art teachers, and all those interested in art in higher education, for thus it was originally designed.” He stated that the new journal would engage “questions on art criticism and art education with which we all have to struggle in our daily teaching, and will provide the news and comment which will bind us together.” Middeldorf also commented on CAA’s desire to engage all regions of the United States (and Canada), not only the East Coast.88 Serving as the vehicle for all these causes, the new Parnassus focused more specifically on modern and contemporary art, studio techniques, college art departments and art schools around the country, as well as art faculties and exceptional students. The editorial board was composed of fourteen eminent scholars, including Cook, Middeldorf, and Janson, who was the book reviewer. In his first editor’s statement, Longman was more explicit than Middeldorf about the changes within the journal, stating that it would no longer be “a heterogeneous series of papers on various phases of art history,” but serve to become “an educational magazine fighting for good art, good scholarship, and good teaching.” 89 As a result, the look of the journal changed considerably. Many images showed artists at work in their studios or teaching in classrooms, in addition to reproductions of work by them and their students. In eleven years Parnassus had moved radically away from its initial Eurocentric focus to a much more nationalist perspective, concentrating on art criticism and pedagogical concerns. In fact, the new Parnassus was adamant about improving the visual arts and art education in the United States. In the second part of his first editorial titled “Better American Art,” Longman argued that America’s taste was too conservative, favoring illustration over art. He saw 1940 as a pivotal time for art in the United States and cautioned Americans who disliked Hitler and Stalin for their politics but liked the reactionary “propagandistic drivel” they promoted as art in their respective countries. Longman singled out the American Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton as an artist who understood the situation all too well. According to Longman, Benton had been “a popular illustrator” and had improved his painting in due course, but Longman felt even Benton needed “to protest aloud with brush and voice” much more strongly. To promote a “better American art,” Longman encouraged Benton (and others) to “give up advertising” and “paint to suit his [their] conscience.” Given Longman’s condemnation
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of illustration, one might have expected that his text would ultimately champion the cause of abstraction, which in the 1930s had met its demise in favor of the somewhat reactionary figurative work of the Regionalist and American Scene painting. However, from today’s perspective, Longman’s arguments may seem somewhat arbitrary, given that he named Bohrod and Alexander Brook as the leaders of his pursuit.90 Both artists had been singled out publicly for their work just before Longman wrote his editorial. As already noted, Bohrod had been featured earlier in the year in an article as one of Parnassus’s Contemporary American Artists. Categorized in the realm of Regionalism, his subject matter included still lifes, cityscapes, landscapes, and figures. Brook, who was an American Scene painter, was best known for his figurative paintings. He had been involved in the Whitney Studio Club in the mid-1920s and received first prize for one of his paintings at the 1939 Carnegie International exhibition.91 The new Parnassus was also interested in creating a forum for discussion, stating its desire to publish letters to the editor and have members help shape the content. Most of the twenty-eight letters in the November 1940 issue congratulated Longman on the way in which he had revamped Parnassus. The artist Stuart Davis, whose work fell more in the domain of cubism and abstraction (although it still depicted and was derived from American subject matter), commented that the journal “seemed to be the authentic voice of the new generation in art education on a national scale. Your editorial on American art is challenging and provocative and I hope you keep up this live approach.” 92 However, Davis’s praise for Longman’s criticism may have stemmed from his dislike of Benton. At the time the latter was highly critical of abstraction and the New York art scene, and his politics were thus thought to be somewhat conservative by comparison to the more radical leftist sensibility of Davis.93 Among the rest of the letters, only two dissented. T. J. Damon was critical of Parnassus’s “fighting for good art” and Longman’s choices because his criteria for such a discussion were highly subjective. Meyer Schapiro, a repeated contributor to Art Bulletin, stated that Parnassus “once looked like a dealer’s organ, now it seems to be a students’ monthly.” In the same issue, Longman replied to the latter’s criticism, using the opportunity to differentiate the missions of the two publications. He stated that “the new Parnassus is of less value to mature scholars of the history of art and to specialists in the various phases of archeology than it is to art teachers as a whole. On the other hand, we feel that the old Parnassus was also of little value to advanced scholars, to whom The Art Bulletin rather than Parnassus is addressed.” 94 Although both journals were designed to meet specific needs within the membership, they were clearly conceived as separate entities. Simply put, Art Bulletin covered the history of art, and the new Parnassus the practice and teaching of art, as well as art criticism. Although Longman’s version of Parnassus met with the general acceptance
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of CAA’s membership, the journal struggled to attract advertisers. Many traditional galleries were less interested in promoting themselves within Parnassus because the journal was focusing on modern and contemporary art. On February 1, 1941, Sumner Crosby, CAA’s president at the time, cautioned that Parnassus was still in an experimental stage and acknowledged advertising was crucial to sustaining the periodical. Six weeks later, the CAA board of directors engaged in a lengthy discussion about the purpose of the organization and its publications and ultimately decided to discontinue Parnassus.95 (Susan Ball, in the conclusion to chapter 2, provides details of this important conversation.) In the final issue, dated May 1941, Crosby attempted to justify the decision in a statement titled “C.A.A. Policy Altered—Parnassus Abolished.” He explained that the organization could not afford to continue publishing Parnassus, given that its present format featured so many costly reproductions. The board of directors also felt that the journal often duplicated material found in other art magazines, including ARTnews, the American Magazine of Art, and Art Digest. While this criticism may have been true in the early years of Parnassus, the most recent incarnation of the journal was different enough from these other publications, given that it focused so much on art education. In addition, Crosby stated, quite surprisingly, that CAA’s “primary function is the support and promotion of the teaching of the history, analysis, and interpretation, rather than the creation, of art.” 96 Such a declaration was not in keeping with the bylaws of CAA from the beginning nor at that time. Crosby’s statement was published along with many letters from outraged members who had been informed of the decision and its rationale in advance. John Alford, who was serving on the editorial board of Parnassus, threatened to resign from CAA as a result and expressed anger that the organization had chosen to limit itself to art history. Ray Faulkner, the head of the Art Department of Teachers College at Columbia University, warned that “if the interests of the Association are confined to only one aspect of art teaching and study, the organization will fail in its potentialities.” 97 Finally, Longman thanked all those who had been involved in the production of the journal and expressed his hope that the organization would one day focus on the importance of art education in all its dimensions, following the much broader policy outlined by President Middeldorf in his first issue of October 1940. College Art Journal Crosby’s statement also mentioned that Parnassus would be replaced by a new publication titled College Art Journal. In the first issue of College Art Journal, which was published in November 1941, Crosby explained that the new publication would “function as an organ of the College Art Association rather than
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as a publication in competition with other periodicals.” Perhaps as a means to assuage many members’ fears that the organization was serving only art historians, Crosby stated, “There is no intention to limit discussion to problems concerning the history of art. Different approaches and methods must be analyzed in order to reach a sound understanding that will ultimately lead to fruitful collaboration between all teachers of art.” Crosby also communicated that the new journal would feature “reports of experimental courses and programs,” as well as information on “exhibitions of significant value to college art departments” and “short reviews of those books which are of special value to undergraduate teaching.” 98 In addition to offering reports on the organization’s business meetings, the journal also announced the program of the CAA annual meeting and at times published conference papers. Myrtilla Avery, who, like Longman, was on the CAA board of directors and had been involved in the 1939 restructuring of CAA’s journals, served as the first editor for one year.99 The articles in the inaugural issue focused predominantly on pedagogical concerns. In some respects, the College Art Journal was therefore not dramatically different from the recent version of Parnassus. Both concentrated primarily on art education. However, within the College Art Journal, there were no editorials, and the focus of each article tended to address broader issues in education, whereas in Parnassus, individual art programs, teachers, techniques, and even equipment had been singled out to a much greater extent. What distinguished the two journals even more was their design. By comparison with Parnassus, College Art Journal looked quite plain and scholarly, reduced in size and printed on uncoated paper without any illustrations or advertising.100 In 1942 G. Haydn Huntley of the University of Chicago became editor. Because he lived in the Midwest, CAA stated it hoped “to make the Journal more readily accessible to members away from the Atlantic seaboard.” Under his watch, the content of the journal addressed all interests in “the teaching of art in colleges.” 101 Subjects included the introductory art history survey, color film, and museum education. In addition, feature articles covering modern and contemporary art and aesthetics gradually began to appear, with topics ranging from the fourth dimension to the Bauhaus to André Masson. In 1944, Henry R. Hope of Indiana University, Bloomington, took over as editor and stayed in the position until 1973, except for a break from 1949 to 1953, while he was president of CAA and Laurence E. Schmeckebier of the Cleveland Institute of Art served as editor. Altogether Hope worked directly on the journal for approximately twenty-five years, serving as the longest-running editor of any CAA publication. During his editorship the journal developed and expanded in a variety of ways. In 1946, the first illustrations and advertisements could be seen in the journal, growing in number over the years. The number of articles also increased, which stemmed from a variety of reasons. In 1953, the American
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Magazine of Art was suspended from publication, and more authors therefore began to contribute to College Art Journal. In fact, before the American Magazine of Art folded, it had approached CAA about becoming partners, but CAA declined because the board of directors was concerned that the identity of the College Art Journal might be compromised.102 From 1955 to 1961, an active editorial board also helped stimulate submissions.103 One episode in the journal’s history from the 1950s that bears mentioning was a lawsuit filed by Barnett Newman against Ad Reinhardt and the CAA. Such a conflict had rarely happened in the history of CAA. In the Summer 1954 issue of College Art Journal, Reinhardt published a talk he had previously given in Woodstock.104 The somewhat satirical article made fun of modern artists and the current marketing systems for art. Reinhardt divided artists into four categories using a long list of mocking terms to define each one. Newman fell under “the artist-professor and traveling-design-salesman, the Art-Digest-philosopherpoet and Bauhaus-exerciser, the avant-garde-huckster-handi-craftsman and educational shop-keeper, the holy-roller-explainer-entertainer-in-residence.” In response, Newman felt he, his art, and his philosophy had been maligned and filed suit, and the case went to court. However, according to Sam Hunter, the judge dismissed the case when he learned that Newman had filed a substantial number of lawsuits in the past and was known for writing provocative letters to government officials. He had also run in an election for mayor of New York City as an anarchist.105 Such a story reveals the personalities of the two artists, as well as the rivalry between them. In addition, the incident shows that College Art Journal played a role within the politics of contemporary art at the time. In the late 1950s CAA decided to delete the word “college” from the title of the journal. The journal had grown in terms of its readership, and CAA wanted to increase the marketability of the publication. In an effort not to dramatize the change, the transition in title occurred gradually. Over the course of a year, the word “college” on the cover was diminished until it disappeared altogether by the fall of 1960. Art Journal The major differences between Art Journal and College Art Journal were in name and size. The new periodical was larger, measuring 11 × 8½ inches. Otherwise, the content of Art Journal remained largely the same while Hope was still the editor. However, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, academia and learned societies were becoming much more politicized. The New Art Association (NAA) and the Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) were established in 1970 and 1972, respectively, to create reform within CAA, and members complained about the content of the journal. In a rare editorial, Hope responded, saying that “Art Journal is open to
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new ideas, criticisms and proposals for improvement.” He also explained that “this is a modest operation: no salaries, no expense funds, a minimal staff . . . we don’t even have a typist, much less an editorial assistant. . . . Therefore to the readers who request changes and improvements in Art Journal, we say help us to achieve them by getting us good material.” Nevertheless, at a CAA board of director’s meeting, Hope said he would try to make the journal less “stuffy.” 106 As a result of the political changes within academia and learned societies, as well as the development of new trends in scholarship in the visual arts, Art Journal would become quite vulnerable to change. Starting in the early 1970s, and roughly every decade thereafter, the journal would experience significant alterations in design, content, and/or editorial structure. The first of these occurred after Hope stated he wanted to be replaced. He had retired from teaching and had been living in Florida since 1970. Although he had provided the journal with a sense of consistency during his more-than-thirty-year tenure, he felt the journal needed a change, and another person should take charge, preferably someone who lived in or around New York, where CAA’s offices were located. In a charming and amusing farewell statement, he wrote, “It is high time that this journal had some new ideas, new design, new printing, and above all a new editor.” 107 In 1973 Diane Kelder became the new editor, and the journal was given a fresh look as a result. She worked with Rose Weil, CAA’s executive secretary and managing editor, to produce the publication. One of Kelder’s missions was to have the journal concentrate more specifically on nineteenth- and twentiethcentury art, although articles addressing other time periods and non-Western art also appeared. By comparison with previous issues of College Art Journal and Art Journal, fewer articles covered the teaching of art and art history. Several of Kelder’s issues were also arranged in a loosely thematic format. The themes included twentieth-century sculpture, women artists, museums and alternative spaces for exhibitions, and artists’ concerns with health hazards. Each of these themes spoke to current topics in the visual arts, and the latter was a direct means to meet the needs of the CAA’s artist members in a more useful manner. Kelder also solicited and encouraged artists to write on other artists whose work inspired them. In general, her version of Art Journal attempted to speak to modernist art historians, artists, and other CAA members who felt that Art Bulletin did not wholly meet their needs. In addition, while Kelder was editor, the News section, which had continued to grow since its inception, had become too large and unwieldy for the journal to manage. As a result, in 1976 CAA began to publish this section as a separate entity titled the CAA Newsletter (later called CAA News). In Kelder’s hands, Art Journal was well regarded and received praise from CAA board members. Advertising increased and paid for color reproductions on
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the covers of the periodical.108 However, in the late 1970s, the need for change came again. Some CAA board members wanted to rethink the mission of the journal in general. If Art Journal was not supposed to be like Art Bulletin or newsstand art magazines, what should its purpose and identity be? Many members stated they did not want the content of Art Journal to appear as the “rejects” of Art Bulletin. Others simply wanted to terminate the Art Journal, with one of them even shouting, “Kill it!” However, the latter option was dismissed because it wouldn’t necessarily save CAA money, given that a significant portion of the content would still have to be included in an expanded newsletter.109 In an effort to revive the publication, a new approach was taken. No single editor was placed in charge, and each issue was based exclusively on a theme that was developed and produced by a guest editor. The format typically included five to six articles covering one subject, although interviews, statements, and other means of communication were welcome. In addition, Book Reviews and Museum News sections were continued, although these sections were not bound to the given theme. A small editorial board, consisting of Anne Coffin Hanson, Ellen Lanyon, George Sadek, and Irving Sandler, supervised the thematic section of the publication. Later Hanson and Sadek resigned, and Susan Ball, Cynthia Carlson, Barbara Novak, and Robert Storr were added; Jane Edelson, formerly copy editor, became managing editor after Rose Weil retired. Together the editorial board was in charge of choosing guest editors and reviewing the contents of each issue as necessary. The first issue appeared in Spring 1980: Printmaking, the Collaborative Art, guest edited by Donald Saff. A statement from the editorial board helped further define the general purpose of the journal: Art Journal seeks to be a journal of ideas and opinions and to focus on critical and aesthetic issues in the visual arts of our time. We believe that this objective can best be achieved by a thematic approach, bringing various viewpoints and methodologies to bear upon a significant area of inquiry. . . . [The] function of this publication is to encourage communication within our community—artists, art historians, critics, museum professionals.110 Although Art Journal concentrated mostly on modern and contemporary art, all aspects of the visual arts were embraced, including art from premodern time periods, non-Western art, pedagogy, and theoretical and philosophical ideas. In the 1980s Art Journal covered a variety of themes: specific art movements, such as earthworks; terminology like revisionism, pluralism, and postmodernism; individual artists, including Willem de Kooning, Edward Hopper, and Edouard Manet; and interdisciplinary subjects addressing art and science, art and poli-
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tics, and art and mysticism; as well as classicism, African art, studio art education, and public art. Many of the guest editors produced remarkable issues of the journal, some of them becoming “classics, anthologized, and often cited,” according to Ruth Weisberg, a former CAA president.111 However, the journal was sometimes erratic, given that each issue had a different editor, some of whom had little editorial experience. At times the editorial board struggled to publish the journal in an ongoing timely fashion. In fact, in 1986, no issues were published. As previously stated, the 1989 Rossen Report, which evaluated CAA’s publications program, recommended that a manager of publications be hired to help systematize the publishing process and to ensure the journal was published on a regular basis. Afterward, it was also decided that an executive editor—the first being Lenore Malen—should be hired as well, not only to work with the editorial board but also to help guide each guest editor through the initial part of the editing process. Another change that resulted from the Rossen Report was that the editorial board should represent different locations throughout the United States to help ensure that this publication would reflect a sense of geographic diversity. The editorial board members were also bound to term limits, so that the journal would continuously be influenced by new voices. While these changes were significant in the governance and staffing of CAA’s publications program, the content of the journal remained basically the same, with the exception of a new section called Artists’ Writings edited by Buzz Spector. By 1992, the section was broadened in its scope and called Artists’ Pages. The intent was to have Art Journal provide a special section for artists because they represented such a strong component of the membership and often felt their needs were not always met, especially in terms of CAA’s publications. Although the Artists’ Pages could address whatever concerns it wished to cover, this section often followed the overall theme of the individual issues. In the 1990s the editorial board continued to be thoughtful in its selection of topics, trying to strike a balance among the chosen themes. Some catered to urgent, timely concerns within the visual arts. In 1991, Storr and Barbara Hoffman (CAA’s legal counsel) produced two consecutive issues titled Censorship I and II. These issues covered the controversy surrounding the National Endowment for the Arts and government funding of the arts at the time. Bemoaning the conservative politics that had affected U.S. art and culture for the last ten years, they advocated for freedom of speech and reproduced, among other artists’ projects, Robert Mapplethorpe’s X Portfolio. Other themes found in Art Journal during the 1990s embraced art in relationship to gender, sexuality, ecology, scatology, conservation, genetic coding, computer and digital technology, as well as Latin American, South Asian, and performance art. While some of these subjects represented important trends
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in the visual arts, others might have been perceived as topics outside the mainstream. Art Journal wanted to differentiate itself from newsstand art magazines and offer a forum for ideas that might not be published elsewhere. Along these lines, the editorial board also wanted to expand the diversity of voices within the publication. Art Journal did not always readily solicit the most popular writers or the trendiest scholarship on a given subject, but rather looked to find new voices, new ideas, and new methods of approach whenever possible, often seeking authors from among annual conference speakers. Although the executive editor and manager of publications helped ensure each issue of the journal was published on schedule, a need for a change came again in the late 1990s. After Malen’s term ended in 1996, the editorial board began to discuss whether or not to continue the single-theme issues. Malen herself observed that during her tenure publishing had changed. She explained that in the early 1990s, a complete thematic discussion including essays by different authors and contributions by artists covering a single period or subject in art was still somewhat of a novelty. However, by the mid-1990s, more and more academic publishers were producing anthologies on specific topics and were able to do so faster and more extensively than Art Journal.112 While Janet Kaplan was serving as executive editor in the late 1990s, the theme issues died out. Kaplan reported that, early in her tenure, a theme issue could not be published as scheduled. As a result there was a desperate need to fill an issue quickly. Instead of moving a future theme issue into the open slot, another tactic was chosen. A statement from the editorial board explained that Art Journal would “no longer be strictly theme-based.” 113 The journal began to publish a variety of texts, from roundtables, interviews, and debates to scholarly essays and editorial remarks, as well as artists’ portfolios. The texts covered a wide range of subjects, most of them related to twentieth-century art, theory, and pedagogy. While the content was therefore largely similar to that found in previous years, a noticeable trend was that the journal seemed to pay more attention to globalization in the visual arts, for example, by publishing various articles on different biennales. Elaine Koss, the director of publications in the late 1990s, worked closely with the editorial board to create a new design for the journal to mark the change in editorial structure. The editorial board used this opportunity to rearticulate its mission, stating, among other concerns, that it wanted the journal “to operate in the spaces between commercial publishing, academic presses, and artist presses.” The journal’s board also wanted the publication “to be responsive to issues of the moment in the arts, both nationally and internationally” and “to prompt dialogue and debate.” Kaplan recalled that the new design helped promote the new format for the journal, and the number and quality of submissions increased in due course.114
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As the journal took new form, it received greater recognition. As a result, CAA made efforts to establish a stronger sense of parity between Art Bulletin and Art Journal, which for too long had held a subordinate position. As already noted, as early as 1993, CAA documented that more members chose to receive Art Journal over Art Bulletin. In the summer 1999 issue, the Art Journal Subvention Fund was created, which provided funding to “ensure that the journal remains a most vital, intellectually compelling, and visually engaging publication devoted to art of the 20th and 21st century.” 115 In addition to the other changes listed above, in 2003 a special Publications Task Force changed the title of executive editor to editor-in-chief, to demonstrate that the role and responsibility of the job was similar to that of the Art Bulletin. (The change of title had first been proposed in 1996, but at that time the editorial board felt that such a change was not necessary and preferred the relationship to be more egalitarian.) Also a stricter policy on peer review was established. In addition, Art Journal’s editors and editorial board members, like those of Art Bulletin and CAA’s other publications, were discouraged from promoting themselves and their work by publishing in their respective journals except in a limited capacity (for example, editorials, discussions, and interviews). In 2002 Art Journal received the Utne Reader Award. The Utne explained its decision as follows: “Visually compelling without glitz, rich in ideas without succumbing to art-theory-speak, Art Journal presents substantial essays and wide-ranging Q&As that bring readers deep into the minds of today’s artists.” 116 Art Journal encouraged artists’ participation by including more interviews and writings, as well as projects. While Patricia C. Phillips was editor-in-chief from 2002 to 2007, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts helped pay for a series titled Special Artists Projects. The individual projects, all of which were designed to work with the format of the journal itself, were developed by Barbara Bloom, Clifton Meador, William Pope.L, and Mary Lum.117 Because these projects were so successful and helped meet the artist members’ needs, similar projects were also published. Judith Rodenbeck, the editor-in-chief from 2007 to 2010, stated she wanted to maintain the voice of Art Journal, which she described as somewhere between that of October and that of newsstand magazines like Artforum. She wanted the contributions to demonstrate the same intellectual rigor of the former, but communicate in clear cogent words like those found in the latter. The issues were typically eclectic, although larger themes, like those found in previous years, sometimes emerged. For example, the Spring 2008 issue was devoted to a forum on assemblage and bricolage.118 In many respects, the history of Art Journal, or CAA’s second journal, tells the tale of an underdog publication that struggled to find its voice and mission throughout much of its existence. In 1929, Parnassus began as a magazine that
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focused on artistic trends in Europe and twelve years later was concentrating on American art and pedagogy. In 1941, College Art Journal started as a publication devoted to art education and slowly became more open to art and art history, especially that covering the modern period. By 1980, the journal was thematic, showcasing a suite of texts that addressed a single topic. Many of these changes in the mission of the journal stemmed from a logical desire for the periodical to express a specific purpose with a definitive voice. However, none of these explicit missions ever seemed to appease the wants of the CAA board of directors or the membership at large for an extended period of time. The journal always seemed vulnerable to the whims of the organization. By 1998, the thematic issues were abandoned in favor of publishing an eclectic mix of textual and visual projects that addressed a wide array of interests, such as trends in art and art history from around the world, artists’ projects and practices, pedagogy, visual studies, theory and methodology. In many respects Art Journal found its current mission not by concentrating on one single goal, but by embracing all the missions and goals from its previous incarnations as a periodical. It is intriguing that as Art Journal matured, it seemed to find its most clear and distinct voice when it chose to embrace the multiple voices that make up all of CAA and its diverse membership.
monographs on the fine arts The purpose of the monograph series grew out of a specific need within CAA’s publishing program. Many articles submitted to Art Bulletin were quite lengthy, some of them numbering almost one hundred pages or more. At times Art Bulletin chose to publish such texts, including Morey’s “Notes on East Christian Miniatures” (March 1929), and Schapiro’s “The Romanesque Sculpture of Moissac” (September 1931 and December 1931), which had to be published in two parts. However, after CAA evaluated its publishing program in the late 1930s, it was decided that the journal should strive to strike a balance between long and short articles, and only one long article could be printed per year in Art Bulletin. Within the standards of publishing, these lengthy texts did not seem to fit the definition of either an article or a book, but existed as something in between. In an effort to promote this type of scholarship, which might not otherwise be published, CAA’s monograph series was established. Other criteria included projects that had too many plates or had other special requirements that would not work well within Art Bulletin or be commercially viable for a book publisher.119 Initially, the monographs were considered not books but supplements to the journal, and the series title for the first monograph read: “The Art Bulletin: Supplement I.” The series was thereafter co-published with the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and called Studies in Art and Archaeology and later
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Monographs on Archaeology and the Fine Arts. However, in 1952 the organizations decided that monographs should be published independently “when the subject matter is not the common concern of the two societies.” Depending on the topic, manuscripts were sent to either the AIA or CAA. In the 1970s CAA decided to publish the series by itself, and later renamed it Monographs on the Fine Arts.120 The series was initially edited by the editors-in-chief of Art Bulletin. However, the process became too time-consuming for the busy editor-in-chief, and in 1968 a separate monograph series editor was appointed. As part of their duties, the editors read manuscripts, sent them to outside readers for review, and edited the texts for content. Copyediting, production, distribution, and promotion were handled by various university presses, among them New York University Press, Pennsylvania State University Press, and University of Washington Press. Although a call for manuscripts was posted on the back cover of Art Bulletin, the editors reported that they did not receive an ongoing steady number of submissions for review that met the criteria of the series. Dissertations were not acceptable unless they were of the highest caliber. Nicholas Adams, the monograph series editor from 1989 to 1993, recalled that it was difficult to evaluate manuscripts based on both length and quality, and the series sometimes suffered due to lack of suitable material.121 Another obstacle for the monograph series was funding. A monograph could only be published when money was available. Although the series was fortunate to have received contributions at times from various organizations, including the ACLS and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, its operating budget fluctuated throughout much of its history. Sometimes funds were available, other times not. When money was low, Meiss, a former editor-in-chief of Art Bulletin, recalled in 1964 how they sometimes “had to pass the hat, often with disappointing results,” and other times monographs had been cut or reworked to become an article in Art Bulletin, which was never a satisfactory compromise.122 Because the criteria for submissions were quite specific and funding was erratic, the series was published on an irregular basis. Several years would go by in which no monograph was published, and in some years, such as 1969 and 1974, as many as four monographs were published. Altogether fifty-six monographs were published during its fifty-five-year history. In 1976, the Kress Foundation offered to establish an endowment fund for the monograph series that would be matched by CAA each year for four years, which guaranteed publishing a series with some regularity.123 The 1989 Rossen Report raised concerns about the monograph series and its operations. The report stated that the irregular publishing program sent mixed signals in the market. Publishing no monograph for more than a year at a time could signify the death of the series, and producing several books in one year tended to cancel each of them out. Rossen recommended, therefore, that CAA
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publish its monographs on a regular basis, at least one per year, and be more forceful about soliciting manuscripts and promoting the series, which would create a stronger identity for CAA’s monographs. Alternatively, the report also suggested that CAA might want to consider suspending the series. Her rationale speculated that its need was less important within the realm of art book publishing in the late 1980s. In the 1940s through the 1960s, it had made good sense for CAA to act as a book publisher. Back then few publishers were producing art history books, especially scholarly texts. However, by the 1970s and 1980s more university publishers were including lists of art history books.124 CAA chose to continue publishing the monograph series and follow Rossen’s recommendations to establish a more cogent and consistent identity for the series within the market. CAA also committed more money annually from the monograph’s endowment to support the series.125 For the next ten years, the monograph series came out on a more regular basis, with CAA publishing twelve books, although none was released in 1995. The books covered a wide range of subjects, including Byzantine, medieval, Renaissance, nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, as well as Indian art. In 1997 Rossen produced a follow-up report on CAA’s publications program and again the question of suspending the series was raised. She explained that the world of scholarly publishing had changed radically in recent years as a result of mergers between the major trade houses and the rise of the mega-bookstores. University presses found it difficult to justify books with small or medium print runs like CAA’s monographs, and specialty art bookstores were having difficulty surviving. Rossen also reported that many university publishers thought CAA’s book list was too “esoteric” and needed to be broader in scope. She recommended again that CAA consider suspending the series, which the board of directors chose to do in 1999—voting to temporarily suspend the monograph series and divert the funds from the monograph series endowment to the Meiss Publication Fund, a move approved by the Kress Foundation as more in the spirit of the initial grant of 1976, which was to support publication of art history in English. At the time Debra Pincus, the last of the monograph series editors, and others involved with CAA’s publications protested the decision, and one member of the Art Bulletin and Monograph Series Editorial Board eventually resigned as a result. However, several years later Pincus thought somewhat differently about the situation. Looking back, Pincus underscored that for her the major problem was in finding manuscripts sufficiently broad so as to appeal to more than a specialized audience. The monograph series was conceived as essay-type studies, rounded and full in their presentation, that would shed light on important topics. In her experience this format did not seem to speak to scholarly authors as much as it might once have.126 CAA officially terminated the monograph series in 2002 and four years
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later established a pilot program for the CAA Publication Grant. Using the revenue generated from the Monograph Series Endowment Fund, the program is designed “to encourage and support publication by presses of important new books in art history and visual studies.” 127 A jury convenes on an annual basis and selects one book based on the excellence of its content. Funding is awarded to the publisher. Today several books published as part of CAA’s Monographs on the Fine Arts are available online via the ACLS Humanities E-Book program.
caa.reviews An online journal publishing reviews and essays, caa.reviews might represent the future of scholarly publishing. However, the idea grew out of a need within CAA and art book publishing some time before Web-based publishing became popular. In 1989, Larry Silver, who was serving on the CAA board of directors, encouraged the association to create a new publication strictly for reviews.128 Although Art Bulletin and Art Journal had both been reviewing books and sometimes exhibitions, the two journals covered only a small number of them. The reviews also often appeared a long time after the tomes had initially been released or the shows had taken place, and thus sometimes read as dated material. Silver envisioned the new publication as inexpensive, likely printed on newspaper stock, which would make it relatively easy and quick to produce and would allow for numerous, more timely reviews.129 However, nine years later, when the idea began to become a reality, the Internet had become a viable source for such a publication, and caa.reviews was officially launched in 1998. In addition to Silver, other key players in the inception of the project included Robert Nelson, who had also been encouraging CAA to produce a reviews journal and had previously served as an editor of CAA’s Monographs on the Fine Arts; Leila Kinney, who was a member of CAA’s Committee on Electronic Information; and Katherine Haskins, who served as the technical advisor. Given the nature of the Web-based project, the editorial structure was designed somewhat differently from CAA’s print journals. The editor-in-chief worked with the editorial board, addressing long-range planning and administrative and technical issues with CAA staff.130 They also helped to generate and review content and manage a team of field editors who were responsible for specific sections of the online journal (for example, one field editor covered Chinese art, another Renaissance/Baroque, another contemporary art, and so on). The field editors were encouraged to develop their sections as a “kind of mini-journal, a journal within a journal.” 131 From the beginning, caa.reviews was dedicated to covering a wide variety of subject matter including, as the mission statement reads, “all areas and periods of art history, visual studies, and the fine arts.” Books, museum and gallery
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exhibitions, conferences, CD-ROMs, Web sites, and electronic resources were all mentioned as possible media for review, although books by far have been reviewed the most. In addition, reviews were encouraged to be shorter than those typically found in scholarly journals, averaging about 1,500–2,000 words. The goal of caa.reviews was to review as many good books and exhibitions as possible, or, as Silver put it, “1,000 reviews in the first ten years.” 132 So many reviews would keep CAA members and anyone else accessing the online journal informed of past and current scholarship in all areas of the arts. Also, CAA would be able to review more books in categories that had not received much attention in the past from the print journals. By 2008, after ten years in existence, caa.reviews had reviewed hundreds of books. The fields with the most reviews included critical theory/gender studies/ visual studies, Renaissance/Baroque, nineteenth century, and twentieth century. Many books were cross-referenced in more than one category (for example, a book on Renaissance sculpture could end up in both Renaissance/Baroque and sculpture/installation/environmental art, as well as other fields). The fields with the least reviews were Oceanic/Australian, Native American, and outsider/folk art, which have been largely ignored in scholarly art publishing for too long.133 These statistics might reflect several factors, including the number of books being published in those specific fields and the presence of an active and diligent field editor. In its short history, caa.reviews demonstrated a continuous desire to develop in new ways. In 2003 caa.reviews made a stronger commitment to increase its coverage of exhibitions. The editorial board established a council of field editors for exhibitions, each of them representing a different section of the United States or region outside the country. Two exhibition field editors might also cover the same area but different time periods.134 As a result, the number of exhibition reviews increased dramatically from that time forward, from seven in 2002 to thirty-eight in 2007. In 2003 caa.reviews also posted a section for essays, which covered a wide variety of topics, including a centennial tribute to Meyer Schapiro; reviews of art history survey texts; authors’ responses to the reviews of their books; and discussions of conferences, where new concepts are often first proposed. To help finance the start of caa.reviews, CAA received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the first three years.135 The annual production budget for the online journal represents a fraction of the costs of Art Bulletin and Art Journal because paper, printing, and postage are not necessary. However, the need for technological upgrades and equipment, as well as additional staff, have dramatically affected the overall budget. In the beginning CAA did not anticipate what was needed to invest properly in its online journal or Web site, and the projects thus grew in fits and starts. As with any new technology and
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new publication, it was also difficult to predict the impact on staff, and at times a backlog of reviews mounted, slowing the publishing process down considerably. However, most of these glitches were corrected in due course.136 One concern for Silver and for Frederick Asher, who followed Silver as editorin-chief, is that caa.reviews is not readily accessible to everyone, because the Mellon grant stipulated that caa.reviews must be self-sustaining.137 Given that CAA is a membership organization, caa.reviews, like the other journals, was seen as a benefit of joining the organization, and money thus came from annual dues. In order to address the requirements of the Mellon grant and cover costs, CAA raised its dues. The online journal was therefore accessible only to CAA members. However, CAA has since made the online journal more available by selling access to the journal to libraries and institutional members.138 In the last several years CAA has attempted to make sincere efforts to promote caa.reviews. Such a change was deemed necessary in the world of scholarly art publishing because university presses, faced with the need to make money, have been producing fewer volumes in the humanities in their quest to find more lucrative books.139 In order to help electronic media be seen as on par with print publications, CAA would like to be an advocate for electronic publishing, making a strong commitment to caa.reviews and other online projects. In its short history, caa.reviews has explored issues and ideas that are not being wholly addressed elsewhere in scholarly publishing, offering timely “access to the intellectual and creative materials and issues of art-historical, critical, curatorial, and studio practice.” 140
conclusion: what’s next for caa’s publications program? Scholarly publishing seems to be in a critical state of transition. If costs keep rising on a continual basis, then at some point in the not-too-distant future, what will become of printed scholarly art journals, such as Art Bulletin and Art Journal? Given that the history of contemporary art has expanded so rapidly as a dominant component of academic employment and publishing, what might happen to the canonical fields that once dominated the publications of CAA and how might its member-controlled journals be transformed accordingly? On a more general note, how will CAA’s ongoing debates about artistic and art historical questions affect CAA’s publications? Finally, while CAA has explored the digital realm with caa.reviews and has placed some of its monographs online via ACLS, what more can be done? These concerns represent only some of the necessary frontiers that CAA will have to cross in the near future. Most recently CAA has been grappling specifically with issues related to electronic publishing. With the help of a Mellon grant, CAA joined forces with the
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Society of Architectural Historians to explore the possibility of collaborating on a digital project involving the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians and CAA’s publications. The idea was to see whether or not the two professional organizations could share resources in order to publish their print journals online. Out of these discussions, the CAA board of directors, its editorial boards, and the Publications Committee have identified both the obstacles and the possibilities for expanding CAA’s online presence. In particular, the grant helped clarify the intellectual property issues involved in the reproduction of images online, the staffing concerns, and the financial questions. In many respects, these obstacles appear quite formidable. However, the discussion also made clear that there is a unified perception within the membership that this next step must go forward. CAA would like to expand its presence online, creating a dynamic digital environment that represents the highest quality of the peer-review tradition. Such a project will be among the many challenging goals in the next phase of CAA’s publications. This history of CAA’s publications program is far from comprehensive. However, now that an official overview has been provided, perhaps it might inspire others to add to or amend the history as needed. A more concentrated analysis, perhaps addressing regional or feminist issues, would be welcome. Because CAA’s publications represent many disciplines in the visual arts, namely art history, art education, and art practice, and these publications therefore serve as an everlasting record of these fields, it would benefit all participants in the visual arts to understand the complex histories of these publications. A wide variety of material is available that can be used to chart the history of CAA, its publications, and the various debates within its membership. As CAA’s publications changed and adapted over time, the membership and its goals have developed in due course based on changing priorities in the arts and arts education. This history thus not only embraces CAA’s publications, beginning with a small bulletin and moving most recently into the digital realm, but also addresses the contributions of CAA’s members in the past and their potential for the future.
6 Uniting the Arts and the Academy A History of the CAA Annual Conference julia a. sienkewicz
Purpose 6. To hold an annual conference for the purposes of presenting scholarly papers, presenting and discussing artists’ works, addressing other issues pertinent to the Association such as pedagogy, museum programs, and artistic and scholarly legal rights, and conducting the business of the Association. Purpose 10. To encourage professional relationships with other learned societies and with international, national, and regional organizations which serve similar purposes in the fine arts or allied areas. he annual conference plays an ongoing role in reinforcing and redirecting the identity of the College Art Association. In many ways it is the heart of the organization. For young scholars, reference to the conference evokes anxious memories of job interviews or first presentations. For senior scholars, it means yearly reunions with friends, and a barrage of paper sessions, interviews, and meetings. The conference is an annual landmark in the career of most scholars in the arts. The annual conference was initiated in 1912 and promises to continue indefinitely. Its history is of wide-ranging importance beyond its impact on any individual scholar. It allows for an analysis of developments in the arts professions, such as the appearance of new art historical fields or studio art techniques, as
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few other sources could.1 The shift in participant demographics tracks changing dynamics of gender, institution, and rank within arts positions. It is tempting to suggest that the CAA conference merely reflects larger trends already at work in academia. However, this is not a passive history. The content and format of the conference influence scholarly developments through its institutional authority. Many aspects of the conference history cannot be easily documented— luncheon conversations between scholars, hands-on activities of committees —but enough documentation in programs, minutes, and abstracts survives to trace a silhouette of the development of the annual conference and its influence on developed careers in the arts.2 The conference is part of an academic micro-history of particular interest to arts professionals. Its evolution also illuminates the development of institutional relationships among studio art, art education, and art history. In the early twentieth century, “studio art” encompassed architectural design, painting, drawing, and urban planning. Similarly, “art history” included architectural history, the history of the built environment, and archaeology. Any attempt to define “art” and “art history” in the early twenty-first century would involve an increasingly complex range of objects and methods. This expansion of objects and scholarship is accompanied by increased disciplinary definition and separation. Across the twentieth century, growing academic specialization played out in the content of the conference program. These academic specializations developed independently, but the format of the annual conference, which labels and groups fields while enforcing a balance among them, has consistently contributed to their further demarcation and separation. CAA developed within a network of learned societies and defined the parameters of its identity through its relationship with kindred organizations (see chapter 1). Perhaps the closest such relationship manifest in the first fifty years of the conference was with the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH). Initially formed as a subgroup within CAA, the SAH subsequently convened jointly with it for nearly thirty years. Following World War II, the CAA conference increased in size and breadth, while a diverse network of academic organizations formed to address varied special interests. These organizations quickly developed informal affiliations with the organization, and an increasing presence on the annual program. Sessions, tours, and roundtables organized by the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA), the Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA), and other organizations made regular appearances at the conference. Other kindred organizations, such as the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), pre-dated or formed independently of CAA, and the content of their conferences affected that of CAA’s conference. In 1978 the CAA board of directors organized an ad hoc committee to formulate parameters for CAA’s relationship with these organizations, which it dubbed “affiliated societies.” Since
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that time, affiliated societies have maintained a strong presence in the conference, occasionally hosting nearly a fourth of the session offerings. The dynamic presence of these affiliated-society sessions has contributed significantly to the conference over the last thirty years. Finally, the history of the annual conference has been profoundly affected by the jostling of a tumultuous cultural and political environment. The organization began two years before World War I and weathered all the upheavals of twentieth-century history. This current account ends in the wake of September 11, 2001, and amid the ongoing “War on Terror” waged by the United States. Historical hindsight cannot yet offer enough distance to reflect on how such events have affected recent conferences. Precedent suggests that such trends as a renewed interest in global cultural heritage and the flowering of transnational artistic practices must be due, in part, to their impact. A single chapter is not sufficient to explore the diverse consequences of such historical ruptures, but can only attempt to situate the history of the conference within a broad and balanced historical context. Sometimes the correlation between conference and global events is easy to identify—such as the suspension of the conference for two years during World War II. Other changes, including the reduced prominence of female scholars after the same war, while related to global trends, are less easy to pinpoint, and only stand out through close scrutiny of conference programs.
the foundation of the caa conference The institution of an annual conference for practitioners, educators, and historians of art developed together with the formation of CAA. When the nascent association met as a satellite of the Western Drawing and Manual Training Association (WDMTA) conference in 1911 in Champaign, Illinois, its first business, determined by a task force consisting of John S. Ankeney, William Woodward, and Edward J. Lake, was planning a separate conference for its constituents. The first independent CAA conference met in December 1912 at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. Citing the urgent need for art educators to establish teaching standards, Holmes Smith, the first president, noted the importance of such gatherings: “It would seem that persons engaged in the work might with profit come together from time to time to discuss their problems . . . and that such conferences would result in mutual benefit.” 3 CAA’s founders hoped the conference would become a venue for professional communication and expand the presence of art instruction in universities, thereby increasing its perceived importance to both university administrators and the public. If the overarching goal of the organization was to “influence our board of governors, our faculties and our student bodies that the university
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may eventually occupy a leading position in artistic thought, such as it has already attained in the other great branches of national activity,” then the annual conference served to bring together practitioners of art, historians, and critics to an unprecedented degree, modeling the manner in which institutions could foster such intellectual interchange.4 Through most of the nineteenth century in the United States, the creation of art and architecture had been considered the work of tradesmen. While professional organizations had been founded for both artists and architects in the mid nineteenth century, academia in the early twentieth century still debated the position of artistic practice within higher education.5 By creating an organization that convened all arts professionals in an annual meeting, CAA offered an unprecedented service to the nation’s art community, giving it greater national presence and an authoritative institutional voice. The conference has evolved into a professional venue primarily for studio artists and art historians enriched and expanded by the sessions produced by the affiliated societies, mostly unvetted by CAA. Initially, however, the conference served practitioners and historians of art, architecture, art education, and archaeology. It was also the primary national venue for discussions of museums, collecting practices, and preservation, and it welcomed independent scholars, critics, and artists. The AIA was founded in 1879 and offered a model for the CAA, and the boundaries of scholarship between the two were initially fluid. The CAA conference offered an additional professional venue for archaeologists and scholarship informed by archaeology.6 Architectural history was prominent in the earliest conferences, remaining so until the 1970s. The SAH existed only as a “committee on architecture” within CAA until 1940 and, after forming an independent organization, held its annual conference with CAA from 1949 to 1973. During these years the conference was significantly influenced by papers and tours directed to an audience concerned with architecture. In 2004 the SAH reestablished its relationship with CAA, becoming an affiliated society, and has since sponsored an annual conference session. This early cooperation across varied disciplines contributed to the breadth of subject matter addressed in the conference, as well as to the task of creating a strong institutional presence for the arts at institutions throughout the United States. Traditionally the relationship between artists and art historians has been the most difficult to balance at the conference. As early as 1914, one commenter reflected: the diversity of opinion among the members which has been constant throughout our existence, i.e., the controversy at the annual meeting among those desiring full academic credit for creative art, those limiting such credit to students of the history and theory of art, and those who
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believed that history and theory can be most successfully taught when some measure of visual training and manual control are encountered by the student.7 Initially, the fissure among practitioners of art education, art historians, and studio artists was couched in terms of pedagogical difference and varying priorities for curriculum development, but the stakes were probably higher. At a time when only about a quarter of liberal-arts institutions offered any type of art instruction, the instinct to stake out territory and to advocate the importance of specific scholarly areas must have been particularly strong. Yet, it was precisely this quandary that Smith considered the organization’s most crucial unifying cause. He argued that the art community could not expect to receive greater institutional attention until it determined “what, how, and when art shall be taught in undergraduate and graduate courses,” since college administrators were hesitant to commit to any fields “whose boundaries and nature are still undetermined.” 8 While disparate scholarly interests could be accepted within the organization, Smith made it clear that the members of CAA must unite around arts education in order to survive. Beyond the fascination with art, it was the art of teaching that initially bound the members of CAA together. The association was organized for “college art teachers,” dedicated “to promote and standardize efficient instruction in the fine arts in the American institutions of higher education.” 9 In 1912, seven of the eleven conference papers dealt explicitly with pedagogy and curriculum. Among these, several were direct addresses to the larger academic community about the position of art in academia, including Herbert R. Cross’s paper “The Place of the Study of Art in American Universities” and Irene Sargent’s “A Plea for the Granting of a College Degree in Fine Arts.” For the first fifteen years, pedagogy and curriculum pervaded the conference. The early CAA presidents turned repeatedly to questions of pedagogy and institutional presence as unifying themes for the organization. In 1916, John Pickard, responding to divisiveness within the group and to external criticisms of CAA’s weakness due to its diverse constituents, used education and increased institutional presence as a call to arms for his membership: This very multiplicity of view points may be a cause of weakness or it can be a source of strength to this Association. A cause of weakness if any one group among us arrogates to itself the divine right of deciding what is and what is not of value in art education: a source of strength if all the classes here represented rise to such a height above the petty things of life as to realize that the field of art is as wide as is the range of life and that no one little coterie has the monopoly of wisdom in this field.10
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In 1917 Pickard again returned to these themes in his keynote address, emphasizing that matters concerning education were CAA’s primary binding medium. Pickard’s urgent call for unity may have been motivated in part by the fact that in 1913 the CAA’s members hailed from only thirty-six institutions across the country.11 By the mid-1940s, the need for such intense advocacy within academia for the art professions had subsided. This fact is evident from the increasing prominence of the placement bureau at the conference. In 1944, for example, the CAA received twenty-two job postings from “Colleges, Libraries, Prep Schools, Galleries and Museums.” The number of academic institutions tied to CAA had increased radically over the first thirty years.12 The early emphasis on curriculum development and the ultimate establishment of art education’s place within academic institutions corresponded with prevalent national trends in higher education. Marc Nemec has written that, between the end of the Civil War and about 1920, higher education increasingly expanded and professionalized. This process paralleled and reinforced the national government’s efforts to unify and rebuild the country in the wake of the catastrophic Civil War. An important part of this process for the ultimate formation of CAA was that institutions of higher learning became authorities for professions and courses of study not traditionally emphasized in the humanistic tradition of higher education. Just as “the institutional entrepreneurs who guided higher education worked continually to elevate their schools internally and to define their relevance externally,” so the officers and founders of CAA worked to define their discipline and make it relevant within the academy.13 While in this chapter the organization’s concerns for pedagogy are discussed only insofar as they influenced the conference program, Matthew Israel in this volume considers the relationship more broadly (see chapter 9).
an island in a sea of crisis: the conference spanning the world wars Two years after the first CAA conference, war erupted in Europe. Since the United States did not join the war until 1918, its effects were not immediately felt by the young art institution. Between 1912 and 1917 the conference continued to focus on art pedagogy. In 1916 the conference was dedicated to themed roundtable discussions, all dealing with aspects of the introductory art course. In these early years, female speakers were featured prominently on the program. Perhaps one of the most remarkable participants in the 1916 conversations about art pedagogy was the renowned Philadelphian painter, Cecilia Beaux, who may have made few friends with her remarks on art pedagogy. After weighing the positive benefits of a university education against the practical advantages of hands-on training in an artist’s studio, Beaux concluded that “[college] cannot
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be pointed to as the best first step in the artist’s life. . . . There is nothing that the university can give to the artist that can make up to him for the breach in his life and the loss of those years. Nevertheless, if the college life is chosen, then one important matter is that cultivation rather than education in his own field will yield the greatest return.” 14 Beaux’s comments make clear that CAA was indeed battling for contested terrain in advocating higher education for artists. These yearly meetings devoted to discussing art education within institutions of higher learning must have done a great deal to legitimize and reinforce the dominant role college art instructors would eventually play in the lives of the nation’s artists. Even while questioning the utility of higher education, Beaux’s public presentation at the conference helped establish its importance as a venue for artists’ dialogue. The United States joined the allied forces in April 1917, while that year’s CAA conference was in session. No immediate change was made to the program, but the number of speakers was nearly halved from 1916. By 1918 the war had made tangible changes in the conference. The editors of the Bulletin remarked that the 1918 meeting was “the largest, most earnest and enthusiastic meeting ever held by the Association. This fact should give all friends of the cause we represent hope and courage.” 15 Although pedagogy and curriculum remained dominant themes, a new strain of papers addressed cultural heritage and the impact of war on art. In his paper “Art and War,” Duncan Phillips argued that art would help the allied cause: “We need art in our business of winning the war. We need art to clarify our understanding of the ever-changing situations of the conflict. We need art to help us create a single mind out of the many minds which confuse our country. We need art to sustain us in pursuing a single minded and unchanging purpose to the war’s successful conclusion—and after.” 16 Other scholars turned their attention to considering the war’s ravages on the world’s great art collections, with such papers as “Robbery and Restitution of Works of Art in the Present War,” presented by Alfred M. Brooks. If John Pickard (then CAA president) was accurate, members attended the conference because of their conviction that art could play a significant role in the war effort, and because they were concerned with ensuring a stable art education system after the conflict. In his keynote address, Pickard noted that by gathering in New York City, the nation’s artistic hub, they were launching “Art’s Counter-Offensive.” 17 The postwar era brought unprecedented global dominance and prosperity to the United States. European nations traditionally in the highest intellectual and cultural rank were devastated financially and socially. Institutions of higher learning in the United States grew in prestige. For the art world, this transition signified a new era of stability and institutionalization. While pedagogy and curriculum remained integral to the conference into the 1940s, scholarly papers on field-specific academic subjects multiplied. This change in conference
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content responded to two larger national trends. Of primary importance was the increasing growth and prominence of research institutions. When CAA was formed, such institutional distinctions were not clearly defined. The concerns of members had been centered around establishing proper art and art history curricula, rather than considering the different contexts for such courses. By 1920, however, research, technical, and liberal-arts institutions were clearly demarcated, as were their respective pedagogical terrains. As Nemec has written: Proponents of research stressed systematic examination of social and scientific problems. Proponents of utility stressed the pursuit of knowledge and the provision of skills that would not only enable students to “make their way” in society but also contribute to the general welfare. Proponents of liberal culture stressed the creation of the “gentleman scholar” through instruction in the developing fields of art, literature, and history. Proponents of mental discipline stressed repetition and memorization of classical texts in keeping with earlier collegiate traditions.18 In response to increasing institutional emphasis on research as the goal of the professoriat, conference content changed rapidly. By 1923 the program was dominated by papers grouped into thematic sessions and organized around fieldspecific scholarly research. A second postwar national trend had a clear impact on the conference: the notable shift in emphasis toward fields allied with the humanistic tradition, most notably Classical art and archaeology. In 1923, joint sessions were held with the AIA and the American Philological Association (APA), leaving only two sessions for those not engaged in the study of the ancient Mediterranean. In 1924 a similar schedule prevailed. In 1925 there was a joint session with the AIA and the APA, as well as half a day devoted to the “The Teaching of Ancient Art.” The disproportionate prominence of Classical art and archaeology continued throughout the prosperous 1920s. This turn toward the classics corresponded with a larger trend in scholarship, which looked toward the ancient world in rejection of modernity. As Stephen Dyson has written, “this new appreciation of antiquity was not a call for salvation from a grim industrial world through radical aesthetics but an affirmation of the existing order and its cultural traditions, against Bolshevism and the Bauhaus. It was based on the cultivation of a benign, nonthreatening traditional humanism, which sought a return to the secure roots of Western civilization.” 19 Turning away from its origins in innovative pedagogy, the conference emphasized traditional educational values and the security of the Western scholarly tradition. In an era when the United States began to flex imperial muscle in the international sphere, such academic practices legitimized its cultural claims to superiority, while masking the hard edge of industrial capital-
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ism. The scholars organizing the conference, whether consciously or accidentally, helped to carry out and reinforce these projects. An important internal shift occurred in these years as well. Prior to World War I the conference’s focus on pedagogy and curriculum had balanced the voices of artists and historians. In the 1920s art history began to dominate the program. Early discussions of art education had considered drawing from casts, or teaching academic technique. Both practitioners and historians, at least within academic circles, valued the classical model as a foundation for art education. Like Beaux, artists who participated in these dialogues may have deviated from the classical tradition in their own work, but at least they employed the same materials and aesthetic language. Such was not the case for high art in the postwar United States. Influential artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Alfred Stieglitz pointed contemporary art in the United States in radically different directions from the academic tradition. There would be a subsequent lag between their innovations and the integration of such works into the conference program. Erwin Panofsky referred to the years between 1923 and 1933 as the “Golden Age” of art history in the United States and observed that in those years, “American art history drew strength from . . . cultural and geographical distance from Europe. . . . [T]he United States had come for the first time into active rather than passive contact with the Old World and kept up this contact in a spirit both of possessiveness and impartial observation.” 20 This active involvement with the “Old World” included the initial importation of European scholars. Within the conference, this involvement with European art and scholarship was multilayered. In the 1920s and 1930s, the influx of European-born and -trained scholars first appeared on the conference program, with Panofsky prominent among them. Increasingly, sessions turned to Renaissance and Classical art. In addition, the annual meeting programs reflected a general interest in connecting the CAA to the larger international art community through the cultivation of relationships with international institutions such as the American Academy in Rome and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. It was not until the Great Depression that the conference again paid equal attention to artists and art historians, as interest in government support and national prosperity united artists and critics alike behind the Works Progress Administration. Mildred Constantine, who worked in the CAA office during the Depression years, later spoke of the organization’s growing relationship with artists. When she began to work for CAA, it was “as far removed from contemporary art as Zanzibar is from New York,” but by 1937, “it wasn’t just professors of art that were knocking on our door asking for certain things, but somehow somewhere artists began coming around.” 21 By 1935 the conference reflected the impact of ongoing current events through such panels as: “What Shall Be the
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Role of the Government in Art?” and “Modern Art” (featuring the paper “Federal Encouragement and Private Employment of Artists,” by Forbes Watson). After 1935, sessions on modern and contemporary art appeared regularly. The 1930s also saw renewed interest in sessions about art education, pedagogy, and curriculum. CAA celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary at the 1936 conference with an anniversary dinner. Pickard was the guest of honor, and three prominent scholars offered keynote addresses. John Shapley, then CAA president, addressed the audience with the proposition that the United States was entering a new era. With the end of World War I, “the ethical, political, and economic sides of life are not forgotten, but the esthetic is definitely emerging. The great collector of art, whether in literary or graphic form—the Huntingtons and Morgans—are beginning to claim the laurels formerly accorded elsewhere.” Central to this new national vision, CAA “is an expression of this new set of values in American life, hitherto either repudiated from an esthetic standpoint, neglected from political one-sidedness, or travestied in plutocratic hands.” 22 Shapley characterized the organization as forward-looking and responsive to society’s needs and suggested that it was poised to enter its own Golden Age. His words were inspirational, yet Shapley could not anticipate the imminent conflict that would rapidly develop into World War II. His vision of a prosperous future would not emerge until after that war. During and immediately following World War II, the conference changed significantly. One such change was the formation of the SAH in 1941. The new organization for architectural history allowed for the increased division and specialization of topics along the art/architecture divide. Henceforth, it would no longer be commonplace to attend sessions in which painting and architecture were juxtaposed. Likewise, SAH offered historians of architecture other opportunities to meet and tour buildings outside the context of the CAA conference. From 1941 on, their presence in the CAA sessions dwindled. The editors of Parnassus immediately expressed concern about this decision, asking, “why the purposes of the new society could not be met under the auspices of the CAA, most of whose members are very much interested in the history of architecture and are in contact with one another through both regular meetings and publications.” 23 World War II affected the conference more profoundly than World War I. In the 1941 meeting, the only reference to the ongoing war was a panel coordinated by Henry-Russell Hitchcock, on “Preservation of Historic and Artistic Monuments.” This roundtable had none of the overt acknowledgment of the war’s impact evident in the similar 1918 session. Instead, this panel discussed the preservation of buildings and monuments in the United States. Its central question was, “What is being done to preserve monuments and to what extent colleges which teach the history of American architecture are interested in such
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matters.” 24 In 1942, one month after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, only nineteen speakers presented papers. In 1944, only an executive committee meeting was held, and in 1945 the annual conference was suspended. While resources, finances, and individual members were profoundly affected by the war, CAA made no official recognition of it during the 1943 and 1944 conferences. During World War I CAA’s members used the conference to consider how their efforts might help end the war. In World War II, those members who were able to attend focused their attention on continuing various administrative tasks, rather than attaching their organization to the war effort. In 1943, discussions focused on the relationship between the College Art Journal and the Art Bulletin, and a committee was appointed to “study problems related to the teaching of art.” 25 The only mention of the war came in the membership’s desire to support the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) in “any program that may develop concerning the preservation and restoration of works of art that may have suffered during the present conflict in Europe.” 26 Once again, the war was only a peripheral topic in 1944. The war explained the loss of 118 members, but with 84 new members, CAA felt it was weathering the conflict unexpectedly well. The members also discussed a “post-war seminar and possibly courses designed especially for teachers whose work has been interrupted during the war,” a prescient decision, since the end of the war channeled many veterans into higher education.27 Other than these peripheral references to the war, business as usual prevailed, which, in 1944, somewhat astonishingly meant focusing on the establishment of an annual residency for CAA members at the American Academy in Rome.
expansion and specialization: the conference from world war ii to 1961 At war’s end, annual attendance rebounded rapidly to prewar numbers, rising sharply by the end of the 1950s. Consequently, the organization changed significantly. European scholars increased in presence and prestige, particularly those who had immigrated as refugees from Austria and Germany. These figures, including Panofsky, Rudolf Wittkower, Julius Held, and Ulrich Middeldorf, made frequent appearances on the annual program. It was not uncommon in these years for entire sessions on Renaissance or Classical art to be dominated by Europeans. A sharp reduction in female conference presenters appeared over the same period. Perhaps this was connected to burgeoning professorial ranks, or due in part to the infusion of foreign-born scholars.28 Also significant was growing scholarship concerning contemporary and nineteenth-century art of the United States, which first appeared on the program in a 1952 session chaired by Lloyd Goodrich. The session juxtaposed prints and portraiture of the eighteenth
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century with abstract expressionism, signaling the nascent state of the field, since equivalent sessions on ancient or Renaissance art were much more narrowly themed. Finally, this period witnessed the ever-increasing specialization and consequently more rigorous separation of sessions along field boundaries. By 1951, the growing division between fields began to sour the tenor of the conference. Henry R. Hope, then president, surveyed the membership in 1949 and 1950 in an attempt to address these divisions. While he established that his constituents appreciated consideration of a diverse range of topics, their dislike for concurrent sessions and their persistent preference for emphasis on their own fields of study suggested few solutions. Hope therefore resorted to the unifying rhetoric of his predecessors: The Association has accepted the fact that the teaching of art in colleges now includes practice of art as well as history of art and all the various ramifications between these two fields, such as appreciation, criticism, museum work, art education, etc. We have made our bid for membership from all of these fields and we accept the responsibility of meeting all their interests even if . . . they seem to conflict.29 The conference programs attest to this growing division and perhaps to a mounting crisis within the organization. Sessions on art education, pedagogy, and curriculum faded, along with artists and “educators.” Sessions on “Contemporary Art” increased, but it was not until the early 1960s that artists would regain a prominent place on the program. In 1961 sessions again considered the education and professional development of artists. These changes may also reflect the premium placed on research, and the growing cachet of research institutions. Papers examining experiments in curriculum and classroom instruction were no longer valued as strongly as papers on subject-related research. Panofsky’s reflections on his experiences offer telling insight into the priority given to research over teaching: “in contrast to nearly all my colleagues, including the American-born, I was never hampered by excessive teaching obligations.” He remarked further that research institutes became eminent because their “members do their research work openly and their teaching surreptitiously, whereas the opposite is true of so many other institutions of learning.” 30 The conference, which initially allowed “art teachers” of all categories to gather and exchange ideas, had gradually become a venue for specialized, subject-based research. By 1960, CAA was the academic “home” of art librarians, museum professionals, and art dealers in addition to its core constituency of art historians, artists, and architectural historians. However, it served each group through carefully demarcated sessions. Over this period, the presence of SAH grew. The SAH convened jointly with
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CAA throughout the period, while planning its own sessions, organizing architectural study tours, and maintaining a separate admissions booth. The groups shared many aspects of the conference, including the same scholars, social networking opportunities, and research on the same artists, historical areas, and geographies. In retrospect, not only was the SAH the first organization informally affiliated with CAA, but, like many since, it could not have existed without the older and more established CAA. Unlike subsequent organizations, the SAH coexisted with CAA without following any formal, structured rules of association. Therefore the boundaries and the achievements of the two groups are difficult to separate while they shared the conference. In the 1940s, the SAH had a very small membership. Consequently, it made only a minimal impact on the organization of the conference. When founded, the SAH had only twenty-five members and was therefore more affected by World War II. When Rexford Newcomb assumed the SAH presidency in 1943, he outlined two priorities for the organization, taking into account the present and future effects of the war, both of which had a significant impact on the annual conference. First, Newcomb noted that the technologies developed during the war, combined with its global reach, would significantly affect the “history of architecture and indeed upon the view which we hold with respect to architectural history.” 31 Second, he forecast that architectural historians would need to teach about changes in construction, materials, and design approach, and described the particular ways in which such innovations could transform the built environment of the United States: Especially will this be true in America where huge war factories and also unlimited resources will turn floods of strange new consumer goods upon an eager purchasing public. Post-war America is bound to be a very different sort of America. . . . Much that has been achieved architecturally is headed for the discard. There will be much demolition, much remodeling, much that is entirely new and strange.32 Newcomb then called for a concerted effort to study and document the nation’s built environment. He called for architectural history surveys of every state, the assemblage of data about every practicing architect, contractor, and building, and the “exploration, survey and recording” of the built environment. Newcomb’s ideas fell on receptive ears, and most of the SAH conference presentations over the next few decades discussed the documentation and preservation of American architecture. In 1949, for example, the SAH sponsored a session on a wide range of material about American architecture. Dimitris Tselos considered Mayan and Japanese influence on Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, while Richard H. Howland
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discussed Baltimore’s nineteenth-century row houses. More important than this individual session was the fact that Fiske Kimball offered the annual keynote address, “Jefferson and the Public Buildings of Virginia.” This lecture brought both architecture and American subject matter into the conference spotlight. Over the course of the next decade the SAH presence grew at the conference, gradually introducing traditions, such as architectural tours. In 1950 the Burnham Library at the Art Institute of Chicago coordinated an exhibition of Louis Sullivan’s drawings to accompany the conference, and the SAH held its first architectural tour, which was attended by sixty people. By 1960, the SAH had two hundred registered conference participants, compared to the CAA’s one thousand. The stable influence of SAH between 1940 and 1960 offered the first example of the rich influence that affiliated societies could have on the CAA conference. In 1961 CAA held two conferences: it convened the habitual annual meeting held jointly with the SAH in January and then in September it gathered its constituents for the organization’s fiftieth conference. Despite the commemorative nature of the event, CAA marked the anniversary with little fanfare. No topical sessions were held, nor did the program note any anniversary festivities. Instead, its contents speak to the vast changes that the discipline had experienced since World War II. Only one session dealt with medieval and late antique art and none with ancient art. Five sessions considered elements of artistic practice— ranging from a panel on recent American architecture that featured I. M. Pei, to one presented by Robert Motherwell that compared the experiences of professional artists in Europe and America. Three sessions addressed European art from the Renaissance to 1900, balanced by two considering American art and collecting practices. Meanwhile, only five of the fifty-two speakers were women. Only one panel, “The Intellectual Education of an Artist,” addressed pedagogical concerns. Perhaps the conference may have left room for more ephemeral commemorative activities that were not recorded in the program. The relationship between artists and art historians remained one of the most salient, yet divisive aspects of the conference. Remarking on the 1961 conference, the Art Journal editor commented, “Admittedly, the artist-teachers meet in separate rooms from the art historians and occasionally one senses the cool snobbism of segregation—from both groups. But more often one observes fraternization and reasonable efforts at mutual understanding. In the American academic world the artist is no longer a second-class citizen.” The separate-butequal model of conference organization, still largely in place at CAA, allowed for a balance between the two groups, which shared space and organizational energy but had minimal structured interaction. The editor further remarked that, given the current art markets and valorization of contemporary American art, “the mature and successful artist-teacher is becoming as hard to hire as a scientist.” 33 His comments, while hyperbolic, suggest that, whatever else the
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CAA had achieved in its first fifty years, it had succeeded in attaining its desired institutional recognition. As CAA prepared to move into its second fifty years, all the dominant elements of the conference were firmly established. It served as the networking and professional hub for the art fields as evidenced by the placement services, which were prominent by 1961. Yet within this overarching format, the conference would continue to develop, playing an active role in the ongoing maturation and definition of fields, including what these fields address, how they analyze their materials, and who would continue to practice them.
traditions established During the 1960s, CAA conference experienced a decade of rapid growth: in 1961, fifty-two speakers participated in a total of six sessions. In 1972, by contrast, one hundred seventy-five speakers participated in thirty-one conference sessions. This change occurred so rapidly that it was already discernible by 1964, when the Art Journal commented that with its 1,500 attendants (500 of whom were SAH members) “milling about the lobbies and section rooms, this meeting began to resemble the huge gatherings of the Historical Society and the MLA.” 34 With growing participation came necessary alterations to the program, including an increase in concurrent sessions, and highly specialized sessions. Such changes resulted in the greater separation of constituents and the subsequent reinforcement of boundaries between subfields. The three primary, and increasingly divided, groups were art historians, architectural historians, and artists. Building on a practice initiated in the 1950s, most time slots for concurrent sessions in the 1960s featured one art history panel, one from SAH, and one studio session, suggesting that constituents would pick one from their relevant area. Accordingly, art historians would attend art historical papers across a variety of fields in sequential sessions, while artists and architectural historians would follow parallel courses. In recognition of this growing compartmentalization, the conference history of the 1960s is best considered by discussing separately the activities of art historians, artists, and architects and architectural historians. Art historians were the dominant voice of the conference during the 1960s. Theirs was also a powerfully conservative voice. After the professional boom of the 1950s, art historians felt secure in the confines and directions of their field during the 1960s, and used the conference largely as an opportunity to present scholarly research. Few art history sessions considered curriculum or pedagogy. The field seems to have had no need for such self-reflection. Art historians were in high demand. Consequently, the discipline maintained its structural and methodological status quo throughout the decade. The Art Journal remarked upon the swelling job market in 1963, noting, “As every dean and chairman knows,
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the scarcity of trained art historians to fill college teaching posts has become acute. Almost any graduate student with an M.A. in sight can get a teaching position. The Ph.D. candidate often has his choice of three or four posts—sometimes more.” 35 Milton Esterow, commenting on the 1967 conference, further remarked, “Since Micky Mantles, Joe Namaths and good young medievalists are hard to find . . . chairmen of art departments are dashing around trying to recruit talented persons.” 36 This boom market held strong throughout the decade, and its robustness set the tenor of the CAA conference over the same period. With the growth of the discipline, some expansion and shifting was inevitable. Despite conservative tendencies, a few new fields emerged. While GrecoRoman art, medieval art, Renaissance art, and nineteenth-century European art remained the prevailing art history categories, non-Western art began to appear on the program. In 1960 a single panel treated non-Western art, which appeared as a discrete category for sessions throughout the decade. Two sessions on Asian art were held in 1964, with a range of papers on China, Japan, and Nepal. The 1965 and 1966 programs both contained sessions devoted to the art of China. The conference served as a venue for sharing knowledge about these lesser-known fields. In several instances these sessions incorporated materials not only from ignored geographic areas, but also executed in media hitherto neglected by art history. Bronze or porcelain objects, or examples of archaeological methods, were as likely to be discussed in sessions about Asian art as were the standard painting and sculpture. Thus, such sessions added diversity in subjects, objects, and methodology. While the first session on American art was held in the early 1950s, the field developed its presence at the conference only gradually. While the SAH focused on American architecture and material culture, art historians were slower to embrace the infant field. During the 1960s an average year listed a single American art session and these panels dealt consistently, and almost exclusively, with painting. The exception was a 1964 panel in which two papers about painting were grouped with one on New England stone-carving, another discussing Art Nouveau pottery, and a third considering decorative arts in Boston. For scholars working in the dominant art historical categories, paper sessions were more numerous than in previous decades, with longer rosters of speakers, and much narrower topics. In 1966, for example, scholars of Roman art held an entire session on wall painting. Meanwhile, familiar names of great, white artists of the Renaissance, Northern Renaissance, and Baroque periods frequently punctuated the program. These fields had sufficient foundations that sessions could begin to consider lesser-known categories, such as printmaking or drawing, rather than focusing exclusively on renowned artists and objects. During this decade pedagogy and curriculum completely disappeared from art history sessions, as did any presentation format other than the twenty-minute scholarly
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paper. No doubt question-and-answer periods, as well as organized social events and museum visits, would have allowed for a certain amount of informal socialization and discussion, but art historians had many fewer opportunities for such informal exchanges than their artist colleagues, a phenomenon that has continued persistently throughout the subsequent history of the conference. In 1962, CAA took official notice of the increasing presence of artists at the conference. James S. Watrous, CAA president, published CAA’s policy toward “artist-teachers.” While Watrous maintained that CAA was initially intended to serve the needs of art historians, he conceded that serving artists was in the best interests of the organization, and that CAA should do as much as possible “for all those who represent different kinds of disciplines in college arts.” Watrous claimed that the structures were already in place for artists to take the greatest possible advantage of the conference, and that they had as many opportunities within its format as art historians. Ultimately, he claimed, it was up to the artist community to embrace its role in the organization by contributing to the CAA’s administrative needs. Watrous hoped in return that the organization would be able to do even more, so that “a climate favorable to all art activities may be attained, whatever category one may wish to assign to them.” 37 In contrast to the conciliatory and appeasing tone of Watrous’s statement, H. W. Janson’s 1974 convocation address, “Artists and Art Historians,” captures the discordant relationship between artists and art historians throughout the 1960s and explains its origins in academic paths forged several decades earlier. Speaking of his first teaching position at the University of Iowa, where he worked from 1938 to 1941, Janson described a new “type” of academic department, dominated by artists and featuring only one or two token art historians. The tension that Janson experienced in his department played out on a larger scale at CAA over a period of decades. Janson remarked that while these artist-teachers “might have founded a professional organization of their own,” they joined CAA instead, and in the process “they would have changed the CAA’s character completely if it had not been for the fact that during those same decades the history of art as an undergraduate subject also expanded by leaps and bounds, so that the number of art historians within the CAA always stayed ahead of the artists.” 38 Although Janson concluded by suggesting that artists and art historians were mutually dependent, and would be well served by a united professional façade, the underlying competition and hostility between the professions was evident in his suggestion that the artist-teachers posed a threat to the integrity of the organization. The artist’s experience of the conference in the 1960s was marked by two developments. First, panel discussions about the visual arts began to appear regularly on the conference program. Second, there were few job openings for artists relative to the rapidly increasing pool of candidates; thus most discussions fo-
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cused on placement services. The studio art panels of the 1960s can be grouped into three rough categories. The first consistent theme was a concern for establishing the position of artists within academia. Such session topics as “Problems of the Visiting Artist in a University Community” of 1961, “The University and the Creative Arts” of 1963, and “The Professional Art College and the University Art Department” of 1964 all grappled with defining the academic role of artists. Other studio sessions considered curriculum development and pedagogy. The 1961 panel “The Intellectual Education of an Artist” and the 1963 panel “The Effect of Recent Developments in Art upon the Teaching of Painting” suggest that artist-teachers were most interested in considering the methods by which they could shape professional artists within the classroom. A final category of sessions addressed the techniques, movements, and professional personae of studio art. The 1960 panel “The Return to Subject Matter” was designed to help artists deconstruct contemporary developments in practice, while the 1961 panel “A Critical Apparatus for Contemporary Painting” considered the influence of academia on artistic practice, and sessions such as “The Artist-Teacher and the Art Educator” of 1964 sought to identify and define artists’ different professional roles. Even as the artists’ panels sought to give a strong and relevant professional voice to the fields, the dire professional situation for artists must have caused many doubts for those attempting to launch a career. Gone was the 1950s cachet of the hotly pursued and difficult-to-hire young artist. Instead, while art historians were a hot commodity, the editors of the Art Journal remarked in 1963 that “The job market was more frenzied than ever before and in this situation there is a tragic irony . . . for every [art] job there are four or five applicants—one suspects the surplus may run much higher. There can hardly be a doubt that the institutions which train artist-teachers face a serious situation.” 39 In the same year there was a surfeit of art history positions, such that simple enrollment in a graduate program could guarantee a candidate a job offer. This disparity must surely have added bitterness to the ongoing divide between artists and art historians. The dire situation did not abate, for in 1966 the editors commented, “Once again the shortage of art history teachers was acute and once again there were worried looks among the young artist-teachers with MFA degrees expected in June.” 40 During the 1960s the conference must have been a highly charged environment for artists. Desperate job seekers vied with one another for positions, while established “artist-teachers” sought ways within the conference framework to consider the future relevance of their profession. The final category of individuals who attended the conference consisted of arts professionals active in fields other than studio art and art history, a group growing in number and prominence over the decade. Many of these affiliated members hailed from architectural history, design, or preservation fields, and
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were members of SAH. Like CAA, the SAH grew rapidly over this decade, and its rate of growth may have exceeded that of its senior organization. In 1964, for example, CAA had 1,000 conference participants, holding its numbers steady from the 1960 conference, but the SAH had doubled its constituents and had 500 members in attendance. When the CAA held its first West Coast meeting in 1965, however, the attempt was less successful for its sister organization. CAA attendance grew to 1,100, while SAH had a mere 200 members in attendance. Disputes over meeting locations would ultimately contribute significantly to the final separation of the two organizations in the early 1970s. SAH was a wellestablished part of the annual conference by the 1960s, however. Even a poor showing of members in 1965 did not prevent the organization from sponsoring three study tours and arranging for Philip Johnson to speak at the joint banquet on the topic “The Historian and the Architect.” As the decade grew to a close, three additional affiliated groups rose to prominence in the conference: visual resource professionals, art librarians, and museum professionals. In 1969, visual resource professionals and art librarians held their first paper sessions at the conference. Both groups used this method to establish a professional presence. The conference program of 1969 also included the first session sponsored by an “Art Historical Special Group,” in this case the “American Art of the 1930’s” working group. In the years that followed the category of special group (or caucus) was used to give voice within the CAA to groups that would later be designated as affiliated societies.
breaking with tradition: caa in the 1970s When CAA met in Washington, D.C., in January 1970, it welcomed three thousand registered conference participants, triple the attendance of the 1960 conference. Despite the organization’s growth, little had been done to ensure that the contents and structure of the conference adapted to its increased size. The situation was ripe for change, and the seeds of discontent were germinating. Over the course of the 1970s the burgeoning organization faced significant challenges. Some changes arose in response to internal organizational problems that had developed (for example, expanding conference attendance and increased specialization of session topics), while others were triggered by external socioeconomic factors. If the 1960s had been a decade of methodological stasis paired with bureaucratic growth, the 1970s can be characterized by radicalism (both academic and social) combating a deeply entrenched conservatism. As if to signal that this would be a decade of transitions, two significant events occurred at the conference in 1970. First, during its annual members’ meeting, CAA adopted an official stance of opposition to the Vietnam War, giving the organization its first political role (for further information, see chapter 12). The second
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significant watershed of the 1970 conference was the formation of the New Art Association (NAA) as a “reform caucus” within CAA. The NAA, a crossdisciplinary organization, was unified by “a dissatisfaction with art, art history and education as they are now being defined and practiced.” 41 Following the formation of the NAA, a number of organizations, including the influential Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) (see chapter 11), became regular forces within the conference, a phenomenon that eventually necessitated the formation of specific guidelines for affiliated societies in 1978. The WCA began as a caucus internal to CAA, but eventually separated into an independent organization. Ironically, in this decade of affiliated societies, the CAA lost its longeststanding societal rapport when, following the 1972 conference, the SAH made its decision to separate from CAA. Initially it seemed that this separation was temporary. The board of directors of both organizations met and decided that they would meet jointly every three years. However, as the date of the next joint meeting drew closer, the SAH demonstrated reluctance to move forward with the plans, and the CAA board, seemingly relieved by this development, determined not to raise the issue. Thus a long tradition ended not in fiery disagreement, but silent neglect.42 The conference history of the 1970s, then, is dominated primarily by the dynamic history of affiliated societies during the decade, and secondarily by reforms and turmoil within the central professional fields of art historians and artists. In response to a questionnaire circulated by the CAA board of directors in 1969, both art historians and artists agreed that changes to the conference were needed. Artists were discontented by the poor quality of studio papers and the fact that studio sessions were severely outnumbered by art history sessions. In large part the two established forms of conference sessions (that is, panel discussions and paper sessions) limited the ability to meet the needs of artists. The board received the suggestion to allow for “creative exposition of rather than about an artist’s work,” or, alternatively, to provide “smaller and more informal studio oriented discussions.” 43 For their part, art historians needed the freedom to explore a greater breadth of subject matter, including interdisciplinary panels, sessions on critical theory and art historical methodology, pedagogy, photography, film, museum studies, and a larger number of sessions on non-Western topics. For once, artists and art historians united in the need for a revised session structure and an expanded range of topics. Yet little had changed for the better in the rapport between CAA’s two largest factions. In the early 1970s there was frequent talk of forming an independent studio art organization. Anne Coffin Hanson, then CAA president, though not opposed in principle, noted that “as long as colleges and universities include both areas in the same departments, the separation seems impractical.” 44 For his part, Art Journal editor Henry Hope noted that a united coalition of art historians and artists made for a more power-
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ful voice in the academic world and claimed that any separation would jeopardize this strength.45 The formation of the New Art Association in 1970 began an era of changes to the conference spurred by affiliated society influence. The NAA took two specific points of reform as its challenges. First, it wanted studio art and art history to respond more fully to external social forces. Stating that “there is a revolution going on around us and we in the NAA are interested that CAA adapt itself to the new world as it unfolds,” the leaders of the NAA laid out a plan of action for addressing this problem, which largely consisted in presenting a provocative voice to the discipline: “There will be continued pressure toward a broader definition of the several disciplines represented by the CAA. . . . In the context of the present world crisis the demand for an art history that deals with the cultural forces that condition art is the most obvious and possibly the most imperative of the areas that must be dealt with but there are others.” The NAA also intended to bring the attention of CAA’s constituency back to the problem of education. Reminding fellow artists and art historians that “we are, by and large, teachers,” Lawrence Roding, first president of the NAA, noted, “how we teach and what we teach must be seriously considered at future CAA meetings.” 46 While the NAA was short-lived, its impact on the conference was immediate and profound. In 1971, the organization made its voice powerfully heard through two strategies. In the dramatic spirit of revolution, the leaders of the NAA hijacked the annual members’ meeting. Janson, from whom the NAA stole the podium, later remarked to the New York Times that the coup was “a piece of instant theater, a flapping of the wings of righteousness,” that flaunted a lack of interest in the actual progress of CAA.47 Hanson recounted the events in a summary of the conference: At the opening of the annual members meeting . . . a group . . . “seized” the microphone from President Janson in order to chant a list of demands directed to the Board of the CAA. We may be disappointed in their drama, but the content of their “demands” cannot be overlooked. There is no question that immediate programs are needed to help in the support of the American artist and to encourage the arts in our life. Unfortunately, Mr. Gross and his group were unaware of CAA programs already confronting these issues, and they had left the meeting by the time a very encouraging report was made concerning positive steps in these directions.48 While both the CAA board and the leaders of the NAA recognized the need for change, this confrontation underlines the two different approaches to the prob-
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lem. The board, trusting in established bureaucratic methods, chided the NAA for its “dramatic” methods and emphasized the improvements already being worked on through more conventional means. For their part, the NAA staged this revolution precisely for its dramatic effect. By reading a list of outrageous “demands” (which included that CAA “declare the arts a ‘national disaster area’ requiring emergency relief from state and Federal governments”), and by sabotaging the annual members’ meeting, the NAA hoped both to recruit other CAA members to their cause and at the same time to underline the urgency of their challenge.49 The second, but perhaps more lasting, impact of the NAA came from the reform-minded conference sessions that it hosted in 1971, which engaged with teaching and with the politics of art and art history. Their pedagogy session was the first to be held at the conference in years and was extremely well-attended. If Hanson is a credible source, however, it met with mixed reviews, which she attributed to the fact that those who cared about teaching already knew what it took to be a good instructor, and that those who did not would not find the answers in a conference session: much of the audience, in hopes of finding some ready-made answers, went away disappointed. . . . Maybe all this proves what some of us suspect, that good teaching has more to do with enthusiasm and with human concern than with systems and methods. Nevertheless, if such sessions even remind us of that fact they are worth holding again and again and again.50 Wanda Corn, a newly elected board member, offered a different explanation, noting that the session’s failure lay in its lack of specificity. The innovations it suggested were laudable concepts (which the art historical field is still struggling to implement three decades later) such as “interdisciplinary team teaching, thematic rather than chronological history, surveys which encompass nonwestern cultures.” What the session lacked, however, were concrete examples through which to implement these ideas. Corn suggested that future sessions might feature “the exchange of syllabi, bibliographies, paper and examination assignments and other classroom handouts.” She also argued that CAA needed to reconsider an alternative format for pedagogy sessions and suggested that “What we need is an annual opportunity for a more personal exchange or demonstration of methods and materials and the chance to really talk about teaching with colleagues facing similar problems.” 51 Perhaps the historical importance of this particular session can be measured by the significant attention that it received rather than the satisfaction of its audience. The second NAA-sponsored session of 1971, which took as its subject the political dimension of the art world, was intentionally inflammatory. It consisted
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of “six artists and historians each presenting his particular grim view of the state of the nation and the corrupt and absurd role which artists and art historians play in it.” 52 The most polemical portion of the session was “Alex Gross’ dramatic presentation of excerpts from the newspapers alternated with titles of CAA talks,” a performance deliberately orchestrated to highlight the frivolous nature of art historical topics in the face of current events. While the NAA’s hijacking of the annual members’ meeting had presented a challenge to the entire organization, this presentation directly attacked individual art historians. Hanson commented bitterly that the “point was obviously to show the lack of social relevance in the history of art. There was no similar performance to demonstrate a lack of relevance between artists’ works and contemporary events.” She then responded to Gross’s critique by suggesting that real art historical work can be socially relevant, without rejecting all the precepts upon which the field had formed: “Our immediate needs to right the wrongs in our society should not lead us to abandon values we have worked with for a long time and found effective. After all, the artist is not about to give up his role as artist to work full-time for social change. He cannot demand that of the art historian.” 53 Corn also responded to this event, though she described it in different terms from Hanson, and her response was more sympathetic. Referring to this reading as a “Montage of Absurdities” presented by three artists, Corn offered the following response: it would have been more to the point to consider whether there is anything we can do as individuals or as a group to confront and perhaps eliminate some of the inequalities in the art world. Problems such as finding government funding for the arts, halting the drift toward further academic specialization, and producing an art that is more than simply a marketable product were dealt with only abstractly; practical political actions were not discussed.54 Without a clear agenda for change, the NAA’s polemics threatened to achieve little more than resentment and hostility. Nevertheless, by utilizing a format complementary to that of contemporary performance art, the NAA managed to make their audience aware of the problems within the CAA and to trigger each audience member to reflect more profoundly about his or her own role in the organization’s future. As Corn remarked, “Although the NAA has not changed the public role of the CAA, it has already served to catalyze intense self-examination within the profession.” 55 In 1972, another vocal and vibrant reform group coalesced during the annual conference, this time dedicated toward the equality of women in the arts. An informal meeting attracted a gathering of some 250 women, and the WCA
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formed as a result. Ann Sutherland Harris offered the keynote address at this gathering, first praising the achievements of CAA’s female members and then warning of a dangerous future if women within the organization did not unite. Citing a volatile job market, Harris recalled “the pattern of the 1930’s and 1950’s, which brought about nepotism rules and discrimination against women” and suggested that these problems might recur “unless we organize to use all the legal and political methods available to fight discrimination.” 56 Miriam Shapiro then spoke directly to the assembled women artists about the challenges encountered by female artists in a male-dominated art world. Finally, Isabel Welsh, a U.C. Berkeley political scientist, spoke about discrimination toward women within that university. As a first step this “informal caucus” proposed to initiate “a CAA-sponsored survey of women in all CAA-related fields” and to recruit the participation of women in the arts who might not have been in attendance at the conference. Throughout the 1970s, CAA worked to respond to the powerful critiques put forward by the NAA and WCA, and progress was rapid. By 1973, the combined results of the board’s efforts to respond to the 1969 CAA survey, the NAA’s reforms, and the WCA’s activity created a dramatically different conference. Perhaps for the first time, studio artists were satisfied with the array of session topics, which included, “Black Art, Puerto Rican Art, and three sessions on women artists—all lively and well attended.” In contrast, while there was “more art history than ever before” in 1973, some constituents were left wondering, “Where is good old art history?” because the roster of speakers and topics was so drastically transformed.57 While the traditional artist/art history divide remained, the 1970s were marked by an increasing unification of the two factions behind a campaign for reform. A significant means by which studio artists found a voice in the conference was by incorporating artistic practice, and specifically performance art techniques, into the program. As already discussed, the NAA used performance art to enhance its impact. In 1971 a panel entitled “Art Is Beautiful” featured five African American artist-panelists, who spoke about the difficulties faced by minority artists, while being served breakfast by white waiters. The audience, aghast at the event, “accused the panelists of staging ‘a happening’ and a ‘minstrel show.’ ” One viewer, Dr. J. Brooks Dendy, berated the panelists in the following terms: “You should be talking about the problems of teaching a black course, of why black artists aren’t represented in museums, of why blacks don’t have black lawyers defend them—instead of sitting around eating eggs!” 58 Panelist William T. Williams commented that they had been seeking just such a heated response. The entire panel was, in fact, a staged performance, designed to provoke a reaction from its audience. In 1975, Yvonne Rainer decided to use performance art as a means of interrogating the relationship between scholarly presentation and art
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object: “Taking her cue from the art history lecture, she showed slides from her performances and films. Rather than discussing her development as an artist, she decided to scrutinize the randomly arranged slides, comparing and relating them, outside of their role as evidence of past work.” As her audience took in the presentation/performance, it became impossible to separate artist/presenter from artist/performer, or indeed to locate the work of art in time or space.59 In posing as an innocent bystander of her own work, Rainer transformed a conference presentation into a performance. Another trend in studio panels was to highlight underrepresented voices. In 1973, for example, session topics included “What Is Black Art?,” “How the Art World Evaluates Women,” and “Women Artists Speak Out.” By increasing the presence of women and minorities, these sessions helped to dispel misconceptions about art created by artists from within these groups. Through the work of these sessions, Ellen Lubell remarked, “Stereotypes of the politics of artists and of the feminism of women’s art movements were shattered, as well as that of the lingering notion of artists as removed from the temporal concerns of the world.” 60 Such sessions transformed studio panels from stale, unrehearsed slideshows of work to dynamic and carefully staged events that had the potential to influence both artistic practice and the social sphere. In 1973 CAA began a tradition of MFA exhibitions at the conference, an important event that allowed aspiring artists to display their talents. The first exhibition met with immediate success and was “characterized by an attendance of thousands, a lavish and free reception, and widespread enthusiasm.” While the studio community was elated with the “significant gesture on behalf of our artist constituency,” the tradition proved difficult to maintain.61 In 1978, after that year’s exhibit received fewer than two hundred visitors, the board established an ad hoc committee to fix the annual MFA exhibition. (The tradition of MFA exhibitions is more fully discussed in chapter 8.) For art historians, the 1970s likewise marked an era of change. In 1973, New York Times correspondent Grace Glueck jokingly commented, “the CAA has other things in its fuddy-duddy head besides Byzantine altarpieces and Carolingian ivories. . . . [T]he once-staid agenda of the org[anization] . . . has livened up considerably.” 62 As Glueck’s comment suggests, much of this “livening-up” happened in art history sessions. Reflecting on the 1973 conference, art historian Robert Rosenblum wrote, “Two of the great revolutions of the last decade—sexual liberation and women’s liberation (which seemingly add up to human liberation)—were conspicuous. . . . As for the sex theme, one almost felt that this time censorship ratings—G, R, and X—might have been appropriate, for some of the talks vied for erotic attention with the blue movies available down the street.” 63 Despite the tenor of these comments, sensationalism was not the most important feature of the changes. Many fields and subjects were treated that would
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have been ignored in earlier decades. Rosenblum specifically pointed out the presence of nineteenth-century sculpture and Art Deco on the program. Indeed, a range of significant new additions were made to the conference program in the early 1970s, including an entire session about Teotihuacan in 1972, a 1975 session entitled “Women Artists from the Age of Chivalry to the New Deal,” and a 1975 session devoted to Islamic art in India. The conference program also began to reflect a greater attention to pedagogy within art history. In 1975, for example, two art history panels addressed pedagogical matters: “Teaching Art for the Non-Art Major: Could Art History Become an Interdisciplinary Focus for the Teaching of Humanities at the Museum and University?” and “Doctoral Dissertations: An Evaluation of the ‘Golden Calf.’ ” These changes reflected not just a new tone for the conference, but also renewed self-confidence and regeneration of the discipline. Rosenblum’s further comments gesture to this phenomenon: At many past C.A.A. meetings, I confess that I have had the gloomy presentiment that art history was flagging, that the methods and the subjects were getting stale, and that the juniors were producing the most faded carbon copies of their seniors’ trivia. But I now think, with relief, that I was wrong. . . . There were more new themes, new methods, new revelations than I have heard in years, and a sense of rejuvenation not only among the old but among the young, who, in aping their elders, used to age so fast. Art history is alive and well.64 While reform groups did much to spur these changes, the failing job market may have also helped to motivate art historians to seek change. Throughout the 1970s, the CAA placement bureau cast a grim cloud across the conference. The job market for artists remained poor, perhaps even decreased, over the course of the decade. Meanwhile, the professional boom for art history ended. In 1975, for example, 742 artists were registered with the placement bureau, while only 214 positions were posted, and 205 art historians were in competition for 128 jobs. With regard to the 1974 conference, Glueck commented, “There seemed general agreement . . . that while the market was not good for art historians it was a downright disaster for studio.” 65 With nine open positions and eight applicants, only art librarians had good employment odds. The CAA administrators had a difficult time keeping the placement bureau functioning efficiently with growing numbers of conference participants. There were yearly horror stories, and the bureau became known variously as the “slave market” or the “meat market” and was frequently described as “horrendous.” 66 In one narrative Hanson described a department chair who, unable to “get through the mobs on the ground floor,” expressed his frustrations in an elevator ride and found three eager job seekers who “fished out their slides and credentials, and they all got off on a
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quiet floor to talk to each other.” 67 These job-market challenges had the advantage of helping artists and art historians to temporarily resolve their differences. In his 1974 convocation address, Janson concluded by warning his colleagues, “The important thing is that artists and art historians should acknowledge their interdependence. If we do, we shall accomplish more, and we shall be in a better position to weather the storms of what at this moment looks like a rather uncertain future for higher education and for the world at large.” 68 In response to the increasing complexity of the conference, the board began the work of establishing guidelines to govern the conference and regulate the impact of affiliated societies on the program. In 1976 they drafted the “Guidelines for C.A.A. Annual Meeting Programs.” These guidelines stipulated three program chairs for each conference, one overseeing art history sessions, the second studio sessions, and the third social events. These program chairs reported directly to the Artists’ Committee and the Art Historians’ Committee, from whom they would receive guidance. Neither committee had any particular power to hold over the program chairs. This emphasized the independence and, ultimately, the authority of the individual program chairs. While asking the program chairs to “make some attempt to ascertain and to respond to the current interests of the CAA constituency,” the board left the program at their discretion, simply charging them to shape it through their “intelligence, integrity, and even idiosyncrasy.” Program chairs were given complete power over “relevant related organizations,” which could offer suggestions, but did not have “either veto power or formal advisory function.” The guidelines further established three types of sessions: “Formal Sessions,” which consisted of either papers or panels, “Informal Sessions,” intended for meetings of “small but legitimate constituencies,” “run-over discussion time for the formal sessions,” or smaller sessions, and a final category of “Board-Sponsored Sessions,” intended to consider “topics of current concern to the Association: moral rights, print standards, M. F. A. standards, etc.” 69 In the 1980s, the board also began to consider the role that conference organizers played in shaping their disciplines. To this end, the “Revisions of the Annual Meeting Program Guidelines” included the stipulation that “Program Chairs are encouraged to invent sessions that will contribute to timely and topical interests of their constituencies.” 70 With slight tweaking, these guidelines remained in place for about a decade, until Harvey Stahl, in the role of art history program coordinator for the 1985 conference, instigated extensive revisions. Defining the relationship between CAA and its affiliated societies proved more challenging. In 1978, the board decided to tackle the question, “Who are these various liaison groups and what do they want from us?” Presentations were made by representatives from a variety of organizations; then the board held a private discussion about how to approach these organizations. The board determined that there were three “types” of organizations attached to CAA:
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“Sub-Disciplinary Groups” were those with “some kind of continuing scholarly activity aside from participation in CAA annual meetings, and a considerable overlap with CAA membership”; “Professional Groups” consisted of organizations for specific professions (like art educators or museum curators); the third category consisted of “Groups with Ideological/Social Orientations.” The members of the board were divided on how to approach the problem. Some felt that the association “is a specialized organization devoted to very specific and [clear] aims; those aims are intellectual and aesthetic, not social or ideological. The CAA can serve as an umbrella organization only to a very limited degree.” Others argued that “it is precisely the liaison groups—in particular the socially and ideologically oriented liaison groups—that have brought new vitality (and new membership) to the organization,” and that “it is essential that the CAA absorb the social, professional, and disciplinary concerns represented by those organizations that are legitimate offshoots of the Association.” 71 Unable to reach a conclusion, the board tabled the discussion and an ad hoc committee was formed to address the question. The ad hoc committee spent several months heatedly discussing the issue. Lorenz Eitner argued for one side, while Mary Garrard contested his platform. All other committee members followed the arguments of one or the other. Eitner argued that the CAA had to restrict affiliation only to those organizations “relevant to the CAA’s professional concerns” and, furthermore, that their agendas should “coincide with the interests, as artists and scholars, of the CAA’s membership.” 72 Eitner further expressed skepticism for the enduring value of such organizations, and characterized them in the following terms: They range from substantial professional societies . . . to caucuses and floating grouplets of an obviously volatile character. We have by no means seen all of them yet—representations of graduate students, of unemployed former students, of Catholic art historians, of ethnic minorities, of art educators, of psychoanalytical scholars, of defenders of various moral or ideological causes, all of them motivated by strong convictions, and perhaps tempted by the chance of gaining leverage and visibility by attaching themselves to the CAA. Eitner then argued that only “recognized professional societies” should be able to become affiliated with CAA, stating that professional subgroups already drew their members from CAA, and that special-interest organizations did not meet “the criteria of professional relevance or organizational stability that we . . . should insist on.” 73 Mary Garrard aggressively countered Eitner, arguing that his perspective was outdated and that “Like it or not, CAA is no longer an Olympian fraternity
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for the art historical elite.” 74 Moreover, she argued, the organization has a duty to the professions it serves, as well as to society at large, and an open policy toward affiliated societies would help fill this role: By creating a forum . . . for the open exchange of ideas, the CAA has provided a useful service. . . . Obviously, the association does not have to subscribe to all points of view or ideologies aired in its sessions, but by giving them a chance to be heard, it facilitates the process of natural historical selection. . . . Graduate students, ethnic minorities, Catholic art historians, et cetera, may well have valid and important things to say to CAA members . . . their voices should be heard.75 Ultimately, a compromise position was reached, and the Board approved its “Relations with Affiliated Societies” in 1979, guaranteeing one slot at the conference to each affiliated society, but preventing affiliated society representatives from attending board meetings except by invitation. The CAA guidelines stipulated that any organization could gain affiliated status if it was “national in scope,” was “committed to the serious study, practice and advancement of the visual arts and/or the history of art,” and possessed a “formal organizational structure.” 76 These guidelines have proved enduring, since, with few modifications, they are still in use in 2008. The proliferation of arts organizations in the 1970s resulted in an increased presence of affiliated societies on the CAA conference program. The WCA organized an independent roster of sessions that were held at the conference through most of the 1970s. The organization also had a representative attend board meetings (until denied this privilege in 1979), printed annual reports of its conference in the Art Journal, and circulated its call for papers along with that of CAA. WCA was the largest organization to maintain this close rapport with CAA during the decade, but it was not alone. ARLIS held a session at CAA nearly every year, and visual resource professionals held yearly sessions accompanied by tours of regional facilities. Subfield groups also maintained an active presence in the conference, offering an array of diverse sessions, which hint at the increasing constellation and specialization of arts fields.
“after a decade of ferment”: the conference in the 1980s and 1990s CAA spent much of the 1980s and 1990s negotiating (and then renegotiating) the format and content of the conference in order to respond to the pressures of expanding disciplines, while at the same time satisfying the needs of a core constituency in “traditional” fields. While the overall tenor of the conferences
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was more sedate than the radical 1970s, this may have been in part because such “radicalism” had been incorporated into the conference fabric.77 Indeed, the board began to seek out and even to sponsor such interventions. Luiseño artist James Luna’s performance piece/CAA convocation address at the 1992 conference is an example of such ambitious programming. The official rapport with affiliated societies helped to infuse the conference with events that were more expansive in geographic and ethnic focus and innovative in methodology. Despite these advances, the organization still faced many challenges for its annual conference. The division between art history and studio art continued to rankle and was made more complex by the increasing prominence of contemporary art history, which blurred the boundaries among historians, artists, and critics, while challenging the conference structure. Meanwhile studio art session chairs struggled to find a format satisfactory to their needs. For their part, art historians went through a complete reformulation of their conference format in 1985 in order to respond to the diversifying needs of their constituents, and then continued to seek out further improvements to the conference structure. During these decades the conference was characterized by institutionalized experimentation that sought deliberate and gradual change. Nineteen eighty-five was a watershed year for the conference. Rose Weil, longtime administrative coordinator of the conference, announced her resignation effective after the 1986 conference. Susan Ball, who replaced Weil, brought fresh perspective to the task of accommodating new directions into the conference. The history of the conference from 1980 to 2000 in many ways reflects the administrative capacity and executive vision of a new generation of CAA leaders, with Ball at the helm of the CAA administration. While the art history program had diversified greatly during the 1970s, there was still widespread discontent about its content and structure in the early 1980s. After the 1982 conference the board recognized that three common complaints needed to be addressed: lack of participation by senior scholars, few opportunities for discussion, and absence of sessions in desirable areas for would-be speakers.78 Wanda Corn received positive reactions when, for the 1981 conference, she organized a mix of “papers-cum-discussion,” “straight papers,” and “open discussion.” While her model was put forward to subsequent program chairs it was not fully adopted, in part because some scholars feared such open dialogues would add an element of risk to the program. As discussed in the board meeting minutes, “while open discussion from the floor was sometimes a desideratum, it was also sometimes a disaster; given the size of New York audiences the potential for disaster is magnified and some gently repressive procedures (e.g. written questions submitted in advance and accepted at the discretion of the chair) would probably have to be instituted.”79 Such “mildly repressive” measures would inevitably prove prohibitive to free academic discussion. In 1983 Marcia
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Hall planned the “Giants/Geriatrics” session of senior scholars as an attempt to respond to criticisms that major figures were not participating in the conference. She also asked several senior scholars to chair broadly themed sessions in order to increase the range of topics covered in the conference. Reflecting upon the success of her program, Hall remarked, “There should be a place for the younger scholar to present significant research; there should be a place for interchange between artists and art historians. . . . there should be less formal discussion of ‘hot’ issues . . . there should be consideration of methodology; there should be a place for senior faculty.” She further commented that the “Giants” session was a success, and that she hoped it had “marked the end to an era, begun in the late 1960’s, of confrontation between the generations and contributed to healing the gap that had been produced.” 80 While this session may have marked the “end of an era,” perhaps it was unsuccessful in enacting a generational reconciliation, since despite its popularity, similar sessions were not repeated until the first Distinguished Scholar Session in 2001. Art historians found the structural “answer” to the conference conundrum in an innovative new program format, developed and implemented by Harvey Stahl for the 1985 conference. Stahl explained the challenges of the project: In arranging the art history sessions, the program chairman is faced with the task of balancing, on the one hand, the need for coverage among a membership of increased specialization in interests and fields and, on the other hand, the urgent need to enhance the intellectual content of the meeting, to make it more genuinely didactic, and to address in it those issues which are the most central to the profession. This task will always be difficult, but what makes it especially cumbersome is the sameness with which all sessions are treated, the way they are all similarly developed and scheduled and programmatically interchangeable.81 Stahl created a conference schedule that consisted of three session types: symposia (intended to be discussion-oriented and to offer “a context where ideas can be weighed and broader issues of approach, method, purpose, and standards can be discussed”), regular sessions, and workshops (“highly focused” small sessions, utilizing whatever format might be deemed appropriate). Stahl was able to accommodate a larger number of speakers so that “substantial and often urgent topics previously rejected as unsuitable to traditional large sessions” could be suitably addressed. In addressing the board’s hesitancy to follow the innovative program, Stahl argued: “the way the proposed format opens up the meeting in specific and limited categories (especially the workshops) is, I believe, critical if the CAA is going to embrace, or even continue to retain, many of the specialized interests and fields now proliferating within the discipline. Unless some change
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is made in the national meeting, fine papers will increasingly go elsewhere, our meeting will gradually lose its national representation.” 82 Whether convinced by Stahl’s presentation, excited by his roster of suggested panels, or a combination of the two, the CAA board agreed to suspend their acting conference guidelines and allow Stahl to pursue his plan. The resulting conference was, according the CAA Newsletter, “the grandest, the most expansive, the most innovative, and the most exciting in CAA history.” In an unprecedented outpouring of support, several art historians wrote to the CAA Newsletter in praise of the conference. Esther Pasztory remarked that it was “the first CAA meeting at which I felt there was a fruitful interchange of ideas between scholars in Western and non-Western art”; Henry Klein commented, “I have never attended sessions so lively and stimulating. There was a sense of critical self-reflection on the part of the discipline that has hardly ever appeared before”; and Cecilia Klein declared that the conference “helped to restore confidence that art history is still a lively and intellectually respectable discipline.” 83 Stahl’s format permanently transformed the art history program. Sessions organized around twenty-minute papers remained ubiquitous, but the concepts of symposia and workshops provided an outlet for alternative session formats. The balance Stahl had created between ethnically and geographically diverse sessions with “core” art historical fields offered a model that subsequent conference organizers would seek to emulate. In a 1990 interview Patricia Mainardi commented on the balancing act faced by conference coordinators: “[W]e no longer consider art history the high art of Western Europe. So besides the more traditional high art topics, there are panels on cartoons, film, the decorative arts and even scatology in art. . . . I had to work hard to make sure the mainstream was represented.”84 Mainardi was sufficiently frustrated by this task that she made a formal request to the CAA executive committee to alter the manner in which the conference was organized. In response to Mainardi’s concerns, the committee determined that it should consider if “the CAA system of conference organization [should] be changed at all? What other guidelines might be put in place? Who should decide on those guidelines?” 85 Debra Pincus was asked to survey the membership and collect data from program chairs and conference committee members. Nearly two years later, Pincus and James Cuno presented a draft statement of purpose for the annual conference to the board, which included a directive for art history program chairs: Taking into consideration and acknowledging the dynamic tension between the need to be responsive to our membership in all its diversity and the desire to allow the art history program organizers to express a personal vision, the CAA Board charges the Art History Program Chairs with the responsibility of shaping their part of the Annual Conference
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by seeking to provide adequate coverage in all area[s] represented by our membership, and offering their view of important current directions within the discipline.86 With this statement the board attempted to recognize the leadership role that its conference could play in academic trends. In 1994, the board noted that despite this clause the conference was not sufficiently balanced in its coverage, and that “categories like queer theory, African-American art, and feminist art” were often turned down.87 Such attempts at expanding the range of sessions, while making sure that the “mainstream was represented,” did not please all members.88 Ultimately these concerns led the association to employ Janet Greenberg of the ACLS to complete a comparative study of CAA’s conference with those of other learned societies. The resulting study concluded that the organization needed to revamp the conference to reach the standards of other organizations. Greenberg reported that “CAA does not have set guidelines in place, that the relationship between the annual conference committees and program chairs is fluid and undefined, that the set of responsibilities is reinvented each year, and that the percentage of participants is small.” 89 In addition, John Clarke underlined that special attention needed to be given to the placement bureau, since “CAA must address the needs of students and those who are seeking jobs and involve them more fully in the conference.” 90 In 1994, a Conference Program Structure Task Force made a series of proposals intended to help the organization “avoid crony-ism, to reflect the research interests of the constituency, and to increase participation of the membership.” 91 An important revision set in place by this task force was the creation of a new Program Committee, consisting of a larger and more diverse group of individuals. These initial conversations about the conference began a dialogue of reform that was revisited in detail in the strategic plan of 2000–2005. Perhaps the most significant conference of this period was the “Quincentenary” held in Chicago in 1992. Events were held across the United States and Latin America to commemorate (or alternatively to revile) the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Western hemisphere. In joining these ranks CAA was one in a large chorus of voices. Yet for its members, the conference was well-timed to finally face a range of challenges. Prompted by a suggestion from Elizabeth Boone, CAA adopted its first overarching conference theme, “Considering Encounters,” in order to commemorate “the coming together of the old and new worlds.” 92 The studio and art history program chairs encouraged interactions on many levels and offered a lengthy list of prompts in their call for papers, including cultural differences, varying social/intellectual/disciplinary perspectives, pedagogical approaches, and innovative vs. traditional art forms.93 Fittingly for
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the first conference to unite studio and art history sessions, the convocation address took the form of a lecture cum performance piece entitled, “Everybody Wants to Be an Indian,” presented by James Luna. In his address, Luna forced his audience to consider the motives underlying the inclusive conference agenda as well as the future of such open-minded programming.94 An exchange of letters in the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal in 1993 publicly aired opinions about the changing dynamic of the conference. In a hyperbolic and scathing critique of the organization, Lynne Munson accused the members of the organization of “academic antics,” of “turning away from the study of art objects,” and by way of evidence described the most provocative sessions: The 1993 conference met the standard CAA has set in recent years for making radical interests central to its program. Last year’s meeting, in Chicago, devoted an entire panel to “Women/Power, Pleasure/Pain.” One paper delivered at that conference was called “Introducing the Outsider: Tarzan, Van Gogh, and the Marlboro Man.” Another was illustrated with 10-foot color projections of women’s genitals lifted from pornographic magazines.95 As a final caveat to her readers, Munson warned that the 1994 conference promised an “even more iconoclastic agenda” and cautioned, “Intellectual discretion advised.” The Wall Street Journal published two responses to Munson’s article, the first from Paul Jaskot and the second from Susan Ball, both of whom defended the organization. Noting that Munson was supporting “conservative interests” that are as thoroughly entrenched in academia as in society at large, Jaskot emphasized that the voice of “radical scholars” was necessary in order to counter the fact that “private and public institutions of higher education in this country are first and foremost controlled by (at best) moderate or (more often) conservative administrations. These administrations control college and university budgets and, therefore, have a direct say about exactly how dissident an academic community can be.” Susan Ball argued that Munson represented the CAA from a stilted perspective and that it continued to hold many sessions in “more traditional scholarly subjects.” Furthermore, the CAA embraced diversity and inclusiveness in its roster of speakers and panelists and sought to encourage broad interests in its constituents such that “CAA does not sanction ‘ghettoization’ of feminist, gay/lesbian or multicultural topics and, therefore, does not reserve multicultural topics for people of color, feminist studies for women or the traditional Western canon for white men.” Any resulting heated discussions during the conference would be considered healthy scholarly exchanges.96 For CAA’s artist-members, the 1980s and 1990s were marked by numerous
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unsatisfactory annual conferences and experimental fixes to these failures. They were characterized by a lively artistic scene, made especially dynamic by both scheduled and spontaneous performance pieces. A brief quip by Weil in the CAA Newsletter noted that a 1981 session, entitled “The Problem of Art Now,” “was provided with unscheduled illustrative material in the form of our first annual meeting exhibitionist,” and while such an event might have seemed out of place in a medieval art history session, the studio audience barely noted the interruption.97 The studio art community produced conference programming beside which the art historical sessions paled in comparison. The 1986 studio program, for example, included one session entitled “Sexuality: The Play of the World,” in which writers, musicians, dancers, and performance artists appeared together to celebrate the playful aspects of sexuality; and another session called “Angry: A Speakout,” in which organizers provided “Red ANGRY buttons” for “anyone who is angry about anything in the artworld.” 98 Unlike the art history chair, whose “power” was often mediated by the engaged participation of other scholars, studio chairs were in a position of relative power that led to strong yearly idiosyncrasies in the conference program. In an attempt to respond to ongoing discontent with the studio session format, which became exceptionally clear after the 1987 conference, the board planned the session “Speak-Out: What Do Artists Really Want? (from CAA)” co-chaired by Joyce Kozloff and Faith Ringgold for the 1988 conference.99 Still negotiating the same problems two years later, Robert Storr and Kellie Jones organized a “town-hall meeting” to address current problems of the art world. As Storr commented to Glueck, “we’re dealing with such problems as AIDS, artists’ housing and censorship. And at this turn of the decade, we wanted to discuss some issues raised in the ’80’s, particularly that of so-called ‘other’ people, those outside the system. So instead of academics talking academically about the problems of race, we asked Japanese, Indian and members of other ethnic groups to speak on them instead.” 100 The two-part session “The Thought Police Are Out There: Art, Censorship and the First Amendment” was representative of this collaborative approach, since it included commentary from a lawyer, a university administrator, an art historian, and a conceptual artist. Significant innovations developed across the period to enhance the experience of artists at the conference. CAA held its first film showings in 1978 and continued the tradition in subsequent years, predominantly showing films related to contemporary art and practice. Master Critique sessions offered preselected MFA students the opportunity to have their work evaluated by esteemed artists and critics. The conference MFA exhibition was resurrected. Although they did not appear on every program, these exhibitions had a profound impact on the success of the conference for the studio participants. Sessions related to art and technology grew increasingly in depth and frequency, and pedagogical
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session topics remained more common among art panels than art history panels. In 1997, the first “Artist’s Portfolio Review” was generally well received as a constructive addition to the studio program.101 Affiliated societies remained integral to the conference between 1980 and 2000, but the relationship changed because of the regulations of 1978. While prior relationships with the SAH and the WCA had modeled a conference format wherein individual related organizations could have a profound impact on the content of the conference, the new regulatory system reclaimed the conference program for the association, and limited the potential for dominance by any other group. ARLIS had met jointly with the CAA through the 1970s, but gradually separated its annual conference during the 1980s. Since 1988 ARLIS has met independently of the association. The CAA’s remaining affiliated societies were to a large degree much smaller organizations and were either reform/ ideology oriented, or related to subfield categories. The CAA relied on these organizations to fill any gaps in subject matter or methodology left by its session programs.102 By the end of the 1980s there were fourteen organizations affiliated with CAA, but at the turn of the new millennium, there were thirty-five. In the 1990s, in part because of increased interest in advocacy and institutional prestige, CAA actively cultivated its relationship with affiliated societies. Building on the increased alliance between artists and art historians, studio and history session chairs organized the 1996 conference under the unified theme, “The Object and Its Limits.” Deborah Bright, the studio program coordinator, remarked that numerous people were happy to find that “it was no longer easy to determine which sessions were directed toward studio artists and which were intended primarily for art historians/critics.” 103 The cooperative efforts of 1992 and 1996 suggested a new direction for annual conference planning. A single Conference Program Planning Committee was formed, though studio and history session chairs continued to independently pick “themes” for their panels. Despite many cooperative efforts, the conference program remained only loosely integrated. In 1998, Susan Ball expressed her frustration that art historians, artists, and museum professionals all seemed to feel disenfranchised by the conference, and all seemed to claim that the conference served everybody but themselves.104 Part of the excitement, but also the challenge, of the conference after 1992 was the implementation of conference themes. Although the thematic structure allowed for a closely integrated and intellectually stimulating conference, many members perceived that the theme was “exclusionary and therefore resulting in limited opportunities.” 105 In 1998 the board began, with the help of Nancy Pressly and Associates, to establish a strategic plan with which to usher in the new millennium. Revisions to the annual conference structure constituted a key element of this process. The resultant strategic plan, finalized in January 2000, established a goal for
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the conference wherein it would become “a more effective place for intellectual, aesthetic, and professional exchange and learning.” In order to achieve this goal, “The Conference should be an open and interactive event that moves beyond the actual convention space into the hosting community, an event that is creative and flexible in format and style, and that is hospitable to the widest range of members.” 106 The ensuing plan included such ideas as making the conference feel more intimate by highlighting internal series of events (or mini-conferences), seeking out ways to foster high levels of intellectual discourse (by creating flexible time slots, plenary sessions, and invitational events), and placing greater emphasis on professional and pedagogical development. With respect to the latter issue, David Sokol and Michael Aurbach, both serving on the Professional Interests, Practices, and Standards Committee, were particularly influential in addressing the need to offer professional development and mentoring to graduate students.107 In preparation for implementing the strategic plan, two new fulltime employees, Emmanuel Lemakis (an art historian with twenty-five years of teaching experience) and Paul Skiff (an active performance artist), entered the CAA office in the positions of director of programs and assistant director of the annual conference, respectively. Their influence has had a significant impact on the progress of the annual conference from 1999 through the present. The final administrative aspect of this strategic plan with regard to the annual conference was the institution of three vice presidents for the CAA, one of whom was specifically responsible for the annual conference. Bruce Robertson, who had chaired the annual conference task force during the strategic planning process, was the first vice president for the annual conference. Part of renegotiating the direction of the conference also lay in reconsidering the relationship between CAA and the academics it supports. As the board noted in their discussion about professional development sessions: The critical issue concerning student members is the fact that CAA is offering these features at the annual conference because MFA, MA and PhD programs are not providing this information. . . . More important than what the association can give to its student members is what the association can give to art and art history departments to ensure that all students understand what is expected of them as professionals.108 The Conference Program Planning Committee returned to this problem in 1998, remarking that “there needs to be a balance between leading our members and reflecting their needs.” 109 Subsequently, the board began to address this problem by changing the constitution of the Planning Committee, diversifying it with a series of subcommittees such as Historical Studies and Contemporary Art Issues/Studio committees that would address the varying needs of the organiza-
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tion’s constituents. During the process of crafting these revisions, the board also changed the name of the Planning Committee to the Annual Conference Committee.110 The advances implemented over the 1980s and 1990s were summarized by Blake Gopnik in an article “Art Historians Talk New Talk,” written on the occasion of the organization’s 1998 conference. Gopnik summarized the substance of the conference in the following terms: “This meeting does not throng with elegant Kenneth Clarkes [sic] waxing lyrical about the capital-B Beauty of capital-C Civilization. And it’s not a bunch of leather-elbowed tweedsters debating the date of the Mona Lisa, or who painted the hooves on the Polish Rider’s horse. It’s about ‘Multiculturalism and the Semiotics of Sartorial Fitnesse on the Frontier: Incipient Dandyism on the Columbia River, 1790–1855,’ or ‘Defining the Stranger from Within: Woman as Other in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting.’ ” Lest readers believe that the happenings of the conference were irrelevant to the popular understanding of art, Gopnik declared that “almost all the things we say and think about art, it turns out, have their distant roots in some once-radical art historian’s ideas,” and foretold that these “ivory-tower fashions” would be “coming soon to a museum near you.” 111 Gopnik’s comments suggested a growing popular receptivity to the revisionary efforts of the academic community. As the CAA annual conference entered the ninth decade of its existence, then, it was beginning to reap the benefits of several decades of change. Likewise, CAA had become acutely aware that it needed to address the conjoined problem of increasing scholarly specialization paired with widely diversifying subject matter and interpretive techniques. The approval of the “CAA Strategic Plan 2000–2005” on January 19, 2000, would do a great deal to offer an institutional framework for addressing these concerns and to move the conference in new directions.112
caa at the centennial: the conference 2000–2008 Through the “Strategic Plan 2000–2005” the board was able to establish a set of priorities for the conference, along with a range of objectives and strategies to meet them.113 Perhaps the most prominent initiatives were the Artist Interviews (initiated in 1998) and the Distinguished Scholars Sessions. These parallel events offer the intellectual capstones of the conference and, other than the Convocation, which attracts members from both the “Contemporary Issues/ Studio Art” and “Historical” camps, are certainly the best attended sessions on the annual program. The 2008 interview of Yoko Ono by Jonathan Fineberg created the art-world equivalent of a rock-band fervor. Sessions adjacent to the auditorium proceeded against a background of resounding cheers from down the hall. By contrast, the 2008 Distinguished Scholars Session in celebration of
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Robert Herbert attracted a sedate, though equally admiring, audience who gathered to hear personal narratives paired with a range of academic presentations. Committee-sponsored sessions, which offer a middle ground between the institutional voice of board-sponsored sessions and those proposed by general members, were also implemented under the strategic plan. ARTSpace, which began as a single day’s event in 2001 and now runs throughout the conference, serves as a central node for artists, accommodating film and multimedia presentations along with informal discussions and paper sessions.114 ARTSpace was created in response to a stipulation of the strategic plan, which called for the implementation of “mini-conferences” within the conference in order to satisfy the CAA’s diverse constituents. As such, it has been a resounding success and may offer a model for future endeavors. The allocation of time and space for poster sessions has offered a final, less formal model for conference participants to communicate with one another, and is a format that is being tested for its appeal across the disciplinary spectrum.115 The Annual Conference Committee was also reorganized in the strategic plan, which stipulated that the committee would have eleven members, with at least “two practicing artists, two art historians, and one museum professional.” Two regional representatives would serve on the committee for a one-year term, and also be part of a larger Regional Committee responsible for local logistics. Through a system of checks and balances this new method of conference governance has allowed the committee a structured format within which to integrate new voices and balance scholarly perspectives. The twenty-first century has also ushered CAA into the global community. Since 2000, the organization has added a wide spectrum of affiliated societies, several of which are international in their scope, suggesting a future in which the CAA may interact more fully across international boundaries. The concerns of the CAA have also moved beyond national borders, especially in responding to threats to global cultural heritage that have arisen over the course of the War on Terror waged by the United States since 2001. The proliferation of affiliated societies also prompted CAA to build mechanisms into its 2000–2005 Strategic Plan to limit the increasing presence of affiliated societies in the conference program. In order to achieve this goal, they outlined two strategies, the first being to “establish a mechanism . . . to review and rotate panels organized by Affiliated Societies to accommodate the growing number of such organizations,” and the second to “promote the use of other methods of discourse such as roundtables, debates, and poster sessions.” 116
conclusions and a glance toward the future As the CAA annual conference celebrates its centennial, it bears little resemblance to the intimate gathering of concerned arts professionals who met on the
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University of Illinois campus in 1911. In many ways, however, the central priorities of the conference remain unchanged. Founded with a desire to increase the institutional presence of arts professions on college campuses, the annual conference still finds that institutional strength in numbers is a powerful bonding agent. Just as the early conference provided an opportunity for professionals to define their own roles as educators and academics, so the annual conference still provides a setting within which individuals can learn about the various aspects of their chosen profession, or meet with other seasoned professionals to improve pedagogical skills or share professional knowledge. Finally, and most important, the conference began as a venue within which scholars could share original work while exchanging and debating ideas. Today the conference still maintains its identity as the central event from which artistic knowledge (whether historical or practical) is made, disseminated, and dispersed. One lesson seems clear from the century of conference history: no matter how large the conference grows, or how wide it casts its net of professions and specializations, its success is always dependent upon the active and selfsacrificing participation of its members. The greatest innovations, like Harvey Stahl’s intervention of 1985, have occurred because scholars have been willing to work toward the good of a large community rather than focusing solely on the advancement of their particular specialization. The conference has maintained a delicate balancing act for several decades, weighing the interests of an increasingly specialized constituency against the constraints of time and resources. Despite periodic suggestions that the organization should splinter into smaller groups, the last ten years have seen a concerted effort to develop a program that meets the needs of the entire membership without lowering academic standards in the process. Yet the service model necessary to maintain the momentum of the conference is given little encouragement at the graduate level, and perhaps even less during the tenure-track years. This phenomenon, combined with a difficult job market, and an economy that has reduced budgets of universities and colleges nationwide, raises concerns for the future direction of the conference. If we hope to see a future in which the annual conference builds on the ground gained in the final decades of the twentieth century, we must pause to learn from its history before plotting its course. Studio art, architecture, and pedagogy have risen and fallen as features in the program based on periods of disciplinary isolationism, just as individual fields of art history have gained or lost ground for similar reasons. If this history of the annual conference reveals nothing else, then, let it remind art professionals that the future of the conference depends not on the furthering of any single field but on the dogged maintenance of a broad family of disciplines. The path is well-laid for the future, and its possibilities are endless, if we can only remember that there is a world beyond the fence of our own academic pastures.
7 Mentoring the Profession Career Development and Support ofelia garcia
Purpose 12. To encourage qualified students to enter the arts as a profession and, to this end, to seek ways and means of establishing scholarships, fellowships, and awards for academic achievement or creative ability and promise. Purpose 15. To assist members of the profession and institutions in locating and filling positions on the staffs of colleges, universities, art schools, museums, foundations, government agencies or commissions, and other organizations engaged in art activities or programs consonant with the purposes of the Association. entral to the mission of a learned society is the nurturing of those who are the future of its field of study and of the professions that promote and enliven that field. Through the years the College Art Association has pursued this mission by creating, expanding, and, as time passes, elaborating on or modifying a great range of programs, services, and activities for its members and for the institutions that employ them. From concerns with the curricula of academic programs for art professionals, through services for appropriate employment and continued career development, to support and recognition of accomplishments at each professional level, CAA has addressed the needs of the field and of its members in an ongoing manner throughout the
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decades as these needs came to be recognized. By creating opportunities, providing services, and seeking to encourage the highest level of scholarship, the association has fostered a collegial, intellectual, and often lifelong community for its members.
placement services and career development In the early years, members generally served as faculty in American colleges and universities. Many of the concerns and interests expressed in the minutes of the board of directors and in the organization’s publications regarding the academic profession are consistent with the broader issues found in the development of American higher education. Artists and art historians who taught at colleges and universities shared many concerns with their colleagues in other academic fields, though to some extent they also had the task of arguing for the appropriateness of the inclusion of the visual arts in the general education curriculum, at a time when a classical education included Greek but not art. CAA’s publications discussed the value of the study of art for students in colleges and universities, and the variety of careers to which such study could lead.1 The selection of young scholars for positions in museums, as well as on faculties, particularly in private colleges, depended primarily on the strong mentoring relationships between students and their (usually male) professors.2 Beginning in the 1920s, articles on career development began to appear in the organization’s publications, discussing qualifications required for college and university teachers and the three main areas of museum work—administrative, curatorial, and educational—in addition to desired qualities in art critics and cataloguers of private and public art collections. Concern for standardization of art education suggests that the association might become a “clearing house” for this purpose, and a Committee on Research Work and Graduate Teaching was created in 1918 to address the matter.3 The earliest published advertisement for a job was featured in Parnassus in 1929: a Midwestern museum was seeking a “young man with personality and knowledge of the history of art.” Replies were to be sent to the education secretary at CAA.4 Other association records indicate the creation of a part-time position within the association’s staff for support work regarding placement.5 But it was in 1940 that there was the first mention of a placement bureau, and early in 1941 an ad appeared in Parnassus describing the “enthusiastic response” to the recent announcement, while at the same time the United States Civil Service Commission listed positions for “general art work” in both “defense and non-defense government agencies.” 6 Placement bureau services were newly described as a “privilege” of membership, and association records and publications detailed an ongoing interest and concern in the combined issues of the development, and, to some extent, control of the field and
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its career opportunities, and the increasingly larger, more complex, and important placement bureau.7 (Though while interest in the placement bureau was increasing, the number of participants during the decade of the 1940s was modest by any measure.) One of the most important moments in American higher education in the twentieth century was the authorization of the G.I. Bill after World War II. Its extraordinary popularity and success transformed existing colleges and universities, many of which rushed to expand their programs and facilities (giving rise to “Quonset-hut campuses”) all over the nation, and created many new institutions to accommodate the returning G.I.s and those who shared their educational benefits. Access to college suddenly became possible and affordable to a broad class of citizens—men and women for whom it had been socially and financially inconceivable before World War II. The resulting physical expansion of the institutions in that period is still evident today. The expansion of the aspiration for higher education is also evident, though issues of access and equity for particular racial or class groups remain. Regarding the arts, the College Art Journal noted that the demand for college teachers increased by more than 40 percent in one year in 1953.8 In 1951 the association considered establishing a Woman’s Placement Bureau, with the encouragement, or, more likely, at the initiative of several women’s colleges, based on the same concept as the existing bureau, but requiring no fees from either individuals or institutions.9 This appears to be the first indication that the association recognized an increasing presence of women in the field of art, and it was followed by a variety of studies and efforts to document the presence and status of women in art professions. The Woman’s Placement Bureau did not in fact appear to have been established as part of the association, which expressed some concern regarding conflict and competition with its own bureau, but as an independent and short-lived effort. In the 1970s a systematic study of the presence, roles, difficulties, and opportunities for women received the association’s attention. CAA’s Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA) and the CAA Committee on the Status of Women systematically studied and reported on various aspects of the condition of women in the art professions for a number of years, particularly because it became evident that the number and rank of women faculty members was in significant disproportion to the increasing presence of women students in doctoral or terminal degree programs. The WCA went further and established its own placement service, which continued for a number of years.10 Another development worth noting for its eventual impact on the association and its annual conference, as well as on the placement and career development services, was the creation in 1955 by the association of a “Checklist of Fields of Specialization,” with two principal categories, “History of Art and Practice of Art.” Each category was subdivided: the history of art by period and geography,
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and the practice of art by medium. Three other headings were established: aesthetics, art and psychology, and conservation of works of art.11 Careers classified in this manner would give rise to separate listings, specific services, and distinct awards. Perhaps the mission of the placement bureau and the broader purpose of the career development program first and most clearly coincided at the annual meeting in 1977, when the association offered a pre-conference program to help first-time applicants learn how to use the service, how to present themselves, and what to expect from interviewers. That year the board of directors adopted the “Standards for Professional Placement” developed by an Ad Hoc Committee on Placement Standards, which included information on interviewing guidelines, return of materials, curriculum vitae forms, deadlines, charade listings (a listing of a job already promised to an internal or another candidate, and so a fake or “charade” search), the enforcement of violations, the candidate center, the message center, and the “Resolution Concerning Private Information in Interviewing.” For institutions seeking to hire art professionals, the association’s placement service provided two important advantages. First, it made possible the expansion of the usually regional range of a faculty search, particularly for small and underfunded institutions. Conducting national searches for even entry-level positions was made possible by sending faculty delegates to the annual meeting, where they could interview more candidates than their budgets would allow them to bring to campus. The net was cast wider, and unusual candidates could be considered who might not have appeared as likely prospects from their applications. Second, it allowed institutions to meet affirmative action/equal opportunity requirements, and in fact have the opportunity to hire a more diverse faculty. CAA monitored the processes and results of the placement service, assessing and adjusting its process after each conference. It reported trends in the field and points of interest regarding each year’s placement results in the CAA Newsletter. In 1987, as a result of the modest if frequent complaints about the behavior of some institutions or the actions of some candidates, the board of directors formed another ad hoc committee to review the guidelines it had published a decade before. But changes occurred primarily in an ongoing manner through feedback, recognition of changing demographics, and changing institutional procedures. One example was the recognition that with the rising number of women candidates, the usual process of interviews held in hotel rooms had the potential of being awkward for both parties; large and open interview rooms with multiple tables began to be provided for one-on-one interviews. In considering other specific complaints, the committee concluded that the association could neither police its own guidelines nor censure the institutions, and would act by persuasion instead.12
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In the fall of 1977 the association began publishing Positions Listings, and CAA Careers replaced it in October 1991, producing seven issues per year, with separate listings for artists and for art historians, including opportunities in foreign countries. In March 1992 museum positions were added, and by 1994 architectural history and administrative positions were also included as separate headings. The last issue on paper was published in August 2003, when the listing service moved to the Online Career Center, which offered the ability to search jobs by a variety of criteria. Individuals could post their materials, and the system could increase interaction between individuals and institutions in an efficient way. CAA News consistently published articles aimed at helping candidates gain employment: A “Survival Kit for Academic Job Hunting in Art History” in 1988, “Finding Your Way through the Placement Maze” in 1991, and multiple reports on the state of the job market.13 The association’s concern with the advancement of its members began with educational programs and continued through professional or career development; the placement effort was an important and necessary aspect of the service to members. However, because the association was aware that artist members in particular appeared to lack sufficient and systematic institutional support, the board of directors in 1996 initiated an “Artists’ Portfolio Review” program as part of the annual meeting, which arranged for artists to meet individually with critics and professional curators to discuss their artwork.14 In subsequent years some version of this program, such as career consultations, continued. The association’s “Strategic Plan 2000–2005” called for stressing “the importance of professional and pedagogical development at the Conference” and the role of CAA “as a professional resource in the fields of art history and the visual arts.” 15 A brief listing of the numerous and varied career-related programs and services provided in the past decade, and the up-to-date and improved systems for delivering them, gives evidence to the energy and innovative thinking of the leadership, and the receptiveness of the membership. At the 2001 annual conference four hundred artists participated in career development workshops. In 2002 a full one-day regional professional development workshop and seminar was held, co-sponsored by CAA and the Getty Research Institute.16 Professional Development Roundtables were offered in 2003. In 2004 the new Online Career Center was used at the conference. In 2005, for the first time, all-day preconference professional development workshops were offered, seeking to help artists at all stages of their careers. A career fair philosophy was formulated in 2006, along with planning for new regional professional development workshops.17 The earlier decades of the association saw programs develop in a measured way, primarily driven by the board of directors and a few established professors in the field. However, in more recent years a professional staff with board support and membership participation has led the association forcefully toward
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becoming a full-service professional organization. Progressive development of the association has come about, particularly in services to members, from graduate students to tenured professors, established curators, published writers, and recognized artists. The range of career services offered shows a marked and increased agility, thoughtfulness, and resourcefulness on the part of the association. The expansion of programs whose value and cost is more than the membership can be expected to afford has been supported in good part by specific grants. The association from its beginnings sought external or third-party funding for a variety of programs, particularly for scholarships and grants-in-aid. In the last couple of decades, the writing of grants for support of a variety of programs and services has been accomplished by the staff, and has significantly aided in the expansion of services. As an example, Susan Ball, executive director, successfully approached the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation for a grant to support the 2007–2008 national career development workshops. These particular workshops were designed to support visual artists in underserved areas of the United States; in addition, funding was sought and received from the National Endowment for the Arts for other regional professional workshops.18 The association’s 2006 Annual Conference marked the tenth anniversary of the Career Development and Artists’ Portfolio Mentoring Sessions. As Ball stated at that time, this association, long seen and still considered by some primarily as a “learned society,” has also become “a professional organization, offering services to members at all stages of their careers.” 19 A summary of current career development services includes the jobs listings and the orientation sessions that take place around the annual conference; the professional standards and guidelines for artists, art historians, teachers, and curators that have made a formal contribution to the understanding of the careers in the arts; and the Professional Development Fellowship Program, which has, since 1993, addressed the issue of underrepresented constituencies in art professions. Research and career development programs today encompass the Online Career Center, the Career Fair, and mentoring sessions. The association’s concern has extended to part-time, non–tenure-track faculty and graduatestudent faculty, who today constitute a growing number of university and college teachers. Most recently, in recognition of limited resources that often prevent members from attending the annual conference, CAA has taken some of its career development programs to campuses around the country.20 Since its founding, the association has traveled a long road toward its purpose of serving as an entry into the field by qualified individuals, and assisting them and the art institutions and programs that employ them in achieving academic and creative excellence. Through the years CAA has clarified its purpose and gained flexibility, which has led to responsive and imaginative programming.
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awards Awards and prizes are forms of recognition of excellence traditional within academic and scholarly circles, and particularly among those fields that organized as “learned societies.” This early ritual singled out scholarly or creative work that merited recognition. Available records show that in the first decades CAA mostly chose to recognize the distinguished work of graduate students. Meritorious work was rewarded by prizes and fellowships that provided some financial support to the recipients, enhancing their ability to complete studies or degrees. (The section on “Fellowship and Scholarship Programs” below further explores the development of prizes and fellowships for students.) Recognition of the work of more senior professionals was formalized in the 1950s, when the board voted to present awards at the annual meetings. A proposal by Creighton Gilbert was approved in 1953; it called for recognition of “a distinguished column of art criticism appearing regularly in a newspaper or periodical.” 21 A committee would be established to select the recipient each year, and the award would recognize both the writer and the publication. A second citation was approved at the same meeting to recognize “a distinguished publication in art-historical scholarship appearing during the previous academic year.” The notice specified that “preference shall be given to publications in the form of a book, but major publications in the form of articles or group studies shall not be excluded.” 22 At the following meeting of the board, announcing the appointment of juries, the citations were referred to as the Citation in Journalistic Art Criticism and the Citation in Art Historical Scholarship.23 The first art historical award was given in 1953 to H. W. Janson of New York University; the first award in art criticism was given to seven writers, and was named after Frank Jewett Mather of Princeton University, who had recently died.24 In 1956, at the death of Charles Rufus Morey, the board passed a resolution intended to “record their admiration and respect for Professor Morey’s achievements and their gratitude for his service to the Association.” 25 The art historical award was subsequently named after Morey. In 1957, Mrs. Arthur Kingsley Porter, in honor of her late husband, contributed funds to the association for prizes of excellence in articles published each year in the Art Bulletin; this award was advertised as the Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize “for the encouragement of young scholars in art historical studies,” and was first given in 1958.26 The minutes of the meetings of the board during 1957 show various concerns regarding the recently established awards, and the Publications Committee was asked to explore any issues raised.27 By the early 1960s the board decided that “the awards will be presented at the annual meeting, (during the course of the banquet), the citations read by the chairs of the selecting committees, and the
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recipients of awards would be informed beforehand, so that they could attend the ceremony.” 28 Two matters provoked much debate in the early years of these awards. The first was the management of the particulars of the awards, as indicated above. The minutes of practically every meeting of the board express concern over the criteria for judging each award and the selection of the jurors, among other considerations.29 The second concern was money. From the beginning, the Morey, Mather, and Porter Awards had a cash prize component, but the funds were not consistently available and were generally very modest. The minutes list fundraising efforts among members of the board and from institutions that supported the association, and detail a constant effort to replace expiring funding commitments by finding new donors.30 By 1975 the executive committee of the association agreed to discontinue all monetary prizes once the Porter Prize funds were exhausted.31 However, while an award without a cash prize became the norm, in subsequent years occasional gifts were received which funded individual awards or in some cases paid for the trip of the award winner to the annual conference.32 In appreciation of a growing field of study and the diversification of areas of research and scholarly publication, as well as the more varied activities in which art professionals were engaging, the association periodically established new awards to celebrate new or growing areas of influence. The process appeared to become easier once patterns had been established and tested. In 1972 the Artists Committee of the association, at the suggestion of Ruth Weisberg, proposed the creation of a Distinguished Teaching of Art Award, to recognize “stimulating and penetrating teachers of art in any medium.” 33 The first Distinguished Teaching of Art Award was given to Josef Albers in 1973, the second to Tony Smith in 1974. A parallel Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award was first given to Alexander Soper in 1977.34 In 1980 John Walsh proposed an award for the best museum catalogue of the year and suggested that the award should be named after Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Barr’s catalogues for the Museum of Modern Art, New York, had “elevated the genre” and the award was “meant to recognize the significant place catalogues have come to occupy in American scholarship.” The first Barr Award was given in 1981 to Kurt Weitzmann and Margaret English Frazer.35 The first award to an artist for a Distinguished Body of Work, Exhibition, Presentation or Performance was given to Jacob Lawrence in 1988.36 That same year the first Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement was given to Joan Mitchell; it had been proposed in 1987, with the expectation that it would have national credibility and that the selection would reflect diversity, both in terms of geographical location and media and/or discipline. Artists so honored have included Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Will Barnet, Robert Blackburn, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Franken-
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thaler, Rupert Garcia, Elizabeth Murray, Miriam Schapiro, Sylvia Sleigh, Nancy Spero, and Wayne Thiebaud, among others. In 1989 CAA and the National Institute for Conservation jointly created a new award named the College Art Association and Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation, which was given in 1991 to five scholars. Starting in 2000, the Art Journal Award was presented to the author of the most distinguished contribution (article, interview, conversation, portfolio, review, etc.) published in the journal; the first was given in 2001 to Miwon Kwon, a former CAA fellow, for her article “The Wrong Place,” published in Spring 2000.37 In 2003, a Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art was established, and the first was given to Robert Farris Thompson. Two other Special Awards for Lifetime Achievement were presented that year: one to art and film historian Rudolf Arnheim and another to editor and publisher Milton Esterow. Arnheim had pioneered the field of psychology and art and “as a critic beginning in Berlin in the 1920’s and continuing to the present day, has substantially shaped the language of film criticism nearly from its inception.” His most influential work was Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye, which became a required source for students of art history. Esterow, editor and publisher of ARTnews since 1972, led the magazine for decades, winning recognition particularly for its work regarding looted art from World War II. CAA recognized his achievements on the occasion of the one-hundred-year anniversary of the magazine, and the thirtieth year of Esterow’s editorship.38 Another Special Lifetime Award for Achievement on Behalf of the Arts and Humanities was given to Edward M. Kennedy in 2006.39 An annual Recognition Award was given by the CAA Committee on Women in the Arts from 1996 to 2008, in an award ceremony held as a special luncheon at the annual conference. At the October 2007 meeting of the board, the directors voted to establish, in place of the Recognition Award, a twelfth award for distinction: the Distinguished Feminist Award, which “honors a person who, through his or her art, scholarship, or advocacy, has advanced the cause of equality for women in the arts.” 40 This award was incorporated into the forum of the annual convocation, similar to other association-wide awards. Midori Yoshimoto, chair of the committee on women, and Diane Burko, her successor, led this effort. The first award was given to the Guerrilla Girls in 2009. In the matter of awards and recognition of the accomplishments of its members, the association through the years moved from a narrow definition of meritorious scholarly or creative work to a much broader view of achievement and distinction. Where it once saw the art profession as concentrating its influence in academic or museum circles, through the decades it has seen its members col-
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laborate with and influence other related or tangential fields; in addition, it has seen art writing and art making expand their reach beyond the teacher’s or the specialist’s world to become an influential force in society. The range, maturity and richness of the contributions of the association’s members well deserve the current broad range of annual awards.41
fellowship and scholarship programs One of the purposes of the CAA is to encourage the best students to enter the arts as a profession and to establish scholarships, fellowships, and awards as incentives to that end. This effort has been particularly strong during three different periods of the association’s history. The first took place from 1926 to 1932 and was tied to comprehensive examinations that were offered by the association. The second, which began in the late 1930s and became a reality in the 1940s, ended in 1947. The third period came about in 1992. The CAA was conducting one of its periodic strategic planning initiatives when, during one of the meetings, Phyllis Bober, the association’s president, made an impassioned speech about how much a fellowship from the organization had meant to her when she was a graduate student in 1942, though it had been a modest amount of money. Her enthusiasm for CAA scholarships, particularly for minorities and women, echoed by board members Ofelia Garcia and Judith K. Brodsky, infected the group, and the concept for the Professional Development Fellowship Program was born.42 Originally CAA’s involvement in supporting new generations of professionals in the arts was focused primarily on graduate students of art history, in spite of early discussions regarding the possibility of providing some funds for artists. The minutes of the 14th Annual Meeting of 1926 state: “It was voted that the question of competitive awards in drawing and painting should be referred to the committee on standards, and that the giving of any such awards should for the present be left to the discretion of the president.” 43 Since there are no extant minutes of board meetings until 1930, and the only historical evidence to be found for the early years are very brief and sketchy reports of annual meetings in the Art Bulletin, it is not possible to determine when the Committee on Standards was established, but it appears to have been before 1924, when the recommendation of the committee to establish comprehensive examinations in art history was “accepted, with provision for questions involving a knowledge of laboratory work,” a recognition of the studio constituency of the CAA.44 The first scholarships were selected through the Comprehensive Examinations in the Fine Arts, which were announced in the March 1926 issue of Art Bulletin. These awards were funded by the Carnegie Corporation of America in New York. There were ten awards. First prize was a “traveling [sic] scholarship”
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of $1,250; second prize was a “resident scholarship” of $500; the other awards were honorable mentions with modest cash awards, to be given “to the maximum number of eight.” The examination consisted of one two-week exam and three two-hour exams. For the first, students could choose their subjects, use books, “resort to clerical assistance, but not any form of cooperation,” the paper to be typed, no longer than twenty pages exclusive of illustrations. “The purpose of this examination is to test the candidates’ power to master, select, and organize material, to compose exact description, to make accurate analysis, to draw independent conclusions, and in general to produce under favorable conditions a careful piece of work.” The two-hour examinations were “to test the candidate’s general information, memory, and capacity for working under pressure.” Each would contain fifteen questions, ten of which were “to be selected and answered by the candidate.” The examinations were in ancient art, medieval art, and Renaissance and modern art (which included “American painting of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries”). Each presupposed general knowledge of the particular field with the depth and breadth appropriate to the curriculum of the time. (The examinations could be considered an anticipation of the later Graduate Record Examination.) The guidelines included a list of books and went on to say, “the winners of the scholarships will pursue their travels and studies for one year under the direction of the College Art Association. They may enter professional or graduate school. A number of American institutions have already offered free tuition in this case, thus considerably enhancing the value of the scholarships.” The examinations and prizes were open to members of the class of 1926 from any college. Colleges could use these examinations instead of their own for degree-granting purposes. All grades were “reported to the respective institutions as promptly as possible.” The guidelines ended by naming the members of the committee: Alice V. V. Brown was chair and Celia H. Hersey was secretary, and they and the other members of the committee represented almost exclusively institutions in the Northeast (Wellesley, Harvard, Smith, Yale, Williams, and Columbia colleges, with the University of Illinois the only public institution represented).45 Even so, the whole project is quite striking in its democratic tone and its empathy for the student, though it should be noted that examinations focused on European and American art exclusively. “The prize examinations of the College Art Association” were reported in 1929. The exams were given in April and the results were posted in May. Two students, Elsie Traunstein and Laurance Page Roberts, were tied for first place. The decision was made to split the first and the second prize between them evenly. There were twenty entries from twelve institutions.46 The program was initially authorized and funded for three years. In addition, Carnegie provided funds for some CAA awards not tied to the comprehensive
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examinations. These consisted of two research fellowships of $2,500 each for senior scholars, and three scholarships for graduate students. The senior scholars were E. Baldwin Smith and Walter W. S. Cook. The first graduate students to receive awards were Dorothy Boyd, Gertrude Kerner, Elizabeth Wilder, and Mary F. Williams. It should be noted that women took all the graduate prizes.47 On March 2, 1931, funds were again received from Carnegie, including $6,000 for scholarships, $15,000 for “reappointments to scholarships,” and $8,500 for scholarships at the Sorbonne.48 But the next year, this first phase of CAA fellowships ended. Apparently, Carnegie discontinued its funding of prizes for the comprehensive examinations and at some point decided to discontinue the examinations themselves. Members of the board declared that CAA should be a “receiving body and clearing house” for fellowships, not a granting institution in itself, and had already begun to list other grant opportunities in its publications in 1930, among them the Marquand Fellowship of the Archaeological Institute of America and other awards offered by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Guggenheim Foundation. Professor Morey suggested that a group of twenty-five members might pay dues of $100 annually to create a fund, but there was no record of this being accomplished.49 The second wave of CAA fellowships began in 1939. During a board meeting, Cook suggested that a committee be formed on fellowships and scholarships to approach the Carnegie Corporation in order to raise funds for awards to graduate students and younger teachers.50 The appeal was successful, and “Carnegie Grants-in-Aid to Graduate Students Offered by the College Art Association” appeared in a full-page advertisement in the College Art Journal of January 1942.51 The awards were for art history graduate students who had completed one year of study, with preference given to PhD students. An application and an interview were required. One award would be $1,000. The remaining grants would be $200–300, the exact number to be determined by the Committee on Scholarships.52 The top award went to Phyllis Williams (later Phyllis Williams Lehmann). A $400 prize was awarded to Erica Beckh (later Erica Beckh Rubenstein), and Bober received one of the smaller awards.53 Recipients of awards at later dates included Creighton E. Gilbert in 1944 and Eleanor Barton in 1946.54 However, by 1947 the funds had been spent, and the last grant was given to Eugene Branham of Howard University, the first award to a student from a historically black institution. The association again expressed its desire to raise money for the scholarship program, but nothing materialized. So ended the second period of CAA scholarship support.55 Though the board wanted to help European art historians after the war and offer scholarships (including bringing women to the United States), they failed in this project.56 As indicated earlier, the third wave of CAA support for the next generation of scholars (and this time for artists as well) started in 1992 in a strategic plan-
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ning session. Brodsky, then vice president; Garcia, a board member; and Ball began almost immediately to implement the concept. The Professional Development Fellowship Program, as it was named, focused on populations underrepresented in the fields of art history and art. It focused on students who had been marginalized because of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or economic class in order to increase the diversity of successful and influential people in the field, not to support entry into graduate study, but to ease the transition to professional life. While these students would have already proven themselves to be excellent, studies showed that they had far less success in entering the mainstream. The Professional Development Fellowship Program supported students in the final year of their degree programs with outright grants of $5,000 each, to help with dissertation and MFA exhibition production. The support continued into a second year, supplying funds toward the salaries for institutions that wished to hire the recipients of these CAA grants, provided that they match the CAA contribution ($10,000–15,000) 2:1, and included a curatorial component in the job. Thus, the CAA program helped institutions fund a staff position and support an emerging professional.57 To have an impact on the field, the program needed to fund a good number of fellows, and to that end substantial fund-raising was required. Challenge grants, requiring a three-to-one match of the government funds, were sought from the National Endowments for the Arts and for the Humanities. The endowments were both elitist and populist, as they remain today. As national entities, they serve the population as a whole, so there was and still is an emphasis on inclusivity of all populations; but at the same time, the peer review system guarantees adherence to standards of excellence. Funds were also solicited from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, known for its support of minority participation in the nation’s cultural and intellectual life. Since matching funds would need to be raised, Ball and Brodsky began the first capital campaign at the CAA (and possibly among the learned societies). It was an exciting and controversial time: a fund-raising consultant conducted training sessions for the association’s board. Some board members objected to being asked for contributions (pointing out, legitimately, that philanthropy was not [then] listed as a qualification for CAA board membership). Others were enthusiastic in their response, contributed to their limit, and helped with solicitation of the membership. CAA received challenge grants from both the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts in 1993. The first was $140,500 to support fellowships for art history graduate students and the second, also $140,500, for artists in MFA programs.58 Because Ball, Brodsky, and Garcia were aware that CAA’s earlier scholarship programs had a limited life span owing to lack of continued funding, they hoped to establish an endowment
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that would continue to fund the fellowships into the future. That reasoning, as well as the requirement to provide matching funds for the NEA and NEH grants, made the capital campaign necessary. They had to raise $421,500 in nonfederal dollars for each Endowment grant. The Soros Foundation made a gift toward the match that first year; the Cummings grant supplied $90,000, the Luce Foundation $110,000, the Getty Foundation $74,828. Cummings gave an additional $50,000. Brodsky offered the services of the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, donating the cost of publishing prints, so that well-known artists such as Willie Cole, Sam Gilliam, Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, Miriam Schapiro, Kiki Smith, and Buzz Spector could produce prints that were sold to benefit the fellowship program. Members of the CAA board held fund-raising parties.59 Kevin Consey, at that time director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, offered his institution for a Chicago event, and James Cuno, then director of the Harvard University Museums, hosted a Boston-area party at the Fogg Art Museum. Brodsky held a Princeton-area party in her home, which featured a piano concert by Ned Kaufman. By December 1993, $50,000 had been raised in individual gifts. CAA also raised corporate gifts from Binney & Smith and Harry N. Abrams, Inc. An event in New York during the CAA conference in 1997 also raised $20,000.60 By January 1998, the association had successfully reached the goal of $1.1 million, with approximately $500,000 in private foundation monies and the rest from private donors or fund-raising activities. In the meantime, thirty-five fellows had already received grants.61 During this period, the definition of “underserved populations” became broader, including areas of study that were not well funded, such as American art history. Ball solicited the Henry Luce Foundation, which awarded CAA a grant of $110,000 over three years to support the Fellowships in American Art.62 Those eligible consisted only of doctoral students in art history who focused on American art, and students in terminal MA programs in conservation, criticism, art theory, museum studies, arts administration, and art history, with theses on American art. The award was based on need and funded a recipient for two years, with the option for a third. In the second and third years, fellows were placed in professional positions at institutions with programs in American art deemed partners in the program. Conditions for fellowships continued to be adjusted to the requirements of various funders: the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation required that placements be in New Jersey, and the Terra Foundation for American Art awards were for PhD candidates studying American art before 1940.63 Additional fellowships have been offered each year depending on the funds raised that year. For example, in 1995 there were nine fellowships; in 1997, seven; in 2005, only two; but in 2006 the number was up to six; and in 2007, there were three.64 Other funding sources have included the Milton and Sally
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Avery Foundation; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the Wyeth Foundation for American Art; and the Reba and David Williams Foundation. With broad distribution of guidelines and requirements, the selection process relies on a different committee each year, appointed to review applications and decide on recipients. The committees have included such artists as Michi Itami, Yong Soon Min, Fred Wilson, and Martha Wilson. Art historian or museum curator members have included Alejandro Anreus, Vishaka Desai, Patricia Hills, Alison Hilton, Leslie King-Hammond, Lloyd E. Oxendine, and Alan Wallach, among many others.65 The fellows are invited and funded to attend CAA annual conferences, present their work, and gain experience as public professionals. Up until 2007, ninety-four fellowships were awarded. A series of profiles in CAA News provides information on the success the program has had in identifying and helping young art historians and artists of promise. Laylah Ali, among the first class of recipients in 1993, became an influential artist and teaches at Williams College. Phyllis Jackson, an African American and the first art historian to be selected, is a tenured faculty member at Pomona College. Tina Takemoto is a performance artist and associate professor at the California College of the Arts. Amy Schlegel, an art historian in the third class of fellows, in 1995, is director of the Tufts University Art Gallery and served as a member of the CAA board. Rocio ArandaAlvarado, a 1999 fellow, became curator at the Jersey City Museum and widely recognized as important in bringing emerging artists of note to visibility; she is now curator at El Museo del Barrio, New York. LaToya Ruby Frazier, a 2006 recipient, is the curator of the Robeson Center Gallery, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, and a photographer developing a strong reputation in the New York art scene. It is also valuable to consider the partnering institutions and the positions in which the recipients were placed. The match was often made at the initiative of the fellow, since field of specialization and geography are sometimes important, sometimes an impediment. The year of work supported by the Professional Development Fellowship Program has often led to continuing employment, though that is not a requirement. As part of her fellowship Lisa Bradley became an assistant professor at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, where she continues to be employed. Deepali Dewan, who was placed as an associate curator of South Asian Civilizations at the Royal Ontario Museum, continued after her placement year in that position and became an assistant professor in the Department of Fine Arts, University of Toronto. Institutions that hosted fellows include the Hartnett Gallery, University of Rochester, New York; California State University, Los Angeles; Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore; Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New
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York; Art Department and Women’s and Gender Studies Program, University of Vermont, Burlington; School of Architecture and Allied Arts, University of Oregon; and the University of California, Berkeley. Listing these few gives a sense of the geographic scope of the placements.66 The ongoing fellowship program has been simplified and is currently a single grant of $15,000 to an artist and art historian. (Additional fellowships may be provided from year to year and bring their own conditions.) The guidelines still specify that an applicant must be disadvantaged or underrepresented in the field in some way, but the description is more inclusive and, as a consequence, less directed toward redressing the racial, ethnic, and class imbalance in the field than in the original guidelines.67 The emphasis is inclusivity. There is no longer a curatorial component or matching grant with the hiring institution. This CAA fellowship program has provided the means by which some young professionals in both art history and studio art, who were members of groups underrepresented in mainstream positions in the field, could jump-start their careers. Anecdotally, there are more people of color in museums, art and art history departments, and in arts administration, but there also are no current statistics. It was important that CAA take the lead in an effort of this sort, so firmly rooted in its tradition, and so necessary at present. But the number of people of color and other minority groups among the CAA membership is still very low in spite of the fact that there has been an African American president of the association, Leslie King-Hammond, and many members of minority groups have been on the board through the years.
conclusion As it reflects on one hundred years of its history, the College Art Association and its members may pause for a moment to consider the ways in which they have helped shape the field of study at the center of their lives, as well as the lives of those who have been its members. But more appropriate, perhaps, would be to mark the beginning of CAA’s second century by continuing and enhancing the momentum the association now enjoys as an influential force in the guidance, encouragement, and service of visual arts professionals, serving as the creator and promoter of a community of scholars and artists. In following these specific purposes, the association today has in fact taken on, on behalf of young or new professionals, the role that those rare and special individual mentors fulfilled in much earlier times.
8 Art in an Academic Setting Contemporary CAA Exhibitions ellen k. levy
s art has allied with the university as the central site of learning and disciplinary identity, the nature and purposes of art schools and exhibitions have changed, points well established by historian Howard Singer1 Along with professionalization, a de-emphasis of traditional manual craft man. skills has occurred; interventions, “biologically attuned art” that includes bioart and synesthetic art, new media, environmental art, and performative practices take place alongside the production of traditional art objects. Contemporary artists often find that the university and its galleries enable necessary access to the expertise provided by professionals in other disciplines, to costly equipment, and to an informed public. In these essential ways university galleries and alternative spaces sustain challenging, often nonmarketable, experimental work in nontraditional media. This chapter focuses on the College Art Association’s role over recent decades in the support of artists, academic venues, and alternative spaces. From its beginnings the College Art Association has been periodically involved with objects of art, artists, and exhibitions, and these three activities have had wide-reaching ramifications. Most significantly, the Western Drawing and Manual Training Association’s 1907 project to assess the conditions of art objects in colleges and universities ultimately led to the founding of the CAA.2 Then, during the lean years of the Great Depression, the executive director, Audrey McMahon, sought help for artists who were unemployed. This was one of a number of factors leading to the establishment of the Works Prog-
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ress Administration’s Federal Art Project, of which McMahon became New York City regional director.3 The third CAA activity, exhibitions, has attracted recurrent interest from members although receiving only sporadic financial support. The organization launched notable initiatives for exhibitions during the 1930s (see chapter 3). The CAA International 1933 reportedly traveled to eight venues, including Rockefeller Center and the Art Institute of Chicago.4 During the 1950s, the association had two exhibitions traveling abroad and had successfully resisted government attempts at censorship.5 One exhibition was of art in university and museum collections and the other consisted of art by students. Nevertheless, despite significant achievements, only relatively recently has CAA begun to formalize its exhibition process to ensure its future continuity.
recent background Board and member interest in having the CAA sponsor exhibitions was renewed briefly in the 1970s and then again in the late 1980s. As artist and critic Louis Finkelstein reported in 1969, “Exhibition of creative work is to be regarded as analogous to publication in other fields.” 6 In 1970 Linda Nochlin suggested that provisions should be made for artists to display their works in conjunction with the placement bureau at the annual meetings.7 In 1974, while Anne Coffin Hanson presided as the association’s first woman president, CAA hosted Drawings by MFA Candidates from American Colleges and Universities at Wayne State University, in conjunction with the 62nd Annual Conference in Detroit.8 From the 1960s to the 1990s feminist groups and collectives, such as PAD/D (Political Art Documentation and Distribution), Colab, Group Material, Guerrilla Girls, REPOhistory, ACT UP, and General Idea were active, changing the face of American art.9 In the 1980s, in an AIDS-stricken world, many artists sought opportunities to exhibit work outside the market-determining power structures of the official art world. Artists who resisted the increasing commercialization of the art world found that alternative exhibition spaces and not-forprofit institutions such as CAA offered newly attractive options.
the mfa The 1980s also witnessed a large increase of MFA artists working in academia.10 The conservative right opposed National Endowment for the Arts support of artists, and the outcome was an erosion of public support of art. For many artists the university replaced government grants as a source of patronage. According to Helen Molesworth, ten thousand MFA degrees were awarded in the United States from 1990 to 1995, while, in the 1970s only forty-four MFA programs
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existed in the United States.11 CAA-organized exhibitions of MFA artists were a logical way to assist the growing numbers of artist MFA members. Exhibitions would provide opportunities for emerging artists to show their art publicly and build a professional résumé. Holding shows during the annual conferences would ensure that the work would be seen by art professionals from all over the United States. In 1989, CAA organized the Bay Area MFA Exhibition at its 77th Annual Conference at San Francisco State University; it was installed by Professor Judith Bettelheim with Susan Ball’s encouragement.12 The MFA exhibits after 1989 sponsored by CAA (for which documentation exists) included the 1996 Annual Conference in Boston, in which ten regional MFA programs participated. The exhibition was curated by Trevor Fairbrother, Mary Drach McInnes, and Barbara Krakow, and it reportedly drew a crowd of 1,300 visitors. Hunter College hosted all six MFA exhibitions in New York City in conjunction with the annual conference (1990, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2003, and 2007), and each year has witnessed an increase in the number of reviews and participating schools. Jeanne C. Wilkinson reviewed the MFA exhibition of 1997 in New York in Review at a time when more than two hundred artists participated (organizer Susan Edwards was then the curator of the Hunter College Art Galleries). By 2003 fourteen schools participated in the MFA exhibition at the Hunter College/ Times Square Gallery. In 2007 a record number of twenty-two schools participated in the Hunter College/Times Square Gallery MFA exhibitions, overseen by Tracy L. Adler (curator of the Hunter College Art Galleries). MFA exhibitions were held at a variety of other locations in conjunction with the annual conference. In Chicago in 2001, the exhibition was sponsored by CAA, the University of Illinois, Chicago, the University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign, and the Mixed Greens gallery and was held at two locations, the Great Space and I Space. The following year in Philadelphia, Six Degrees in Cold Storage was hosted by the University of the Arts in a former industrial space in the Old City area, where many small commercial galleries are located. The other participating schools were the Maryland Institute College of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, the University of Delaware, and the University of Pennsylvania. In Atlanta in 2005 fourteen schools participated, and the exhibition was held at the Bill Lowe Gallery at the University of Georgia. It was cosponsored by CAA and the Lamar Dodd School of Art, and Robin Dana wrote an essay for the brochure. In 2006 the annual conference was once again in Boston, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design hosted the exhibition. It was organized by George Creamer, who expanded the format to include work in performance and time-based media, instituting a multivenue format. Each school was responsible for selecting its own students.
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the regional conference exhibitions The Regional Conference Exhibition, also known as the CAA Members’ Exhibition, underwent a separate evolution. In 1996, while Judith K. Brodsky was president, the board proposed to include an exhibition component in conjunction with the annual conference in order to better serve its artist members’ needs. Artists in academic positions wished to build a strong résumé in order to obtain a job and secure tenure; those outside of the mainstream needed exposure; and all artists sought attention for their work. As a result, in relatively recent times in conjunction with its annual conference, CAA has sporadically held a Members’ Exhibition. The first such exhibition was the 1996 AIDS Communities: Arts Communities, held at the Boston Center for the Arts and Institute of Contemporary Art.13 It was cosponsored by CAA, the Gay and Lesbian Caucus, and the Archive Project to signify those lost to AIDS and the immense loss to art communities. Philip Yenawine wrote the catalogue for the Archive Project’s first exhibition. (According to the minutes of the CAA board of directors, $2,000 was granted to the Visual Arts Committee for the show.) During the 1997 annual conference in New York while Leslie King-Hammond was president, Techno-Seduction was curated by Robert Rindler and Deborah Willis. The exhibition included work selected by Holly Block, Deborah Bright, and David Deitcher, and Berta M. Sichel provided a resource room. The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art held the exhibition, supplemented some of the costs, and featured multimedia installation work by forty artists. Rindler designed the exhibition with assistance from Brian Wallace and Roy Ascott; Deborah J. Haynes and others provided essays. The handsome catalogue was designed by Mindy Lang. The artists included Annette Weintraub, Adrianne Wortzel, Nell Tenhaaf, Kathleen Ruiz, Pepón Osorio, Michael Joo, Janet Zweig, Beverly Fishman, Do-Ho Suh, and Tishan Hsu among many other now well-known artists.14 The exhibition was enthusiastically reviewed by Holland Cotter in the New York Times.15 Gallery exhibitions in conjunction with the annual conference did not take place in 2000 or 2001. In 2001 in Chicago, however, New Space, New Audience became the first online CAA Members’ Exhibition, sponsored by Columbia College Chicago. The exhibition did not take full advantage of the communicative abilities of Web-based art because it tended to feature scanned images of otherwise traditional media; nevertheless the exhibition signaled CAA’s exploratory foray into the arena of new media. In 2001–2002, the association carried out a feasibility study for a new series of CAA-sponsored exhibitions of contemporary art to determine interest in expanding the scope and ambitions of an exhibition program on the part of artists, curators, and visual-arts institutions.16 The report to CAA’s board of directors,
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which was written by Marta Teegen, then CAA’s director of governance and advocacy, and myself, concluded that there was indeed widespread interest and that the program could be structured to fulfill unmet needs. That particular program was never realized, but it led to the formation of an Exhibitions Committee charged with expanding exhibition opportunities and developing a procedure to ensure that well-conceived exhibition proposals would arrive far enough in advance of the exhibitions so that the host institution could seek additional funds. Although CAA had successfully mounted other exhibitions, calls for proposals were not always issued, venues were hard to locate with only a year’s notice, and a sizable burden was placed on the staff at a time when conference demands were greatest. The board sought another mechanism to solicit and review solid exhibition proposals. In the meantime the board, the Services to Artists Committee (SAC), and the Museum Committee in concert with Emmanuel Lemakis, director of programs, renewed efforts to make certain that dynamic exhibitions would take place. In 2002 the Painted Bride Arts Center, a highly regarded nonprofit visual and performing arts venue in Old City Philadelphia, hosted Hopscotch: Associative Leaps in the Construction of Narrative. This exhibition inquired about the nature of the serial narrative and included multimedia installations, video, drawing, paintings, and sculpture. The artists included Nikki Anderson, Kevin Klein, Eric McDade, Darcio Polo, Gregory Sholette, and Jenny Snider, among others.17 Ellen M. Rosenholtz, director of programs at the Painted Bride center, wrote the brochure essay. The conference and exhibition were especially poignant in the aftermath of September 11. Anne Ellegood and Rachel Gugelberger curated a highly imaginative Members’ Exhibition in New York in 2003. The conference took place during an orange-alert security status and heavy snowstorm. Crossings: Artistic and Curatorial Practice was a multisite exhibit that probed the nature of sites and the multiple modes of artistic and curatorial practice. It encompassed performance art, social interactions, site-specific installation, interventions, and film, providing examples of new art forms. A panel on independent curating accompanied the exhibitions, with Christopher Ho, Sara Reisman, and Kenny Schachter as speakers. One of the particularly memorable sites was held in Essex Market, located in the Lower East Side. According to the curators, “Two thematic exhibitions developed from the submissions: one that reflects on what it is to be ‘American,’ and another that examines sculptural tendencies and sensibilities.” Artists included Cory Arcangel/BEIGE, Michele Brody, Lynn Cazabon, Andrea Cohen, Susan Hamburger, Edgar Heap of Birds, Christian Nguyen, and Austin Thomas.18 An impressive multimedia exhibition, Suspension: Sonic Absorption was held at ConWorks in Seattle in 2004 in conjunction with the annual conference. The ConWorks curatorial team for this exhibit reviewed more than one hundred
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submissions from CAA artist members, indicating the high level of enthusiasm among artist members for the theme and the potential opportunity to exhibit. Selected works invoking complex systems were experienced in space or through headphones, two-dimensional and three-dimensional multimedia installations, acoustic and digital “instruments,” objects that incorporated sound elements, videos, and works that attempted to show us what sound looks or feels like. The fourteen selected artists included Ted Apel, Deborah Aschheim, Ashley Hope Carlisle, Philip Galanter, Jane Philbrick, and Stephen Vitiello.19 In addition to this exhibition, which was held offsite, art was shown at the conference site itself. The SAC held an “Open Video” screening at the Seattle conference site, and Victoria Vesna, one of the participants, treated attendees to her video work on nanotechnology. Beauvais Lyons, head of SAC at the time, initiated an “Arts Exchange,” so artists could discuss their work with their peers. In 2005 in Atlanta, the exhibition What Business Are You In? was held at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (Helena Reckitt was curator and William Wood wrote the catalog essay). Artists included Michael Aurbach (then CAA president), Alex Bag, Andrea Fraser, Lucy Kimbell, Adrian Piper, and John Salvest.20
2006 to 2008 Immediately prior to the formation of a formal Exhibitions Committee in 2005 during my tenure as CAA president, the Annual Conference Exhibition underwent a period of transition. The 2006 conference show, After, was held at Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts (Laura Donaldson was curator and wrote the catalogue essay). Fifteen artists were included in an elegant catalogue designed by Hank Pinkowski. The artists included Jake Bloomer, Anna B. Bresnick, Gary Duehr, Julie Roberts, and Jonathan Whitehall.21 The Exhibitions Committee’s first official exhibition, Networked Nature, was held in 2007 at Foxy Production in New York. It was favorably reviewed by both the New York Times and the Village Voice. The show was held in conjunction with CAA’s 95th Annual Conference, and it was organized by Marisa Olson for Rhizome, a New Museum of Contemporary Art affiliate. The exhibition included C5, Futurefarmers, Shih Chieh Huang, and Stephen Vitiello. The exhibition, alluding to environmental concerns, also included Gail Wight’s documentation of a slime mold and Philip Ross’s survival capsules for living plants. In 2005 Joan Marter, professor of art history at Rutgers University, became the first chair of the Exhibitions Committee and has helped to oversee its development. The overall objective is to facilitate the exhibition and critical interpretation of challenging, artistically significant contemporary art. The Exhibitions
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Committee selects at least one significant CAA exhibition that coincides with the annual conference and supports an accompanying catalogue every calendar year. At its inception, in addition to Professor Marter, committee members included then executive board member Virginia M. Mecklenburg; at-large members Sharon Matt Atkins, Romi Crawford, and Jeffrey Grove; and New York City local representative Nobuho Nagasawa.22 With the Exhibitions Committee in place, Emmanuel Lemakis, with assistance from Paul Skiff (assistant director for the annual conference), continued to administer the conference exhibitions. Up until 2009, proposals were submitted in response to a call routinely placed in CAA News, and the accepted proposal received a $10,000 grant and an additional $5,000 toward a catalogue. On occasion, invitations to submit proposals were solicited in order to ensure that the Exhibitions Committee has a choice of viable options. Since conference venues are determined years in advance, the expectation was that venues could try to locate supplemental funding to add to CAA’s initial pledge of support. Grant applications were reviewed according to criteria encompassing artistic significance, the location of participating venues, potential impact on the regional artistic community, appropriateness of the project, and the applicant’s ability to carry out the project given existing financial, staff, and other organizational resources. Rarely has CAA undertaken the physical assembling and shipping, the only exception being occasionally during the 1920s and 1930s. Each exhibition was expected to involve, generally, between ten and twenty artists, and it was hoped that each exhibition would attract a minimum of 2,000 visitors. Distribution of exhibition materials in publications, in conference materials, on the Web, and in local and art-related media outlets provides additional exposure even after the show has taken place. Hosting a CAA exhibition benefits venues by adding to their visibility, visitation, and support. Reviews of the CAA exhibitions benefit venues, curators, and artists alike. Beyond these impacts, CAA serves the field at large by promoting artistic and regional diversity. The Exhibitions Committee was charged with growing “in its quality and profile, to become the equivalent of the organization’s scholarly publications, The Art Bulletin and Art Journal.” 23 The committee opened up the exhibition to artists who are non-CAA members in order to ensure that the exhibition would be seen as internationally competitive. Although its functions were restricted to exhibitions held during the annual conference, it could theoretically branch out, pending support and interest. At the time of this writing, CAA members have held the 2008 conference in Dallas. The Gallery at UTA, on the campus of the University of Texas, Arlington, hosted the CAA Annual Exhibition. Called Points of Convergence: Masters of Fine Arts and organized by Benito Huerta, the exhibition presented a group of nationally recognized professional artists who had received an MFA degree and
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paired them with current MFA student artists from the same colleges, universities, and art schools. Enrique Chagoya and Ali Dadgar (University of California, Berkeley); Ross Bleckner and Louisa Conrad (California Institute of the Arts); Donald Lipski and Samuel Rowlett (Cranbrook Academy of Art); Michael Ray Charles and Kelli Vance (University of Houston); Janine Antoni and Heather Leigh McPherson (Rhode Island School of Design); David Bates and Eric Chavera (Southern Methodist University); and Ann Hamilton and Betsy Odom (Yale University) were among the artists. Janet Kutner wrote the essay in the catalogue. Points of Convergence was intended to mirror the graduate-program experience, in which established artist professors mentor their younger counterparts, and explorations take precedence over slick practices. The exhibition in Dallas was also intended to probe the MFA degree, which is now subject to increasingly pertinent questions. How will doctoral programs in studio art affect the MFA? How have MFA-holding artists been affected by the increase of part-time positions and cancellation of many full-time teaching lines? Do CAA-sponsored exhibitions significantly count toward gaining its artist members credibility for desirable tenure-track positions? The CAA Regional MFA Exhibition took place in 2008 at the Cora Stafford Gallery at the University of North Texas, Denton. Sponsored by the gallery and the College of Visual Arts and Design, the exhibition highlighted the work of MFA candidates currently studying in Dallas–Fort Worth area schools and colleges of fine and visual arts and design. For the third year, representatives from CAA’s Exhibitions Committee selected artists to receive recognition awards.
looking ahead Exhibitions are a key component of the mission and history of CAA, which is kept vital, in part, by the interaction among artists, art historians, critics, and curators. Of this group with a potential interest in CAA sponsoring exhibitions, artists alone compose 37 percent of the CAA membership as of February 2008. During the yearly Arts Advocacy Day held in Washington, D.C., CAA recommends legal actions favorable to the arts to our representatives in Congress. Art has become increasingly easier to justify supporting since surveys have demonstrated that the visual arts offer instrumental benefits.24 This recognition has been helpful for the arts to continue to attract funding in light of the pervasive economic downturn. But this is not the full story. Exhibitions address intrinsic as well as instrumental values. Exhibitions are important to creativity (intrinsic value) as well as to industry and education (instrumental benefits). The membership of CAA artists includes increasing numbers of artists working with interactive new media, bioart, ecological restoration, and some who work collaboratively with scientists. Artists’ technical requirements and need for access
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to experts across a range of disciplines increase the likelihood that they will have university affiliations. In effect, the cutting edge of contemporary art is arguably now located in academia. Art in an academic setting is where you will most likely find art willing to take on challenging and provocative content. At a time when artists are faced with the prospect of more part-time employment and greater economic recession, the association needs to attract artists, critics, and art administrators by offering a range of professional support, including MFA and Regional Exhibitions.25 If CAA is truly to emulate the organization’s scholarly publications, one must consider that publications have an infrastructure consisting of a permanent in-house editor/publisher who oversees all aspects of the production. In coming years CAA may need to consider something comparable for it to sponsor regular and successful exhibitions. The organization’s resources of conference and publications facilitate the exchange of ideas and can enhance a program of exhibitions. In turn exhibitions lend meaningful visibility to the CAA as the umbrella arts organization in the United States. To safeguard a future we must seek to refine the program and secure its continuation and expansion through support on all levels.
9 CAA, Pedagogy and Curriculum A Historical Effort, An Unparalleled Wealth of Ideas matthew israel
Purpose 9. To encourage and support those groups and activities, inside and outside of this Association, that set themselves the task of elevating the standards of teaching and curricula, of improving the materials of teaching, and of generally advancing the cause of learning in the arts at the secondary, undergraduate, and graduate levels. Purpose 16. To develop, disseminate, and, where appropriate, implement standards, guidelines, and statements of policy regarding the activities of the profession(s) and the Association. ince its founding in 1911 and throughout its history, the College Art Association has consistently sought to focus the fields of art history and studio art on issues of pedagogy and curriculum through a multitude of approaches, which have always been modified in intensity and scope to these fields’ changing needs. At first, because of the tenuous condition of the arts in American colleges during the 1910s and early 1920s, such a focus was crucial to CAA. Most important, it directly encouraged (most often through its presidents) individual scholarship on pedagogy and curriculum, which was presented at the annual meetings and/or published in the association’s Bulletin of the College Art Association of America (which after the first issue became The Art Bulletin). The organization also formed various committees to discuss and debate educational
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issues among its increasing membership. During the first decade of its existence, CAA rapidly became the primary national organization working toward improving the method and make-up of art courses within American academia. As the arts gained a foothold in colleges in the 1920s, however, the necessity of a full-blown effort on behalf of art historical and studio art pedagogy and curriculum subsided and CAA concentrated on fostering more technical research in the arts, almost entirely in art history. As a result, Art Bulletin became almost wholly populated by art historical research papers (see chapter 5). Through the mid-1920s, the annual meeting progressively included less and less research on educational issues. The 1930s and 1940s marked a return to CAA’s initial priorities regarding pedagogy and curriculum. The concerns of the annual meeting into the late 1930s increasingly included educational issues. At the same time, the association began to rely less on the annual conference (and independent scholars) to engage such issues and leaned more on restructured or new publications and their own, broader, internal studies and reports. For example, the association first looked to a restructured version of its periodical Parnassus. The publication had been created to compete head-on with other popular major American art magazines, but in 1941 it was refocused primarily on pedagogical issues. Then, when Parnassus was quickly cancelled, CAA created a new type of magazine, the College Art Journal (which later became Art Journal). College Art Journal, according to CAA, would feature, among other things (in the words of Erwin Panofsky): “valuable information as to curricula” as well as a consistent “forum discussion of all problems pertinent to the teaching of art history and arts, even such questions as the relation between the art historian and the creative artist, the role of living arts in college curricula, etc.” 1 More important, however, this period marked the beginning of CAA’s extensive published efforts on art pedagogy and curriculum. The first of these was the landmark 1943 survey of liberal arts colleges by Robert Goldwater, “The Teaching of Art in the Colleges of the United States,” funded in part by the organization. Following this project was an article published by CAA’s Committee on the Teaching of the History of Art in the Liberal Arts College entitled “A Statement on the Place of the History of Art in the Liberal Arts Curriculum.” This article in general took a stand against the World War II curtailment of the humanities in colleges and used it as an opportunity to propose a multifaceted explanation of the significance of art history within education. Following was another CAA statement, by one of its committees, on the state of the practice of art. The statement argued, as Goldwater’s had, that studio art education was in distress, and it offered various recommendations for advancement.2 The largest and most important study that was eventually undertaken, influenced by CAA’s pedagogical projects of the 1930s and 1940s, was The Visual Arts
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in Higher Education, organized by a CAA committee between 1964 and 1966, edited by Andrew C. Ritchie, and funded by the Ford Foundation. The Visual Arts in Higher Education, to a much greater extent than Goldwater’s study, seeks to explain all aspects of the state of the arts in higher education while also making extensive recommendations toward their improvement. Since the late 1960s, though discussion of educational issues has been consistent at the annual conference (where they have often been the subject of individual sessions and papers), they are rarely cultivated past this point. For example, educational issues have been only sporadically the concern of Art Journal, which has progressively focused itself on alternate issues in the field. However, all has not been lost in this area—in fact, quite the contrary. For CAA, since the early 1970s, has embarked on what can be seen as a “concluding” series of efforts regarding its historical engagement with pedagogical and curricular issues: its guidelines and standards of art history and studio art, which have been successively expanded and amended since the early 1970s.
1910–1944 Concerns regarding pedagogy and curriculum were the principal reasons for the founding of CAA. Evidence of this comes as early as 1910, in a speech, quoted elsewhere in this volume, that was delivered at the annual meeting of the Western Drawing and Manual Training Association by Professor Holmes Smith of Washington University (who would become CAA’s first president). He proposed the formation of a stable association of “college art workers” to discuss the problems of working in the field. Pedagogy was seen as the central problem for such an organization, a problem whose resolution would solidify art’s new place in American academic life.3 After CAA’s founding, which took place gradually between Smith’s 1910 speech and May 4, 1912—when the association’s constitution was adopted—this focus did not subside. For example, in the first issue of the Bulletin of the College Art Association, Smith, by then the newly elected president of the association, authored an article entitled “Problems of the College Art Association.” Smith’s article explained that the aim of CAA (its board of governors, its faculties, and its student body) was to advocate for the arts within the university so that the university “may eventually occupy a leading position in artistic thought, such as it has already attained in the other great branches of national activity.” And, again, the major key to advancing the place of the arts in the university setting, according to Smith, was a concentration on method. In Smith’s view, while the emergence of art in the university setting was to be applauded, there was “a vast amount of unorganized experimentation resulting in methods as varied as the capacity and training of the instructors under whose guidance the work is
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carried on.” In other words, Smith explained, “there is no commonly accepted view even among our teachers as to what, how, and when art shall be taught in undergraduate and graduate courses.” Accordingly, Smith saw CAA (quite vividly) as being “[a]n authoritative voice that shall quell the confusion of tongues, a quickening breath that shall clarify the atmosphere of threatening clouds of indolence, ignorance and ineptitude, and a deft hand that shall single out the truth from the tangled mass of insincerities, for ‘where there is no vision the people perish.’ ” 4 After Smith’s call to arms, the organization as a whole took concrete action. First, committees were formed, the majority of them “concerned with investigating college courses in art, both its history and practice.” 5 There was the committee On Investigation of Conditions of Art Instruction in American Universities and Colleges, as well as a committee that concerned itself with Typical University Art Courses, and within this latter committee three subcommittees concerning the Typical University Art Course as a Means of Liberal Culture, The Practice of Art in the University Curriculum, and, finally, Experimental Work. Second, CAA’s annual conferences (then referred to as “meetings”) continued and extended this focus to such an extent that educational issues dominated. At the first annual conference, for example, seven out of the eleven papers read concerned such issues as the general issue of art pedagogy; the “place” of the study of art in the American university; the place of the study of engraving in the university; the possibility of a college degree in the fine arts; and, finally, teaching design in the university setting. The fifth annual conference (whose program was published in the second issue of the Bulletin) even opened with a roundtable discussion on the subject of “What Kinds of Art Courses Are Suitable for the College A.B. Curriculum?” and followed with a report of the Committee on Investigation of Art Education in American Colleges and Universities by Smith; reports of the Committee on Books for the College Art Library, and a four-part discussion concerning “What Instruction in Art Should the College A.B. Course Offer?” to the future artist, the future museum worker, the future writer on art, and the future layman. Significantly, although “technical studies” both began and ended the fifth conference (these were “The Doubting Thomas, a Bronze Group by Andrea del Verrocchio,” by John Pickard and “Sienese Art as Represented in the Fogg Art Museum,” by G. H. Edgell), no other such studies were presented, and these two papers were moreover not at all considered the main focus of the conference. Such initial direction and mobilization on behalf of educational issues during this period meant little, though, when it came to sitting down and actually resolving them, or, in other words, to fulfilling Smith’s initial, promissory desire that CAA could be the “deft hand” for standardizing the teaching of the arts in America. For, according to W.L.M. Burke (whose brief “Early Years of the Col-
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lege Art Association” is one of the only published accounts of the association’s initial period), there was a great amount of controversy at the annual meeting among those desiring full academic credit for creative art, those limiting such credit to students of the history and theory of art, and those who believed that history and theory can be most successfully taught when some measure of visual training and manual control are encountered by the student. Dean Chase of Harvard University, who was then chairman of the Central committee on “Typical University Art Courses,” recall[ed] that after long sessions spent in formulating suggestions for an ideal program for the teaching of the fine arts in colleges, these three opposed points of view continued to prevent agreement. Alice Van Vechten Brown of Wellesley College and Alfred Brooks of Indiana University [also] remember great difficulties in arranging the annual meetings, of bringing together busy scholars for discussion of their common interests and problems, and informing working committees to survey the most important needs of the whole field.6 By 1917 such a lack of resolution among the members of the organization regarding pedagogical and curricular issues (probably coupled with the gradual success of art history in the American university) began to divide the association into two camps. On the one hand, there were members who believed that what art should be in college education and how it should be presented there should be the central concerns of CAA, and that the organization should work toward standardizing art education in both the American college and university. On the other hand, a rising (and increasingly larger) faction within the association urged CAA to move away from educational issues and become principally preoccupied with “technical subjects.” This “move away” was incredibly important for this faction because they believed the organization could not hope “to take important rank and position among the learned societies of our time until [its] meetings are characterized by profound discussions of technical subjects—and not even then unless such learned papers are published as ‘original work’ by . . . members.” 7 Then-President John Pickard battled hard, publicly, against this faction in the association, and was successful for a few years, to the extent that into the early 1920s CAA maintained its strong focus on educational issues at the annual meeting. However, in the later 1920s, this focus eroded and papers on technical subjects began to dominate the conference, so that by 1929 no papers concerned pedagogical or curricular issues; the number of committees committed to educational issues dwindled; and the new Art Bulletin—though originally viewed by Pickard as the means through which CAA would reach a broader and more gen-
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eral audience—instead was focused almost entirely on specialized art historical scholarship.8 Though Art Bulletin never returned to educational issues, the early 1930s saw CAA gradually return to them via the annual conference. Arguably, this began at the 21st Annual Meeting in April 1932, which included at the tail end of its program an open forum at the Metropolitan Museum on “the educational value of instruction in the arts as a preparatory subject for college entrance credit,” and featured eleven different perspectives on the issue, ranging from the president of the Carnegie Corporation (who was allotted fifteen minutes to talk on the subject of “[o]ur educational system and the necessity of training in art as a foundational preparation for a general college education”) to professors and administrators at Columbia and Princeton. Possibly because of the success of this forum, the next year the meeting opened with a similar, though more structured (and thus less “open”) forum. At the 23rd Annual Meeting in 1933 this format was continued and even expanded. On the afternoon of the first day, after a presentation of art historical research papers, a forum chaired by Myrtilla Avery of Wellesley College took place on “The Methods of Teaching in the Fine Arts in Colleges and Universities” with set topics of discussion. They were: (1) the value of elementary studies in practical art as an intrinsic part of courses in the history of art, i.e., the so-called laboratory; (2) the place in a liberal arts college of studio courses not necessarily related to the history of art; and (3) the content of studio courses, in particular, the emphasis to be placed on design, sketching, technical perfection, and similar considerations. This reversion at the annual conference, however, was brief and lasted only into the late 1930s, for by the early 1940s the conference was again dominated by art historical research papers. This situation, with exceptions, has lasted until the present day.9 Yet the permanent decline of the annual conference as a site for extensive discussion and debate on issues of both art historical and studio art pedagogy and curriculum in the early 1940s was not the death of CAA’s concern with them, for this decline was fortunately coupled with the birth of new projects in this area. Some of these projects held much promise but had little actual success, while others thrived, changing the methods and personality of CAA’s engagement with educational issues for years to come. The first of CAA’s new projects was its Research Institute of Fine Arts, which began in the early 1930s. The basic aim of the Institute was two-pronged. First, it was meant as a funding site, to support the art historical research of two fellows per year in Spanish and Islamic art, at “the most favorable conditions possible.” Second (and this is the more educational angle), these fellows were supposed to use their research to provide guidance as well as material resources in New York to assist and train young archaeologists in the field, in particular those from colleges outside of New York. Unfortunately, while the program did end up support-
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ing one year of research (that of Rudolf Meyer Riefstahl and Walter W. S. Cook), it seems that a lack of adequate funding prohibited the Research Institute from continuing for a second year—though new fellows had been selected for it—and taking on the greater role CAA had envisioned for it. During this period the organization also introduced a new version of its magazine Parnassus. Parnassus had originally been created to function like, and compete with, the likes of ARTnews and Art Digest. However, in 1940 CAA reintroduced Parnassus as “an educational magazine fighting for good art, good scholarship, and good teaching.” 10 Such a reconception was very much like the Research Institute, promising at first but, in the end, limited and short-lived. For example, the first few issues of the “new” Parnassus engaged with education through short editorial sections on “Art Education,” “Talented Art Students,” one section profiling various “College Art Departments,” and a letter forum on educational issues, such as the PhD in “creative art.” Then Parnassus was cancelled in May 1941. CAA immediately replaced Parnassus with the College Art Journal. Although scaled down in comparison to Parnassus and with its major focus on news pertaining to higher art education and the association’s meetings, CAA explained that the new journal would continue to advance the aims of art education in relation to colleges and universities in the United States, very much as Parnassus had.11 The College Art Journal, however, would undertake this concern quite differently than Parnassus had, for CAA also announced in May 1941—to significant opposition within the association—that the journal would “reflect the new emphasis of the Association, which is the support and promotion of the teaching of the history, analysis and interpretation, rather than the creation, of arts.” 12 The journal turned out, unfortunately, to be much like the Research Institute and Parnassus regarding educational issues, for even though it has lasted to this day (with a slight name change), in general, after 1950 (though exceptions exist, as with the annual conference) the College Art Journal has focused progressively on being solely a catalogue of current affairs and new art historical research rather than a forum for debates regarding educational issues. This has occurred to such an extent that between 1980 and the present day there have been hardly any articles on the subject. A significant recent exception was the Fall 1995 issue of Art Journal, edited by Bradford R. Collins, which focused on a “rethinking” of the introductory art history survey.13
1944–1970 Judging from the increasing dominance of art historical papers at the annual meeting; the short-lived Research Institute of Fine Arts; the quick decline of an educationally oriented Parnassus; and the birth of the more limited “trade”
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publication College Art Journal, it would seem that by the early 1940s CAA had moved—despite its efforts to the contrary—solidly away from considering questions of pedagogy and curriculum as an institution. Yet between roughly 1944 and 1970—years that marked an extensive expansion of art history and studio art departments in the United States—CAA helped publish (through direct funding of scholars or its own educational committees) highly significant research in this area, which aimed to further establish the arts within academia as well as improve the method and makeup of its course offerings. The association published such efforts in Art Journal as well as in its own stand-alone publications. To begin with, in 1943, then Queens College professor Robert Goldwater, owing to a commission from CAA (and funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York), undertook a survey of fifty leading liberal arts colleges throughout the country. On the basis of this survey, Goldwater presented a “broad and detailed” explanation of the current state of art as the subject of academic study in liberal arts colleges in the United States. This explanation was “The Teaching of Art in the Colleges of the United States,” which CAA published in a supplement to the journal in May 1943.14 Goldwater’s report was (and is still) incredibly significant for the field, because it offered arguably the best (and also perhaps the sole) broad picture of art in the academic context during this period. Goldwater’s first concern was the introductory course in art history. By 1940, this course had been adopted in forty-one of the fifty schools in the study. This was a marked change since 1900, when only eight of the fifty schools in the study offered such a course, and these courses were often divided between studio and classroom or were surveys of “all of the arts.” 15 Goldwater explained that the primary reason the course had grown to be almost uniformly adopted was the “inadequate [foundational] training of the high school student in the understanding of the arts.” 16 While the format of the introductory course in 1940 was not at all identical across the board, Goldwater distilled it into two general types: the chronological survey course and the systematic, nonchronological approach, which “picked its examples freely to illustrate important ideas and problems.” Goldwater celebrated the approach of Wellesley College, which fit into neither category, and which incorporated a “laboratory” or studio component in the introductory class that aimed to supplement, clarify and deepen the “classroom and library study of the history of art through practical exercises in technique and style.” 17 As of 1940, roughly half of the universities surveyed offered the chronological approach and the other half offered the systematic. With one or two exceptions, these introductory courses were characteristically scheduled for three hours a week over a full academic year (or two semesters); they could be taken at any time; and, finally, such a course was not required for the bachelor’s degree. Goldwater’s report then moved on to offerings beyond the introductory
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course. The most significant of his findings was that classical courses outnumbered any other subject area in art history. Furthermore, he noted that classical courses existed more in art history than in any other field, to the extent that art history had become the “chief means by which the modern student interpreted the spirit and heritage of classical civilization.” Though Goldwater refrained from positing definite causes for this situation, he explained that one cause was surely the fact that art history had grown out of classics departments “at a time when classical languages played a leading role in undergraduate curricula.” He explained that the longstanding, “honorably official position” of classical studies in Europe and the concentration on this area in England were also “instrumental” in this situation. Additionally, the consistent desire of colleges to hire a combined art historian and artist pushed art historians (as a means of defining themselves) to react against “recent and contemporary art” and toward “fields in which a truly ‘scholarly’ exactitude” seemed possible, as in archaeology, whose “traditional archaeological methods [are] difficult to employ in the study of the more recent periods.” 18 Goldwater also found that course offerings in art history decreased the closer one approached the present day in European art, and then usually after the most recent modern period came one or two offerings in American and Latin American art and other non-European subjects. Goldwater gleaned three conclusions from this. First, “the closer we approach the art of our own time, the less study, analysis, and time and effort devoted to an historical understanding there seemed to be.” 19 Second, such a course distribution in art history reflected a major function of art history on the college campus: to round out the curriculum by placing emphasis where other departments were not, or specifically teaching through visual means the parts of the college program that could no longer be given by linguistic methods, that is, distant historical periods. Third, such an emphasis, and the concomitant blatant neglect of the art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, “reinforced the already too prevalent public attitude (of which this neglect was itself a part the result) of regarding good art as a product only of the past.” Within his analysis of the offerings beyond the introductory course, Goldwater notably remarked on art history’s unswerving emphasis on painting to the exclusion of sculpture and architecture. This state of affairs can be seen as being rooted in the art historian’s allegiance to “contemporary or recently traditional art practice,” which is not surprising, because most departments of art history came to be in the twentieth century when the mention of art has consistently brought “to mind painting.” 20 Goldwater’s report aimed to establish the state of the arts in America as of 1940, so it also briefly considered studio art. Progressing through the subject as he had done through art history, Goldwater first discussed the introductory course, which he found offered in only fifteen of the colleges surveyed, which
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he noted was a consistent ratio (of about three to one) of art history to studio art introductory courses offered in academia since 1900. As in his examination of the offerings of art history, Goldwater’s second concern was with the course offerings in studio art beyond the introductory course. In total, these secondary courses outnumbered art history courses—there were well over one thousand offered compared to roughly eight hundred in the history of art. Yet Goldwater found that, despite such plenty, “an examination of the distribution of the studio courses among the colleges, the groups in which they are offered, and their classification within the liberal arts program, reveals a statistical picture much less well defined and much less easily read.” For example, while every college gave some attention to art history, eight of the fifty schools surveyed (most of these being in the East) showed no evidence at all of studio art classes. Other colleges, although they recognized the need for studio courses on campus, did not include them within their borders but relegated these courses to professional art schools with which they had an affiliation. Finally, for the rest of the schools surveyed, most of their studio art curriculum was “linked in one or another of its phases with pointedly pre-professional training.” Such statistics led to Goldwater’s general conclusion regarding studio art in this country’s colleges: in 1940, its situation is precarious and unestablished and it “bursts the boundaries of the liberal arts framework” in a not-so-positive fashion.21 Though the immediate reaction to Goldwater’s study is difficult to ascertain—apart from published comments such as those of Alfred Barr (who called it “useful” and “comprehensive”)—the study’s subsequent influence is certain. It has been commonly cited in later research on the study of art history and studio art—by CAA as well as by other organizations and individuals—as one of the major initial studies on the subject. (The other major study is Priscilla Hiss and Roberta Fansler’s Research in the Fine Arts in the Colleges and Universities of the United States, published by the Carnegie Corporation in 1934.) Goldwater’s statistical findings, major concerns, and probing questions—for and of the disciplines—provided a foundation for much further research and inquiry into art history and studio art in the United States.22
statements In 1944, the year following the publication of Goldwater’s report, CAA published two major articles, which were initiated by two CAA committees, in the College Art Journal on the subject of the arts within academia. The first article, “A Statement on the Place of the History of Art in the Liberal Arts Curriculum,” argued for the importance of art history within a liberal arts education. The second, “A Statement of the Practice of Arts Courses,” argued for a new approach to studio art within academia. These publications were crucial during this period, and in
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many respects are inseparable from this particular history, when many prominent members of the field saw art’s progress to be threatened by the (although admittedly necessary) wartime curtailment of it in the colleges, in favor of more “useful” scientific and vocational training. Yet these statements maintain their importance even today. They provide an unparalleled example of how some of the major thinkers in the history of American art elaborated on the value of art to education and life in general. In addition, specifically in regard to art education, they provide a consummate example of how major thinkers of this period envisioned the future of studio art within American education. “A Statement on the Place of the History of Art in the Liberal Arts Curriculum” was authored by CAA’s Committee on the Teaching of the History of Art in the Liberal Arts College.23 The teaching committee was led by Millard Meiss, and included among its members George Kubler, Rensselaer W. Lee, Charles Rufus Morey, Paul Sachs, and Meyer Schapiro, as well as Panofsky and Barr. The statement began by arguing that art history was not, according to a rising opinion, simply meant to train artists or art historians; art itself was not strictly imitative (i.e., valued for its sleight-of-hand) and decorative; and, finally, art history should not only be indulged in like a “frill” or a “dessert,” after “solid” courses have been taken in science, literature, or philosophy. Buttressed by the current unprecedented growth and popular interest in the arts (discussed in Goldwater’s study)—such that the United States was now “a world center in this field”—the statement countered with a series of reasons for continuing the increased emphasis on art history in college education.24 First, the authors explained, to abandon the arts would be to leave the art education of the individual (as Pickard had argued in 1919) to kitsch, or what they called the “blind deforming influence of the mass arts—advertising, popular magazines, movies, and soon no doubt, television,” which they said were commercial, cynical, blatant, and exerted pressure to an extent that it is difficult to oppose them with a critical attitude or any sense of values.25 Second, the report argued that art history is integral to humanity’s understanding of the world, for although art may concern different aspects of emotional and intellectual experience from literature and philosophy, art similarly expresses our most serious thoughts and feelings, especially regarding our relations with our fellow humans and the world. Accordingly, the committee explained, if the “purpose of [the liberal arts] curriculum is the development of wisdom, responsibility and judgment,” a study of the masterpieces of architecture, sculpture, and painting must be undertaken: “All educated people have read Shakespeare. No person can be called educated unless he knows the sculpture of Michelangelo or the painting of Rembrandt.” 26 Third, the report argued, art history’s historical methods do not seek only memorization and classification, and are not meant solely for the training of art
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historians or artists, but seek to promote “enjoyment, insight, and judgment,” and, in particular for artists, seek to enrich their “personality” and provide “an enlightened audience for [their] work.” Art history also nurtures abilities other than those deemed “historical.” For example, art appreciation courses or courses concerning the principles of design “may succeed in developing perception.” 27 Fourth, according to the committee, art history has unique functions in the liberal arts college. As Goldwater had previously pointed out, art history enables students to bridge the often-insurmountable language barriers in the study of past or contemporary foreign cultures. Consequently, as Goldwater had, the committee argued that eliminating or reducing art history would be tantamount to eliminating Greek and Roman cultures from the curriculum, for this is how most students learn of and gain access to these subjects. As well, they explained, the study of Italy during the Renaissance would be eliminated from the college curriculum if art history was scaled back, for the visual arts, rather than music or science or literature, is the primary expressive means of this era and the sole way this period of history is represented to the college student. Pedagogically, the committee argued, art history has another advantage over other disciplines within the liberal arts college. Because works of art do not unfold in time but can be seen immediately and in their entirety, the authors argued that artworks can be more quickly understood than a novel or a symphony. And because comparison, they argued, is the basic method for the “discovery and demonstration of the unique qualities of works of art in any medium,” 28 the study of art can thus much more easily and more quickly exhibit the similarities and differences between objects of study. As a final note, the study argued, the history of art is as fundamental to liberal education as the English language—or language itself— since for many people language cannot communicate their feelings and ideas with the power and concreteness of the visual arts. “A Statement on the Place of the History of Art in the Liberal Arts Curriculum,” in addition to being printed in the College Art Journal, was separately printed up in a large run by the association, and these were mailed to the faculty of liberal art departments throughout the country, as well as to museum directors. The response was quite positive. At the time CAA remarked that a number of letters supporting the statement were received; the American Council of Learned Societies asked for 150 extra copies and the Rhode Island School of Design requested 800 extras. Also, it was noted during a meeting of the CAA board of directors that a small Midwestern college was, because of the statement, inspired to create a brand-new department of fine arts. During this period, in addition to Meiss’s committee, CAA sponsored a committee (chaired by Peppino Mangravite, then of Cooper Union and Columbia University) to research and report on the teaching of the practice of art in contemporary college life, as a more in-depth follow-up to Goldwater’s previous
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study, which had only briefly concerned itself with studio art. As a result, following the statement of Meiss’s committee, CAA published “A Statement on the Practice of Art Courses” in the College Art Journal in November 1944.29 This statement argued—like Goldwater’s report—that the current condition of college art departments was “inconsistent,” because (even though substantial financial support had been given to fund such departments) at the time most colleges had “segregated and isolated” art departments or regarded them as “extracurricular activities for the non-academic or ‘artistically-inclined’ student.” The reason for this state of affairs, the report argued, was that while departments time and again established a place for the practice of art (which the committee explained was previously the domain of middle school in the “usual sequence” of education), they did little to make sure it functioned properly “in relation to other fields of knowledge.” For example, the committee explained, art’s significance is consistently assessed in terms of historical facts (due to the dominance of the “cloak” of the history and theory of art) and this has resulted in a detachment from the subject.30 In response to this situation, the committee recommended the following. First, while they acknowledged the importance and independence of art history (for they said it helps the artist to understand the thoughts and feelings of historical periods and appreciate “the good friends he [sic] has come to know through their works of art”), they suggested (echoing Goldwater’s previous emphasis on the method at Wellesley College) that to understand the “fundamental motives of art . . . [and] the thought and feeling of particular artists, art history should be closely integrated with practice courses,” for “visual statements cannot be grasped wholly out of historical facts.” For example, they explained, “The idea of realizing a truth during the act of speaking and writing is familiar to everyone. Similarly the experience of arranging ideas visually by shape, space, color and texture will make it possible for the student to organize both thought and emotion. It will enable him to see further and feel more keenly than historical interpretations permit.” 31 Further, the committee recommended not just this integrated introductory course but also a series of required courses in undergraduate education (because they believed a student only acquires knowledge over a longer period of time). This series of courses would be taught by “artisteducators, trained alike in pictorial knowledge and contemporary psychology,” and its aim would be, according to the committee: To present to the student . . . a cumulative visual conception, through analysis and practice of the elements that compose a work of art, with emphasis on the structural principles by which the arts are formulated. In this way, his ability to acquire general knowledge through the eye and by practice would be heightened and expanded. In other words,
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instruction by word would be broadened to include instruction by sight— a broadening which is bound to have its effect not only on the student while in school but afterwards as a fully functioning member of society. The aim of this process of education would be to concentrate on seeing and doing as a two-way means of intelligent communication. In any kind of teaching, communicable elements become important factors, as they are the teaching elements.32 Such training, according to the committee, aimed at other things as well. It sought to provide (though they admit that the following “belief is not supported by a large amount of case evidence”) the means through which “young men and women of college caliber” and “superior training and intelligence” can contribute to better living and the development of better taste. As well, these courses would offer “a few individuals with latent creative qualities” the opportunity to “find themselves” earlier on, for the report explains that “too often the discovery [of art] comes too late for . . . imaginations to feed on the knowledge gained simultaneously in other fields. [And] too rarely can they continue this parallel development in the mature range of college study.” 33 Furthermore, such a series of courses (and here they echo Meiss’s committee’s statement) is a kind of bulwark that would allow colleges to shape and guide the current, immense, popular interest in art (which they called more palpable “than anywhere in Europe since the middle ages”), because left to its own devices, such popular interest is “potentially so mighty that it may well determine its own course.” 34 As such, the committee explained, this new model is (and should be seen as) an indictment of current college education, where, they argue: The average college sophomore’s knowledge of art and his standards of artistic taste parallel those of an eighth-grade student. He has been given little opportunity to improve on the notions acquired at that age. In knowledge and experience, his art courses, if he has had any, have not kept pace with his growing sensibilities. Scholastically, they have been far below his academic subjects.35 The committee acknowledged, however, that the institution of such a continuous program of education had many quite serious obstacles to overcome. The then-current college entrance system and the credit system were two of the major impediments, which they called: Practical means leading to no constructive ends . . . [which have] engendered false concepts, and . . . have failed to awaken the student to the advantages of learning for the sake of learning. Young college men and
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women have accepted these systems for the sake of the “advancement” they afford and in place of the knowledge and understanding which they fail to bestow. It has been assumed that any knowledge which can be discussed philosophically is liberal.36 As a concluding note, the committee wondered what would happen when American educators planned for postwar liberal arts courses, and specifically they pondered whether such educators would build toward the future or simply rely on old, outdated methods. Whatever the case would be, the committee argued, people could not understand culture without taking part in it, and they hoped that even if it meant radical changes, that we would soon build toward a more “consequential, better correlated, and more truly relevant study of art.” 37 The success of this study is primarily confirmed by David B. Manzella’s independent 1956 study in the College Art Journal, “The Teaching of Art in the Colleges of the United States: A Comparison of Current Trends with Those of 1940.” Manzella cites Mangravite’s influential reiteration of the positions of the study (evincing its historical legs) at the 1953 annual conference of the Secondary Education Board, as well as the institution that same year (and Mangravite’s explanation of this institution) at Columbia University, of “courses in creative design . . . [drawing and painting during the freshman and sophomore years] as liberal arts courses,” equal to English, history, social science, and philosophy, among others.38 Additionally, the study’s statement regarding the art historical education of artists was celebrated for its clarity and utility in a significant subsequent article in the College Art Journal by Donald J. Young, then of Occidental College.39
the visual arts in higher education The most significant study of art history and studio art CAA embarked upon, however, was the book-length The Visual Arts in Higher Education, which was published by Yale University Press in 1966, but which had been the subject of discussion at CAA board meetings since 1958 and actively in process since 1964.40 The Visual Arts in Higher Education (VAHE)—funded by a $180,000 grant from the Ford Foundation—in general considered Goldwater’s previous study as a departure point yet sought to outline in much greater depth the character of art history and studio art in the United States, as well as the organization’s particular recommendations for the fields “just twenty-three years after” Goldwater’s breaking ground, a statement which made self-deprecating fun of CAA’s historical delay in following up on Goldwater’s research.41 (The association’s recommendations within VAHE were also summarized by Seymour Slive and others and published separately as A List of the Needs of the Visual Arts.)
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VAHE was proposed originally by the Committee on the Visual Arts but then was undertaken by a smaller group under the auspices of CAA, composed of the following members: Director Andrew C. Ritchie of Yale, Assistant Directors Lorenz Eitner of Minnesota and then Stanford (who would concern himself with art history) and Norman L. Rice of the Carnegie Institute of Technology (who would concern himself with studio art). Also involved were Yale’s Jules Prown (the assistant to the director) and Louise Scott (secretary). Like Goldwater’s report, examining the major points of VAHE provides an unparalleled (and possibly the sole) opportunity for those interested to understand the size and character of both art history and studio art during a certain period of American history, in this case the early 1960s. Yet because VAHE was not only a description of the field but was also an extensive list of its needs in higher education (thus the need for a subsequent publication), VAHE arguably provides the primary view of what the 1960s generation of art historians and professors of studio art envisioned as an ideal study of the arts within the American university. Building off two extensive surveys, which were the basis for the publication, VAHE presented the following statistics regarding art history. To begin with, the report conservatively estimated the current amount of American faculty in art history at “some 500, of whom some 300 hold a Ph.D. in the history of art or an equivalent foreign degree”; the geographical distribution of faculty in the United States most concentrated in the Northeastern states, “where nearly all the country’s largest departments of art history are located.” 42 Regarding art history undergraduate enrollment, the study lamented the difficulty of the enterprise, but hazarded an estimate that “the actual number of bodies contained . . . [were] no greater than 35,000 to, at most, 40,000.” 43 The report also concerned itself with tallying a total of the amount of art history majors, which they estimated at “about 550” in 1962. As well, the report sought to tally the total number of PhD candidates enrolled in 1961–1962 (248) and the total number of them produced by American institutions since 1930 (453). The report then turned to the course offerings in art history. Salient things to be noted, the authors explained, were the following: the much larger quantity and variety of courses offered at the graduate level; the doubling of the offerings in art history in general since 1940 (the date of Goldwater’s study); and finally, and most significantly, the change in the past twenty years in the popularity of areas of concentration. In particular, they noted, compared to Goldwater’s study, the new dominance of Renaissance studies (“almost certainly . . . due to the arrival of the refugee scholars in the late 1930s”); the “marked” increase in modern (nineteenth- and twentieth-century art) offerings (more apparent on the undergraduate level than on the graduate level, because “the graduate curriculum is more ‘conservative’ in its evolution”); and the new and interesting importance
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of “Oriental” and non-Western studies (which were not included in Goldwater’s report, “presumably because they were relatively unimportant in 1962”).44 Additionally, the report found—in contrast to Goldwater’s finding that half of the schools he surveyed treated their introduction to art history chronologically and half systematically—departments now heavily favored the chronological over the nonhistorical, topical course. The particular costs of a department of art were a focus of the report as well. First, VAHE explained that combined departments of studio art and art history—predominant in the Midwest and West—were a consistent budgetary problem for art history, for they found studio art to be always more costly, because of the need of a larger staff, accommodating small classes, and the everincreasing number of technical specialties within the field. As a result, the report expectedly found that such combined departments often ended up being controlled by studio art (thus shrinking the art history component). Moreover, the report found that an “astonishingly small” proportion of departmental art budgets were spent on library resources: art books, slides, and photographs. The only exceptions, they argued, were “young and fast-growing departments attempting to overcome serious inadequacies . . . by means of a ‘crash-program’ of purchasing.” 45 Such discussion of the statistics of American art history did not continue for much longer within VAHE, for most of the study (and the subsequent pamphlet) used the statistics to elucidate the major problems of the profession and their recommendations regarding them. According to Jules Prown, this focus was deliberate, for the publication was primarily meant to serve as a resource for American colleges to establish the needs of their respective departments to facilitate requests for further financial support.46 Thus, the authors of VAHE believed that the large numbers of students taking the introductory survey was a very positive sign—a great proof of the popularity of art in America—and they celebrated the introductory course for its ability to expose hundreds of thousands of American students to art. However, they explained that the lower numbers of enrollment after the survey course was a discouraging sign, and believed this state of affairs could primarily be attributed to the low quality of the teaching of introductory courses, which was often left to inexperienced or ineffectual faculty. While they believed that “the running of large survey courses is certainly not the proper employment of productive scholars,” they explained that the introductory course—so influential in the department—does “not reflect the best [the] discipline has to offer,” and has made the chronological survey act as a “barrier rather than an invitation” to further study in art history.47 Another major problem regarding their statistical findings in art history, the authors argued, was the country-wide number of well-trained art historians,
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which they thought too low, for this number not only produced understaffed art history departments but also kept “far below the tolerable minimum the supply of art historians to such extra-academic professions as museum curating, periodical and newspaper art criticism and commercial dealing.” The solution they proposed to this problem was simply a heavy influx of financial support to the most successful institutions. The report also argued that there was an uneven geographic distribution of well-trained art historians throughout the country “with the greatest concentration in five northeastern states,” 48 starving most of the country’s art departments of scholars with national and international reputations. Regarding this situation, VAHE also argued for substantial financial support, but directly to schools in the Midwest, South, and West. This support, it was thought, would enable these institutions to attract better staff and better students, and provide deeper training before the graduate level (so students would not have to be bogged down in remedial studies to satisfy requirements), and thus generate better art historians (who would then stay put). VAHE then addressed the lack of spending on library resources, which they found to be the number one issue among department chairmen.49 The committee admitted to several conditions that had brought about this situation: the recent arrival of art history to American campuses (with the result being that early library holdings tend to be sparse); the vastness and international quality of art historical literature; and finally the scarcity and high cost of many essential publications. However, they argued, whatever the causes for such a situation, this was a major problem for the discipline, which could possibly lead to a library becoming useless (because it has not kept up with current research). This problem could also contribute to the stasis of courses offered by a department, especially in isolated environments, for such a scenario would lead to a lack of consistent exposure to new information. The major steps to counteracting such a state of affairs would be—the authors explained—to simply increase the number of qualified art librarians and the budget for new acquisitions. Books were not the only inadequate library resource: visual holdings were inadequate as well. According to the authors of the study, this should be as major an issue as textual resources for art history owing to the central importance of reproduced images to the study of art. Accordingly, the report argued that the acquisition of good slides and photographs at a reasonable cost must be “a major concern of all art departments,” and on the basis of this CAA eventually formed a committee with the goal of establishing a nonprofit educational lantern-slide center (see chapter 10). The authors also addressed issues that were not the direct concern of their statistics—but which they explained were central to art historians—such as the high costs of publishing, which had driven from the field all general journals except Art Bulletin and Art Quarterly and a few specialized journals “devoted to
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special aspects of the field” such as the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians and Ars Orientalis. This costliness of journal publishing they blamed primarily on the unique quandary of art historical scholarship: the need for high quality (and costly) illustrations. (This situation has changed little since this report: a case in point are the recent findings of Hilary Ballon and Mariët Westermann.50) Regardless of the reason, the authors found such a situation incredibly problematic owing to the fact that with an increasing population of scholars, the publications of art history will become “gags” rather than “mouthpieces” for fresh voices. (Interestingly, in this section, they note that the young need be “given the chance to falter a bit” in print.51) In its section on art history, the report’s authors also argued for grants toward the publication of scholarly books of anticipated small circulation, which they believed were “indispensible” 52 (an argument that perhaps contributed to Milliard Meiss’s generous bequest to CAA in 1974 of $500,000 specifically to establish an endowment to support publication subventions). As well, they advocated for reprinting historical out-of-print books of critical importance (that had become astronomically expensive), and publishing texts for advanced courses in art history that would help solve the then-paucity of them as well as lower the price of contemporary efforts, such as Panofsky’s Early Netherlandish Painting or Wolf Stubbe’s Graphic Arts in the Twentieth Century. VAHE also made recommendations regarding research for both graduate students and professors. The most interesting of these were the encouragement of regular subsidized travel abroad for students—to visit original works of art—and funding for professors at all stages of their career, for either travel or time away from teaching to conduct independent research. For, they explained: Although teaching loads are generally not very heavy . . . it is not easy to pursue research in a university setting. The burdens of committee work and other academic obligations, of thesis supervision and counseling and the petty administrative chores which are becoming the bane of life in the American university can cut deeply into the energy and time needed for sustained scholarly work. One reason why European professors by and large tend to be more productive than their American colleagues is, certainly, that they have more time to give to their research and writing. Time and quiet are the brain-worker’s most precious allies.53 As a concluding note in its section on art history, VAHE criticized the character of art history in the United States; in particular, art history’s universitybred demeanor of careful, prudent workmanship, method, and specialization, which the authors said was cultivated through years of teachers weeding out supposedly eccentric, unsound, and unacademic students, and through the hir-
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ing policies of higher education. On the one hand, they explained, this had enabled American art history to avoid the “sweeping speculations, the doctrinaire excesses and flagrant errors to which some of their European colleagues have been prone.” On the other hand, they believed such a situation also stopped American art history from achieving any “triumphs” through “fresh discovery or the formulation of new ideas.” “Success,” as such, they explained, “rather than daring or brilliance, is the chief quality” of American art history. And such success, according to VAHE, dampened the spirit of American students, made them look to Europe for a periodic renewal of stimulation, and did little to encourage the development of the “independent, unattached scholar, the Privatgelehrte so relatively common in Europe,” or, in other words, “productive non-university scholars in art—museum men, critics, publicists, dealers,” who they indirectly argued have a kind of enthusiasm and brilliance that is not present in the United States.54 Unlike its section on art history, the VAHE’s section on studio art was (like previous projects undertaken by CAA) much shorter and much more concerned with recommendations than with extensive statistics. Pre-college art education (on both the primary and secondary levels) was its first concern, and the authors argued (as Mangravite’s earlier report had) that it was extremely inadequate, and specifically too permissive and superficial. Such a judgment was based on the report’s finding that instruction in the arts did not awaken any artistic sensibility, respect, or awareness of the social, economic, and technical life of art and artists, and was too formulaic, to the extent that it “gives students a predetermined and therefore false notion of what constitutes a professional solution to visual problems.” Much of this lack of quality, according to the majority of college art department heads and faculty interviewed, was at base owing to the poor quality of art teachers in the secondary schools, who they believed had “little awareness . . . of our cultural heritage,” were limited in life experience, and thus could “impart only the most meager concepts to their students.” 55 As a result, in contrast to the current state of affairs, in which “curiously . . . many colleges feel little responsibility for the state of pre-college art education,” (a fact VAHE blamed on the priority given to traditional liberal arts and also on the mixed feelings regarding the use of the liberal arts for artists), VAHE offered some suggestions, which had their origin in responses to the survey. First, the authors recommended a special graduate program in art teacher education. Second, they recommended implementing higher studio standards for those preparing to teach art—to replace standards that across the board were felt to be too low. These new standards would include: More imaginative preparation in areas of perceptual awareness, more mature demands in research-oriented programs, more consequen-
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tial innovations in technical means, more effective projection of the arts as indispensable ingredients of a good—and certainly of a great— society.56 Such standards (and thus the certification process for teachers at this level), according to the report, should be under the jurisdiction of colleges, and not state offices like the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Excellence, which, it was believed, regularly proposed stultifying constraints and at best “inhibited experimentation and supported mediocre schools.” 57 Such a jurisdiction would not be a burden however, but would be directly beneficial for colleges, the report argued, for colleges and universities “cannot hope to expect better students from the high schools unless they provide better instruction for those who are going to teach high school students.” An education based on these new standards, the report said, may also take longer than the characteristic four years of undergraduate art education and imply more careful selection of who becomes an art teacher. Finally, “It certainly suggests that all art schools professing to have capability for art teacher education be equipped to teach the visual arts as a significant human response, not one requiring apology or deserving of only casual attention, but generative, disciplined in particular ways, demanding, exciting, and capable of far-reaching development.” 58 The VAHE authors also made recommendations regarding art education facilities, which, they argued, had a substantial effect on education. Specifically, they recommended that more funds be provided to pay teachers higher salaries (which were then substantially lower than other academic professors) and supply schools with “the equipment resources for effective instruction in the wide range of media of art, craft, and design, photography and film making,” which included the importance of having sufficient reproductions—which could, in turn, be supplied by their recommended lantern-slide facility.59 Also, they argued that the field needed to explore the great possibilities that films and television could have in the classroom as learning tools. The MFA degree was also a concern of VAHE. Regardless of its recent acceptance as the terminal degree in studio art, the report saw the MFA degree as having little value in the minds of most college department spokesmen for measuring artistic excellence or competence for teaching. They believed, in contrast, that the MFA degree’s only value was for impressing professors or administrators within the academic community “who have been trained to recognize in the degree a significant measure of academic stature.” 60 There were also risks to the MFA degree, according to the report. For one, they explained, as both colleges and independent art schools award degrees at a greater clip, they threaten to exclude those who may be just as talented but have been prepared less formally. Furthermore, VAHE argued (as Mangravite’s report had) that studio art de-
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partments needed to have a much stronger relationship to art history departments. They explained that art history, if properly taught to artists, could be a major “stimulus” for their work, “and a means through which they [could] reach out to other fascinating areas of intellectual enterprise—not only to adjacent arts, but in the related realms of creative writing, history, literature, anthropology, archaeology, ethnology and languages.” Interestingly, they suggested one means of facilitating such a relationship would be to have someone who is both an artist and historian teach courses, someone who could “make lively, for art students, the solution to problems which artists of every generation, both in historical time and in our day, have found important.” 61 The report on studio art concluded (in a kind of contradictory fashion) with its reservations about the increasing tendency to include artists in a university setting. Primarily, VAHE believed that rearing artists in a college environment (where the campus’s multiform activity is the center of his emotional and intellectual world) only made them want to return to such an environment, to maintain a “purity” they thought they would lose in the hazardous outside world. In this way, VAHE believed that institutionalization of artists within the university would inevitably make art more of an intellectual activity; more conforming; more “real through verbal description than in the fact of its own existence.” As a result, “innovation for the sake of innovation may, in fact, be [this type of art’s] academic hallmark.” 62 However, the authors of the report did not completely condemn art in a university setting, for they believed that education in the arts must to some extent involve such institutionalization, and the best schools, they explained, have successfully dealt with this sensitive issue. As a means of pointing those schools in need of direction in the correct direction, they offered the following prescription. They explained: [Schools must look] toward education in general through introduction (or reintroduction) of visual experience to as many students as may wish to enlarge their understanding of the world in this dimension; toward the history of art, their closest ally (and sometimes most suspicious critic) among the humanities; toward other disciplines which need the visual arts in order to fully realize their goals—anthropology, archaeology, aesthetics, history, psychology, architecture, home economics among others; toward individuals on the campus among students and faculty or in the community at large who are searching for the stability and (in a meaningful sense) recreational purpose art can bring to their personal lives; toward graduate studies in many fields; and, of course, towards students anxious to become professional artists.63 This marked the end of this major study in regard to studio art and art history. Yet what was the subsequent influence of VAHE? On the one hand, VAHE’s
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effect on particular issues of curriculum and pedagogy is quite difficult to establish. There is little subsequent documentation of discussion of VAHE by later individuals, organizations, or individual departments. VAHE was envisioned by many, even its authors, such as Jules Prown, as primarily a tool for departments to attract further funding and was not necessarily dedicated to particular curricular or pedagogical agendas.64 Also, many of the issues presented by VAHE may have been “in the air” during this period or implemented by organizations or departments (either affiliated or unaffiliated with CAA) that were made aware of these issues through VAHE, but did not specifically cite VAHE as their impetus. On the other hand, VAHE did have specific, documented effects. The report was celebrated immediately after its publication for emphasizing the immense growth and accomplishments of the arts in America since the last study of this nature done by the association—Goldwater’s study—in 1943. For example, Warren Doolittle, in his review of the book in the Journal of Aesthetic Education, explained that “the young university instructor in art would do well to read [it], for he may gain some insight into the measure of his responsibilities and realize how widespread and intensive is the university participation in this field.” 65 Additionally, in Art Education, David Manzella, then chairman of the Division of Teacher Education at the Rhode Island School of Design, also celebrated the report, but for a different reason: its harsh evisceration of colleges’ approach to pre-college art education.66 Manzella notably used this evisceration as an opportunity to advise all art faculty to not discount the report but accept the fact that it had been written by people who cared about the arts a great deal and to use it to try to improve their respective situations. Yet the report was also criticized, specifically for its all-too-brief focus on studio art and what was seen as its inconclusive approach to the “problems attending the inclusion of creative art in an academic climate originally shaped by scholarship, and more recently, dominated by scientific research.” 67 Accordingly, at the end of his review, Doolittle explained: Inevitability a report of this type raises significant questions, which badly need further exploration and exposure. For example, will the creative artist ever be able to function as well in the university environment as he did previously? Is the academic environment really conducive to vital creativity? and how much encouragement and understanding can be expected of the college and state officials?68
conclusion After The Visual Arts in Higher Education, in regard to issues of pedagogy and curriculum, CAA’s actions altered again. No longer was the association occupied with sizable surveys or articles concerning detailed recommendations for the
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disciplines. The growth, success, and stabilization of American art education during the 1960s and 1970s (in no small part owing to the work of the association) eliminated the need for work of this type, as the growth of the field had done previously during the 1920s. In fact, CAA in the late 1960s began to take on a logical new role, of establishing new standards and guidelines based on such standardization, or, in some cases, of promoting the modification of previous standards that were in great need of revision. The organization has maintained such a stance to the present. The most significant and the first major standard passed by CAA was in April 1977, when for the first time the association individually defined and promoted uniform standards for the MFA degree. The establishment of these standards stemmed directly from a series of resolutions passed by CAA in 1970 by the Artist/CAA Committee (chaired by Louis Finkelstein), which initiated the call for them.69 The institutional origin of these standards lay equally in the discussion of this issue in the VAHE and in the definition of the MFA degree by the Midwest Art Conference. Accordingly, CAA saw its role in regard to these standards as reinforcing the standards of the Midwest Art Conference (because of the progressive acceptance of the Midwest Art Conference’s standards, yet also because, in some parts of the country, the range in quality in MFA programs was, according to CAA, “still staggering”). These standards remain in place today, though they underwent a revision in 1991. The MFA standards proposed the following for the MFA degree. Primarily, they explained that the MFA is a “guarantee of a high level of professional competence in the visual arts.” The MFA is also an indication of “the end of the formal aspects of [one’s] education in the making of art,” and in this way it functioned like the terminal degree in any other field.70 CAA stipulated that the MFA was not a guarantee of anyone’s ability to teach proficiency of art to others. The rest of the standards proposed guidelines in regard to degree/graduation and credit requirements (which include a discussion of the importance of art history and possibly other nonart areas of study to the MFA); admissions; and faculty, facilities, and financial support. Though now a consistent reference point for those in the field, the initial reaction to CAA’s standards was extremely positive, “with many schools making or considering changes to bring their curricula in conformity with those standards,” it was noted. Also, CAA reported that the publication of the MFA standards led to “numerous requests for similar standards for undergraduate education in the visual arts.” 71 Expectedly, standards for the BA and BFA degrees in studio art (established by a subcommittee of that which established the MFA standards) followed in January 1979. These have also remained in use to the present day. CAA, since the institution of the MFA, BA, and BFA standards, has also published numer-
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ous further guidelines regarding programs of study in art. These have gone from various standards for career development—like guidelines for curriculum vitae —to those governing twenty-first-century initiatives in education like digital distance learning.72 Most recently, CAA has adopted the “Guidelines for Curatorial Studies Programs” in October 2004 and “Guidelines for Faculty Teaching in the New-Media Arts” in 2007. The future of the CAA’s engagement with, or influence on, art historical and/or studio art pedagogy and curriculum in the United States clearly depends on how future art historians, studio art professors, and administrators, working within the organization itself, choose to employ the association. Currently, it seems, when faced with such a prospect and future responsibility today, many in the field believe that CAA should take on a minimal role and should leave such issues to individual departments. Such a belief is based on the opinion that we (as art historians and studio art professors) are all well-trained enough to deal with such issues on our own and the unsaid belief that such issues are secondary to individual research. Yet, while this attitude may reflect for some “the reality of the field,” this reality is always under our own control and it is this reality which we must change, for year after year it leads to instruction that is not primarily concerned with educating others, but in contrast is primarily about our own academic work, which teaches others to simply do the same. In other words, education becomes less about (the more noble) giving of oneself and increasingly about taking from others. As a result, we are not at all done with our study of (and focus on) curriculum and pedagogy in American art education. Further, since a knowledge of our disciplines’ collective and respective histories in these areas is obviously our best ally in making the most informed decisions about the future, a renewed focus on the subject should consistently look to the association. For CAA (as has hopefully been shown by this project) has been the preeminent American organization that has detailed and engaged with the ways in which academics have confronted the curriculum and pedagogy of both art history and studio art since the emergence of such programs in the universities and colleges of the United States.
10 Visual Resources for the Arts christine l. sundt
ince its founding in 1911, CAA has tackled many causes in the name of education and for the betterment of society, but one, assuring that visual resources are available and accessible to all, can be traced as a common thread. The content of educational visual resources then as now remains closely aligned to classroom needs, but what changed over time were attitudes and positions regarding rights of access. Copyright now plays a much larger role than in CAA’s early days in determining what students see in class, how scholars use images in publications, and the costs of collecting, accessing, and sharing images. CAA has a strong record of leadership in all of these areas. Visual resources, materials that allow students, teachers, and scholars to visualize the creative output of artists, architects, and designers without being physically present in front of the work, are essential tools in the art and art history classroom. By the power of a visual substitute—such as a drawing, a photograph, a three-dimensional model, a slide, a projection, or a digital file—one can convey the movement of line, the power of color, the absence or presence of space, the narrative or subject and its inner meanings, the stability of structure, and its role in history’s continuum with few words and visual efficiency to one or many students simultaneously. Through visual aids, one can transport or be transported to ancient monuments in remote places, to battlefields or tranquil landscapes, to societies with strange or unusual customs or practices, or into the artist’s studio where creativity and expression are being shaped into new art forms, all with visual stand-ins for the actual physical art or architectural object.
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casts, models, and reproductions Visual resources today exist primarily as two-dimensional images, but in CAA’s earliest days, plaster casts and three-dimensional models were perhaps more likely to be found in or near the art classroom and studio than slides.1 Until 1917, CAA published graded lists of recommended casts and reproductions from the least expensive set ($1,000) covering the periods of Greek art to more costly investments (up to $5,000) that added Egyptian, Assyrian, Roman, Byzantine, medieval, and Renaissance examples. Dealers were mentioned by name, such as August Gerber of Cologne (“the best cast-maker and worth all the others put together”), Domenico Brucciani of London, Sabatino de Angelis of Naples, Émile Gilliéron & Son (Émile) of Athens, Giuseppi Lelli of Florence, Pietro Pierotti of Milan, and Pietro Paulo Caproni and Brother (Emilio) in Boston.2 Just as later, when slides replaced casts as teaching aids, museums were actively involved in supporting and promoting these essential resources. Gerber’s catalogue, The Tentative List of Objects Desirable for a Collection of Casts of Sculpture and Architecture Intended to Illustrate the History of Plastic Art, was printed privately in 1891 by the Metropolitan Museum in New York. As with later slide initiatives, members of a CAA committee would be selecting and recommending the subjects.3 According to the 1918 “Report of Reproductions of Early Christian Monuments,” by Professor John Shapley, photographs in addition to casts and large-size models were available for early Christian architecture. At this early date, color reproductions, though still uncommon, were stressed as highly preferable for illustrating painting because “photographs do it scant justice.” 4
photographs While CAA does not appear to have led the way in offering photographs singly or as a collection to educational institutions as instructional staples, this may be because colleges had other avenues for acquisition. For example, in 1923 the Carnegie Corporation of New York initiated a study of the educational needs of students in the history and appreciation of art through a series of conferences promoted by Carnegie President Frederick P. Keppel. Following the conferences, a committee of international scholars was appointed to provide “in compact, yet comprehensive form, equipment suitable for use by educational institutions, chosen as a representative and unbiased survey of all styles.” While CAA was not party to this project, a number of its prominent members were: Edith Abbot (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Frank J. Mather, Jr. (Princeton University), Paul J. Sachs (Harvard University), and John Shapley (University of Chicago). This effort produced The Carnegie Art Reference Set for Colleges, which consisted
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of forty-five large color facsimiles, 2,073 color prints and mounted photographs, and 104 books to form the basis of a working library. The Set was distributed by Rudolf Lesch Fine Arts, Inc., New York City, and was prominently advertised to CAA’s members.5 Photographs, among the “equipment” included in the Set, could be obtained or acquired by educational institutions through other means as well. As reported in 1940, the University of Chicago’s photograph collection of 200,000 items was built “with duplicates from Sir Robert Witt’s famous collection in London.” 6 Photograph collections at major colleges and universities were typically created by scholars and researchers.
“art teaching equipment sets” and slides On October 10, 1931, the CAA board of directors heard a report by board member James B. Munn about the Carnegie Corporation’s generous support for the Carnegie Art Reference Set that was already under way. Professor Munn stated that the Carnegie Corporation “was counting on the College Art Association” to carry on further activities in connection with “Art Teaching Equipment Sets” and “Supplementary Art Teaching Equipment Sets.” 7 But other, more pressing national matters, as well as financial challenges, interfered. In 1941, CAA moved in earnest to investigate classroom needs for slides and negatives by sending out a questionnaire to its members. By this time, art history was gaining strength and approval in the United States and the need for visual resources to illustrate lectures naturally followed. The impetus for CAA’s action seems to have been news reported to the board, then under President Ulrich Middeldorf, that the University of Buffalo had received funding from the Carnegie Corporation to create a collection of slides and negatives.8 The notion of a central depository for negatives, from which other universities and colleges could order slides for as little as $.40 each, seemed an appealing prospect. This discussion brought up other issues, including some members’ desire to channel efforts to produce photographs instead of slides, the importance of quality in what would be shared among members, and the question of copyright: “How far do the copyright laws apply and how should they be respected?” The response from board member and art historian E. Baldwin Smith was that “one is allowed a reasonable use of material, even if copyrighted” and “[s]ince this project would not be for profit, there would hardly be a question of copyright.” 9 CAA’s interest in launching a slide project was serious, but it would take a few more years to be realized. Discussions about slides ensued within the board and among the members. In 1941 a conference session on “Problems of the Art Library” resulted in the panel’s librarians forming a committee on slide col-
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lections.10 Board members hoped that this committee would work along with CAA’s Equipment Committee, but no funding was available to assist with a joint meeting.11
microfilm slide project CAA’s first successful slide project was launched in 1945 under President Rensselaer W. Lee.12 David Robb was appointed chair of the Microfilm Slide Committee with members Turpin Bannister, Laurine Mack Bongiorno, Helmut von Erffa, George Hamilton, Henry Hope, Rensselaer Lee, Arthur Moor, William Rusk, Myron Smith, Dimitris Tselos, and Clarence Ward. Elizabeth Sunderland (Duke University) was appointed executive director of the project. The project would produce “high quality yet inexpensive illustrative material for teaching the history of art.” 13 Aided by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the 1941 survey had reached more than 1,100 institutions. Among the approximately 350 replies, 282 institutions reported offering courses in art history and described their equipment: 60—no slides 88—under 1,000 slides 30—1,000 to 3,000 slides 20—3,000 to 5,000 slides 29—5,000 to 10,000 slides 39—10,000 to 31,000 slides 8—31,000 to 118,000 slides According to the survey, schools without slides usually depended on “reflecting machines” or opaque projectors to show images from books and mounted prints. Quality was far from satisfactory, so much so that it was “very difficult for the student to understand what he is looking at.” Even schools with more than 10,000 slides reported that their collections were far from satisfactory, “having curious inclusions and omissions.” 14 CAA’s response to the visual deficits was to develop the Microfilm Slide Project, a collection of 2 × 2-inch (35 mm) slides made on positive film produced by machine methods. The 2 × 2-inch format was chosen to keep costs low and, while these smaller slides were said to “lack a little of the sharp definition (due to film grain) of the best big slides they are better in quality than most big slides existing today.” 15 The slides would be black and white and, because a machine rather than a human would produce them, they would be at “a uniform high level of perfection,” making them “better than all but the best of the big slides.” 16 The slides would be distributed in strips to be cut up and mounted by the purchas-
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ers. The first proposed strip promised 4,000 pictures illustrating paintings from the Trecento to the present time with concentration of 1,000 slides in each of three fields of Italian, Northern, and modern painting. Gummed labels with full descriptions and cataloging numbers would be supplied, along with the glass, masks, tape, and instructions explaining the mounting procedure.17 Sunderland estimated that if one hundred sets could be sold at $400 each, the cost of the unmounted slides would be about $.10 each. When compared to the cost of big slides, from $.35 to $1.50 each, the smaller slide, even with labor for mounting, would be $.12 each, based on a wage rate of $.40 per hour. By the winter of 1946, Sunderland reported that the project was nearing completion, with 3,200 of the projected 4,000 pictures already photographed. These covered: 1,013 1,192 239 221 140 592 383 125 900 50 350
in the Italian part (thirteenth–eighteenth centuries) in the Northern part French (fifteenth–eighteenth centuries) Spanish (fifteenth–eighteenth centuries) German (sixteenth century) Lowlands (fifteenth–seventeenth centuries) American English European paintings (nineteenth and twentieth centuries)—planned Oriental—yet to be photographed Graphic Arts—yet to be photographed
Two new members were added to the committee: art historians Alfred Barr and Robert Goldwater to oversee the nineteenth- and twentieth-century sections. The slide film strips would be produced by University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan. Several museums lent photographs for copying: the Fogg Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Fine Arts Departments of Duke University and the University of Michigan. Harvard College Library assisted with microfilming equipment, and the Museum of Modern Art promised to help with the project. By winter 1947–1948, the project was completed. Thirty organizations, including nine universities and thirteen colleges, received the sets of 4,100 slides. Photography of the master negatives was done by Elizabeth and Alice Sunderland. Martin Soria joined the committee to revise the Spanish lists. The Museum of Modern Art furnished complete lists as well as photographs of modern European and American art.18 In 1954, the Microfilm Slide Project was discussed at the October board meeting because of complications between University Microfilms and the exec-
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utive director of the project.19 By 1956, the matter was resolved, and CAA turned over management of the original negative set to University Microfilms with an agreement to receive a royalty for any subsequent sales under the conditions that they be distributed only as complete slide sets and sold only to educational institutions, museums, and other similar nonprofit organizations.20 CAA’s executive committee concluded, in light of these matters, that “the Association should avoid commitments of this kind in the future, and that any contractual relationships for the future should always be entered into only after advise [sic] from competent counsel.” 21 Personnel problems, not copyright, were at the root of these contractual missteps.
educational lantern slide project In January 1967 CAA was once again discussing another slide project. This followed a report by William Pierson regarding the National Endowment for the Arts’ proposed project “for the manufacture of slides of 10,000 subjects from color negatives processed in a special laboratory,” possibly with the support of the National Science Foundation, with an estimated cost of $500,000.22 Board member H. W. Janson wanted CAA to be involved in the selection of the subjects and Pierson agreed. Janson also reported on the work of his Educational Lantern Slides committee, along with another microfilm project introduced by Professor Sydney Freedberg, which had already been presented to the National Endowment for the Humanities for support. A new committee was formed to consider all three projects and possible support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Janson outlined what was needed for his slide project, namely “color slides from original objects, black and white slides from photographs, and photographic archives.” 23 The Ford Foundation’s sponsorship of a study on the role of visual arts in American higher education, published in 1966, was no doubt behind all three initiatives in 1967.24 By then CAA had already outlined problems, needs, the present situation, and possible remedies regarding slides to address the Ford Foundation study and conducted a survey of some five hundred college art departments. Among the more than three hundred responses, CAA noted that the majority enthusiastically endorsed the proposed project.25 Mentioned were inadequate sources for black-and-white slides, the high cost of color slides, problems associated with color quality and accuracy, and the various production methods with wide-ranging and often unsatisfactory results.26 The proposed remedy would be to offer inexpensive black-and-white slides in continuous film strips in three series: 10 basic sets (2,500 slides) for introductory courses; 100 intermediate sets (25,000 slides) for second- and third-year undergraduate courses; and 1,000 specialized sets (250,000 slides) for graduate courses. The project was
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estimated to cost as little as $50,000 to cover the salary of a project director and assistants with CAA receiving a 10 percent royalty. Yet the project would also pose some problems: with color—namely, choosing the best method to deliver some of the slides using color processes that were both inexpensive and accurate—and with copyright. Color transparencies would be sought from museums and perhaps publishers. Through Janson’s efforts, the Association of Art Museum Directors, led by Kenneth Donahue, wholeheartedly endorsed and supported CAA’s proposal and offered to provide their best-quality transparencies for the project, indicating that CAA’s proposal to duplicate materials from the Fogg and the Institute of Fine Arts’ archives would be “just not good enough to be reproduced.” 27 On the other hand, the copyright problem would be far more complex. Art historical photos may be divided into three main classes: those made by museums; those made by state or municipal agencies; and those made by commercial photographers. The first two are unlikely to pose a problem. Regarding the third class, the legal situation is complex and is now being explored by the lawyers of the C.A.A. and University Microfilms. We expect to negotiate directly with Alinari, the largest of the commercial sources. Actually, only a few hundred of Alinari’s countless photos are copyrighted, but we shall need their official consent in order to obtain Harvard’s permission to use the Fogg photographic collection. We are hopeful that such consent can be obtained (perhaps through the payment of a symbolic one-time fee), since Alinari is owned by the Cini Foundation in Venice. Once we have Alinari’s consent, the smaller firms are likely to agree to the same conditions.28 On January 10, 1969, CAA presented its proposal for the slide project to the Ford Foundation, and by July 1971 President Janson was awarded $149,000 to carry out plans for the “College Art Association–National Gallery Education Lantern Slide Project” under the direction of Sterling A. Callisen, operating through the Department of Fine Arts, Washington Square College of Arts and Science, at New York University. Callisen was selected for this position by President Janson’s Visual Aids Committee. The National Gallery of Art would distribute the slide sets through its Extension Division.29 University Microfilms would produce the black-and-white slides, while the color set would be created by either renting transparencies from museums or hiring a photographer to shoot the major works in American museums.30 Copyright negotiations between CAA and Alinari were successful: “by which we will have to pay no charges for reproducing any of the 106,000 excellent photographs in file form [in the Fogg collection].” 31 As for photography originating with government agencies or taken by museum
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photographers here and in Europe, these “may be used free of charge, so long as the source is acknowledged. The Association of Art Museum Directors in this country has already approved a resolution to this effect.” 32 One of the main differences between CAA’s first slide project and this one was how content was determined. Instead of reproducing images on hand or within existing archives, this project sought to define a core collection that would represent the needs of the basic art history survey course. To do this, fifteen of the then most widely used texts were analyzed: Dale G. Cleaver, Art: An Introduction Albert E. Elsen, Purposes of Art William Fleming, Arts and Ideas Helen Gardner, Art Through the Ages Ernst H. Gombrich, The Story of Art H. W. Janson, History of Art H. W. Janson, Key Monuments of the History of Art Nathan Knobler, The Visual Dialogue Michael Levey, A History of Western Art Bates Lowry, The Visual Experience David M. Robb, and S. J. Garrison, Art in the Western World Joshua C. Taylor, Learning to Look Everard M. Upjohn, and John P. Sedgwick, Jr., Highlights: An Illustrated History of Art Everard M. Upjohn, Paul S. Wingert, and Jane Gaston Mahler, History of World Art Donald E. Weismann, The Visual Arts as Human Experience33 The task of narrowing the material to cover every image in these texts, less duplicates and details, was assigned to two art history graduate assistants working with Professor Callisen. From approximately 3,500 images, 2,500 were identified “with careful consideration for balanced distribution among periods.” 34 From these lists, the massive task of contacting museums and collections for high-quality black-and-white photographs began. In all, the list included 34 countries, 418 cities, and individual sources (132 in the United States). As might be expected, delays or no responses from the sources took more time than planned. Even the Metropolitan Museum, from which 102 photographs were needed, took much longer to supply the prints than anticipated.35 To facilitate orders in foreign countries, the letter of inquiry along with the description of the project were translated into German, French, and Italian. By the end of the project, ten basic black-and-white rolls of 250 slides each and thirteen colors rolls of thirty-five frames each were completed.
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black and white
color
A: 102 Primitive, 19 Prehistoric, 74 Egyptian, 55 Near East B: 22 Minoan, 15 Mycenaean, 60 Greek-Archaic, 82 GreekClassical, 52 Greek-Hellenistic, 19 Etruscan C: 105 Roman, 46 Early Christian, 50 Early Byzantine, 44 Late Byzantine, 5 Europe–Dark Ages D: 14 Carolingian, 18 Ottonian, 105 Romanesque, 24 French Gothic–Early, 85 French Gothic– Late, 4 Spanish Gothic E: 18 English Gothic, 45 Flemish Gothic, 48 German Gothic, 65 Northern European, 74 Italian Gothic F: 250 Italian Renaissance (15th–16th centuries) G: 113 Italy (16th–18th centuries), 24 England (18th century), 89 Holland, Belgium, Germany (17th–18th centuries), 24 Spain (17th century) H: 250 France, England (17th–19th centuries) 19th century includes Northern Europe I: 137 American (18th–19th centuries), 113 20th century (American & Europe) J: 34 Islamic, 69 Indian, 65 Chinese, 82 Japanese
C1—Egypt: Architecture, painting & sculpture C2—Late Antiquity, Early Christian, Byzantine Middle Ages C3—Crete, Mycenae, Greece C4—Italian painting, early Renaissance C5—Italian painting, later Renaissance C6—Flemish painting C7—Dutch painting C8—German, French, Spanish painting, 15th–16th centuries C9—English, French painting, 17th–18th centuries C10—Late Gothic Illumination C11—Spanish Painting, 16th–19th centuries C12—French Impressionists C13—French Post-Impressionists
On January 21, 1975, during a meeting of the CAA executive committee, executive secretary Rose Weil reported that the Educational Lantern Slide Project had been successfully completed, resulting in income of approximately $11,000. CAA’s members would be advised of any remaining sets still available for sale.36
academic image cooperative (aic) CAA’s next engagement with a visual resources project occurred almost twentyfive years later, this time with digital images. In January 1999, with funding
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from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and support from CAA’s Executive Director Susan Ball, under the guidance of the Digital Library Federation (DLF), the first of several meetings took place at the New York Public Library to discuss and explore plans for a scalable database of digital images for art history survey courses. Initially called the Art Image Exchange (AIE), the project brought together experts, including Max Marmor (Yale University), the meeting’s convener, Donald Waters (DLF), Jeffrey A. Cohen, Paula Behrens, and Micheline Nilsen (Society of Architectural Historians’ “Image Exchange” project at Bryn Mawr College), Allan Kohl (Minneapolis College of Art and Design/“Art Images for College Teaching” project), and Christine Sundt (“Image Directory” project and representing CAA).37 By May 1999, the AIE working group and governing board had settled on its mission statement and objective that emphasized support for curricular-based teaching and learning in art history by providing quality digital images, free access to nonprofit educational institutions, open access to enable others to create applications, shared resources, want-lists of needed images, a model for shared cataloging, and opportunities to develop applications for users and the larger community.38 The AIE was also given a new name: Academic Image Cooperative (AIC), but by late 2000, with a prototype database and image collection successfully completed, the AIC was disbanded. The efforts of the original AIE/AIC members would not be lost. The lessons learned from this prototype project ultimately led to the creation of another Mellon Foundation project, ARTstor (www.artstor.org), which has carried forward a number of the original goals and objectives of the AIC. CAA’s role in the prototype AIE/AIC project was to promote collaboration and to provide expertise based on many years of dedication to the visual resources requirements of the educational community through previously successful and even profitable projects such as the Educational Lantern Slide Project.
copyright and caa Prior to the late 1970s, copyright for educators, academic institutions, museums, and nonprofit organizations seemed to be nothing more than a minor concern. CAA’s early slide projects were developed with copyright in mind, and in all instances the association proceeded only after resolving what it recognized or assumed to be copyright problems. It was only in the early 1990s that copyright would turn into a serious concern—a cause for action—when the digital revolution seemed to be threatening fair use and other exemptions that educators, libraries, and archives enjoyed under the 1976 revision of the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17). A “green paper” titled “Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure: A Preliminary Draft of the Report of the Working Group on In-
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tellectual Property Rights” issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office was released in July 1994. Copyright stakeholders who were concerned about the draft recommendations in this report, seen as reinterpretations of fair use for digital resources, were invited to meet and negotiate guidelines for fair use of electronic materials within the gamut of nonprofit educational activities. The first meeting of what became known as CONFU—the Conference on Fair Use—took place in Washington, D.C., in September 1994. In September 1997, the progress of CONFU was documented in “The Conference on Fair Use: Report to the Commissioner on the Conclusion of the First Phase of the Conference on Fair Use.” However, CONFU stakeholders would continue to meet after this publication appeared, with their final meeting on May 18, 1998. The next day, the CONFU stakeholders voted not to ratify the guidelines that had finally emerged from what many remember only as contentious and often unproductive meetings. To many nonprofits and educators, the rejection of the guidelines was a more-than-welcome outcome for CONFU. By not ratifying the draft guidelines, the stakeholders would simply have to rely on the doctrine of fair use, codified in Section 107 of the Copyright Law, rather than on guidelines that in the final tally were more restrictive and less forgiving than the law itself. The last report on CONFU appeared as the “Final Report to the Commissioner on the Conclusion of the Conference on Fair Use,” issued in November 1998.39 CONFU was a catalyst for CAA and many nonprofit learned societies, educational institutions, and museums. To educate its members and constituents about copyright, fair use, and the proposed guidelines, CAA took part in organizing workshops and meetings. With the assistance and support of the ACLS, CAA joined with the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH), under the direction of David Green, to present the 1997–1998 series of Town Meetings on fair use in New York City, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Portland (Oregon), and Toronto. NINCH continued the Town Meetings series through May 2003 with support from the Kress Foundation. CAA’s annual conference served as the venue for the NINCH Copyright Town Meetings in 2000 (New York City), 2001 (Chicago), and 2003 (New York City).40 CAA’s next major copyright engagement, regarding “orphan works,” occurred in 2005.41 Orphan works are works (images/photos, letters, books, works of art, and others) that are still formally protected by copyright, but where a potential user—scholar, teacher, artist, publisher, or other person or institution—is unable to clear rights because: (a) there is no copyright information associated with the work; (b) the information is inadequate or inaccurate; or (c) attempts to contact possible rights holders (with “due diligence”) have been futile (no one at last known address; publisher out of business, no responses to letter, and the like). CAA has taken an active role both in providing examples of how “orphan works” impact the activities and pursuits of CAA members and in providing for-
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mal testimony at the public roundtable discussions hosted by the United States Copyright Office on July 26 and 27, 2005, in Washington, D.C., and on August 2, 2005, at the University of California, Berkeley.42 At the time of this writing, orphan works are still unresolved, but CAA will be ready to continue its involvement in the process when the next formal steps are taken by the United States government. Today, CAA’s Committee on Intellectual Property provides an informative resource page regarding copyright on its public Web site (http://www.collegeart .org/committees/ip.html). CAA’s efforts regarding intellectual property rights for members span all constituencies represented by the association—from creators of original work to users of other’s creations. Artists, art historians, museum curators, publishers, independent scholars, students, and art connoisseurs and practitioners in all aspects of the arts all have a stake in copyright matters and CAA’s goal is to serve them.
conclusion Visual resources have a long and distinguished history within the association. Choosing projects carefully and working mindfully and diligently with its members, CAA has provided many lasting examples in the progress of art and its history over the past century. Despite political upheavals and times of financial distress—two World Wars, the conflict in Vietnam, September 11, 2001, and many intervening times of national financial crises—CAA held fast and produced resources that are still in many slide collections throughout the United States and Canada. History shows that these efforts produced results. Students of art and art history, their successes and later legacies in the arts, are proof that President Pickard’s advice and predictions in 1917 were correct. Visual resources appear to have been an important component of their success.
11 Governance and Diversity judith k. brodsky, mary d. garrard, and ferris olin
Purpose 2. To encourage the inclusion among its constituencies of qualified individuals representing a diversity of race, religion, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, and physical disability. Purpose 3. To discourage discrimination based on race, religion, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, physical disability, and age in employment, education, exhibitions, scholarly and programmatic opportunities, the awarding of grants and prizes in the public and private art sectors, and media coverage. he two purposes pertaining to membership, governance, and diversity were formulated as a result of the College Art Association’s strategic planning in the 1990s. These purposes would have been inconceivable in 1911, when CAA was founded. The art historians and artist-teachers who formed the association were mostly white people of Northern European ethnicity. In this early period, the word “diversity” was associated more with the somewhat problematic makeup of CAA in terms of its membership and mission: (1) the uneasy alliance between artists and art historians, (2) the delicate balance between teaching and scholarship, and (3) the awkward geographic surplus of members from the Northeast. In the 1960s, in response to the social upheavals of the time, the issues that are now more commonly associated with diversity became important. During that decade CAA coped with the inclusion of younger members in the profes-
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sion, especially graduate students, and tried to ensure geographic and professional distribution. The board of directors also made a well-meaning but ineffective effort to help art departments in historically black colleges. Starting in 1970, the women members raised the issue of gender discrimination. However, it was not until the period of the culture wars of the late 1980s and 1990s that CAA adjusted its governance and programs to include a stronger sense of diversity regarding race, ethnicity, and sexuality. The modification occurred because the association had undergone what George Stocking has called “domestication.” 1 In the early 1990s, the membership and the board itself had become diverse, including more younger members, many more artists, significantly more women, more people representing different races, and art historians who practiced a new art history in which art was interpreted from a broader cultural and social perspective.2 Concentrating on periods of change within the history of CAA’s governance, the three authors of this chapter address the diversification of the organization in terms of the discipline, geography, gender, age, career level, race, ethnicity, and sexuality of its members.3
shuttling between inclusion and elitism: from the beginning to 1973 Judith K. Brodsky From the start, CAA and indeed all the learned societies had governance systems based on representation from the membership. Basically, they followed the democratic model: a board made up of directors nominated by a committee and elected by ballots sent out to the entire body. Standard officers were selected by the board. After an initial period of administration by the volunteer leadership of the new association, a paid director was appointed to carry out the day-to-day business of the organization.4 Choosing a democratic governance for the societies was related to their purpose. They were established with the implicit if not explicit democratic ideal that the advancement of scholarship and education benefited the society at large and meant that people would have better lives from both economic and cultural perspectives. The modern American learned societies were open from the start to membership by all. Earlier societies in the United States, such as the American Philosophical Association, were built around a membership that was nominated and elected, as the European academies of arts and letters had been and still are.5 Gradually, CAA and the learned societies developed into arbiters of standards for professional advancement and practices. Publication in their journals became essential for promotion and tenure, and guidelines for degree programs
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and professional practices were issued. However, the learned societies never developed enforcement policies for maintaining standards.6 Indeed, over the years, when the issue has arisen, the CAA and the other learned societies have generally issued firm policy statements that they are not enforcers, although every now and then they have flirted with occasional pronouncements. The reluctance to take on enforcement of principles affected diversity, as is particularly evident in CAA’s response to the cases of gender discrimination brought in the 1970s, described later in this chapter. While the stated governance of American learned societies took democratic form, in practice governance was elitist. The scholars most prominent in the disciplines were nominated and elected to the boards of the societies and became officers. Furthermore, board members and officers were members of the faculty at the most prestigious institutions. Because most of these institutions were located on the East Coast, other geographic regions of the United States were sparsely, if at all, represented.7 By contrast, CAA grew out of organizations in the East and Midwest. By 1917, there were thirty-six colleges and associations represented in the membership, including such geographically diverse institutions as the University of Kansas, Northwestern University, and the University of Oregon, as well as Harvard. Yale was not a member.8 From the beginning until 1960, issues affecting gender and membership diversity arose as a result of the complex relationship between art history and creative art. In the early years, a substantial number of women were members. In 1916, among the 108 individual members listed by name, there were 37 women. Women were involved in governance, publications, and conferences. For instance, at the annual meeting held at the University of Pennsylvania in April 1916, which centered on pedagogy, the well-known artist Cecilia Beaux, who was teaching at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design), was a speaker on “The Future Artist.” 9 The issue of what the art curriculum should be at the college level was debated from the beginning. As long as the creation of art was considered an appropriate interest of the association, women and artists were visible in CAA activities. The debate over studio art is documented in the early issues of the Art Bulletin.10 Should students receive full academic credit for creative art or not? Was art itself a craft or a conveyer of ideas? Just to show how deeply debate around curriculum ran, and how it influenced governance, one has only to look at the first issue of Bulletin of the College Art Association in 1913 (later The Art Bulletin), which listed only two committees, one of which is titled Investigation of Conditions of Art Instruction. The committee had three subcommittees, the second of which was “on practice of art in the university curriculum.” 11 Diversity of professions was evident in early publications as well as at conferences and in
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committee structure. In the January 1917 issue of the Bulletin of the College Art Association of America, the importance of teaching some art history in secondary schools was referred to as laying a base for the successful teaching of art at institutions of higher education.12 Interest in the secondary school studio art curriculum continued into the 1990s. In 1994, Susan Ball and CAA President Judith Brodsky met with the leadership of the National Art Education Association (NAEA) to develop closer ties. That year, CAA and NAEA sent delegates to each other’s annual conferences and a NAEA representative was given an ex officio seat on the CAA Education Committee. During the 1920s, professional diversity was maintained, and artists and art historians were equally involved in CAA. Indicative of the association’s continuing interest in creative art is the fact that, in 1929, CAA inaugurated traveling exhibitions of contemporary art to colleges and universities (see chapter 3).13 However, in the 1920s, CAA lost its Midwest roots and its geographic diversity. It became headquartered in New York and very much identified with the New York and East Coast art history, gallery, and museum establishment (see chapter 2 for the history of CAA and chapter 3 for its interrelationship with the federal art program in New York). That identification can be seen in the fact that a regular feature in all issues of Parnassus from 1929 to 1941 was a list of current exhibitions in New York galleries and museums. Having lost its geographic diversity in the decade of the 1920s, the association went on to lose both its professional and gender diversity in 1941, when the board announced that the CAA would in the future support only “the teaching of the history, analysis, and interpretation of art, not its creation. The history and criticism of art since it reveals and interprets human values finds its nearest education kinship not among the ateliers of creative art in our colleges, but among the other departments which serve the ends of a liberal humanistic education: history, literature, and philosophy.” 14 Artists and women had been included to a fairly significant extent in CAA governance up to this point. And just before the pronouncement, the prominence of women in the association had reached its height. For instance, in 1939, among the twelve new directors were four women—Myrtilla Avery, Marion Lawrence, Grace McCann Morley, and Agnes Rindge (later Claflin)—who made up one-third of the new class of board members. In 1943, Avery, a longtime CAA member, was vice president (for one year). Three of fifteen directors were women. Avery was also the first editor (for one year, 1941) of the College Art Journal when it was created to replace Parnassus. But during the 1940s and 1950s and until nearly the end of the 1960s, CAA governance was predominantly male, as were the participants in the annual meetings and the contributors to various publications.15 However, along with the other learned societies, CAA was challenged starting in the middle of the 1960s and into the 1970s by groups stirred up by the
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Civil Rights, antiwar, and feminist movements. It was an era of caucuses representing radical intellectual ideas and underrepresented groups. New ideas were creeping into the teaching of art history and new populations—younger and more diverse, brought about by the growth of both art history and studio art departments—were appearing on the scene. The challenge to the societies was so widespread that in 1969 the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) devoted its annual meeting to the subject of “Confrontation and the Learned Societies.” 16 The societies responded in various ways, most adjusting governance to become more democratic and representative of their memberships. In 1964, there were no artists on the board and the only woman was Jean Boggs, at that time a professor of art history at Washington University in St. Louis and in 1966 to become the first woman and fifth director of the National Gallery of Canada. The entire board was Caucasian. The nominating committee members were all men.17 But that year the board heard a report on the nominating and election system. According to the minutes of the board meeting: Chair reported there have been numerous requests that the CAA nominating and election system be so designed that a certain number of seats on the board would be, perforce, artists or artist-teachers. The president of the board said that the matter was discussed at the executive committee meeting. The executive committee recommended suggesting on the ballot that members vote for artist-teachers in order to have artistteachers on the board. Consequently, there should be included on the ballot a statement that the board of directors strongly urges that a number of artist-teachers receive a vote so that this group will be represented on the board of directors. The suggestion that the ballot also contain a short biography of all nominees was approved and it was decided to so instruct the Chairmen of future nominating committees.18 This modest beginning presaged the increasing pressures from the membership that resulted in the return to the inclusion of some artists in governance and ultimately of women and some non-Caucasians. (Richard Hunt, Benny Andrews, and David Driskell were among the first African Americans to serve on the board.) Few artist-teachers were involved in governance after the board decision of 1941, which had redefined the mission of the association as the advancement of art history.19 But now as a result of the expansion of higher education in the United States after World War II and the establishment and growth of studio departments in the academy, artist-teachers began to become more numerous in the CAA membership and to become visible in the organization once more. Artist members seemed to consider that they had a place in CAA. In 1964, the pioneer American abstractionist Ilya Bolotowsky brought his case to the at-
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tention of the CAA board. Bolotowsky was being requested by his institution to report on the sales of paintings he had made during a sabbatical leave and to return the equivalent amount of his salary paid during that leave. The board was sympathetic but declined to take a stand until the American Association of University Professors made its determination.20 In a significant action on the part of the board, Robert Motherwell was welcomed to the board in April 1965 to fill out the unexpired term of art historian Adolf Katzenellenbogen when he died.21 Jean Boggs was still the only woman on the board, but the nominating committee included women: Anne Coffin Hanson, art historian at Yale; and Agnes Mongan, curator of drawings and ultimately director at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard. In addition the nominating committee included two artists, the kinetic sculptor George Rickey, then teaching at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the painter Balcomb Greene, who was at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.22 The CAA board, however, became more self-perpetuating and less responsible to the membership in other ways. The death of Robert Herman, honorary counsel, in 1966 led to a reevaluation of the roles of the honorary counsel and honorary treasurer. Until 1966, the two were on the ballot each year and elected by the membership. Gilbert Edelson was appointed honorary counsel and undertook to look at the election process. His recommendation, which was adopted by the board, was to keep the appointment of the two as an annual event, but not to include their names on the ballot. Subsequently, they would be elected by the board alone.23 In spite of women and artists on the nominating committee, the board membership continued to consist of white male art historians.24 When the nominating committee members for 1966 were proposed to the board by the executive committee, they were all art historians (although some were museum curators or directors). The board as a whole was more responsive to artists than the executive committee and added three artists (but no women) to the committee: painter James McGarrell, Indiana University; print artist Lee Chesney, at that time at the University of Illinois; and painter Kyle Morris, living in New York, and a visiting lecturer at Yale in 1965.25 It’s particularly interesting to look at the role of Albert Elsen as CAA began to include artists. Elsen, an art historian long at Stanford, was a leader in liberalizing the association to be responsive to its artist membership. Elsen raised the issue of the lack of artists on the nominating committee in 1966; he was also the board member who suggested McGarrell. He went on to propose that Paul Brach, then at the University of California, San Diego, be a member of the committee to award a prize for excellence in criticism of contemporary art for undergraduate and graduate students. Elsen also recommended forming an advisory committee to advise the board on how the association could be more helpful to its artist-teacher members.26 Elsen’s recommendation was approved.
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The committee members suggested were Louis Finkelstein, long associated with Queens College; Paul Brach; Bernard Hanson, Philadelphia College of Art; Bernard Arnest, Minneapolis School of Art and Design and the University of Minnesota; John Paul Jones, who established the printmaking department at the University of California, Los Angeles, and then taught at the University of California, Irvine; painter Mervin Jules, then at Smith College and later chair of the art department at City College of New York; George Rickey; Abbott Pattison; Henry Holmes Smith, the abstract photographer, photo critic, and historian; John Schutkowski; Franz Schulze, the artist turned art historian and critic; and Robert Motherwell.27 What is particularly fascinating about Elsen’s liberalism is that when he first became president of the CAA board in the early 1970s, he was an obstructionist in the confrontation with feminists who were trying to reform the association and the board to act against the discrimination against women in the CAA and its member institutions.28 Among the artists who were nominated and elected to the board was Grace Hartigan, but she resigned in 1968; she had moved to Baltimore in the mid1960s and had begun teaching at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Louis Finkelstein, Queens College, City University of New York, was appointed in her place.29 In 1969, Anne Coffin Hanson was elected to the board along with artists James McGarrell and George Rickey.30 Boggs was still serving as vice president, having been elected to that position in 1968.31 The year 1969 was a banner year for artist members of CAA. It was recommended to the board that two members of the board, one representing art history and the other representing artists, be nominated by the board to become members of the executive committee as a way to ensure that the interests of the membership were considered by the executive committee. Elsen and McGarrell were the first to serve on the executive committee in this capacity.32 The Civil Rights movement was in full swing and reverberations from it began to seep into the actions of the CAA board. In response to a report at the business meeting by representatives from southern Negro colleges on the problems they were having in attracting faculty and building quality art programs, the CAA board conducted a discussion about providing services to small colleges, including black ones.33 Originally the discussion centered around serving the black colleges, but the board ended up by taking a conservative position and decided that any actions it might take would be directed to small colleges as a whole rather than to the black institutions. The actions proposed were a handbook, exhibitions of art, and summer seminars. Elsen was to prepare the handbook. The committee appointed was initially made up of art historians but was later altered to include more artists.34 Another move in line with the democratic thrust of the times consisted of proposals to change the bylaws by the new honorary counsel, Gilbert Edelson,
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for many years administrative vice president and counsel of the American Art Dealers Association. The proposals included increasing the size of the board and balancing the board to ensure representation of the various professions and geographical locations of the membership.35 As with other learned societies, new groups began to emerge in the mid1960s demanding changes in the ways their societies were doing business. Politicized conferences began taking place in the American Anthropological Association in 1965 with the result that a committee on organization was established in 1967 and a more democratic and representative governance put in place. In 1968, members of the Modern Language Association—including Noam Chomsky and Louis Kampf, both at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Florence Howe, then at Goucher College and subsequently the founder of The Feminist Press; and others—organized the New University Conference to articulate their demands for reform within the MLA.36 The CAA membership was slower in taking action, but in 1970, the New Art Association brought a set of demands to the CAA board. The representative selected by the New Art Association to go to the business meeting was the young Linda Nochlin, then using Pommer, her husband’s last name, and teaching at Vassar College (and subsequently at both the City University of New York and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University). She presented the New Art Association’s demand that called for a resolution to have the Art Journal become a forum for discussion concerning the discipline of art history and the teaching of studio art; the structure of the board should be altered to include graduate students and junior faculty; the location of future annual conferences should be on university campuses where dormitories would be available for low-cost accommodations; and the CAA should oppose the war in Vietnam. Nochlin presented this multiple-item resolution at the annual business meeting in 1970. It was approved by the members present.37 In April of that year, Edward Fry, the chair of the New Art Association, presented new resolutions to supersede those presented by Nochlin. In order to correct the imbalance and put young faculty and graduate students on the board in sufficient numbers immediately, all nominees on the ballot for the upcoming election should be either junior faculty or graduate students, and at least one representative from this cohort should be on the executive committee. He also demanded that the New Art Association not be recognized as a separate group but as a group within the association.38 This request was echoed by feminists a few years later. The board agreed to tell the nominating committee of Fry’s concerns. On October 31, 1970, Nochlin appeared again as the representative of the New Art Association. For the first time, the issue of how few women there were on the board was brought before the CAA. Leo Steinberg, University of Pennsylvania, objected to the accusation that the nominating committee had
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discriminated against women by saying that the board had made repeated efforts to elect more women, but they refused. Elsen joined Steinberg by pointing out that three women had been proposed for the nominating committee to select a slate for 1972. Nochlin did serve on the committee that year, as did Jean C. Harris, professor at Mount Holyoke College and organizer of one of the first exhibitions to focus on contemporary American women artists, Examining Art’s Economics (1962).39 In 1969, Boggs turned down the opportunity to become president and also resigned from the board. Boggs would have been the first woman to become CAA president. By this time, the women’s movement was under way in the greater world, but the CAA was still primarily a male bastion and would not change very much until the events described in the next section of this chapter. However, the board must have been somewhat aware of the effort by women to obtain equity as can be seen in the following grudging quote by H. W. Janson in the board minutes (Janson was shortly to become targeted by women artists and art historians because of his insistence that no women artists were adequate enough to be included in his well-known and widely used History of Art). Janson: “inasmuch as Miss Jean Boggs should have been elected to the Presidency in 1970, the Association had an obligation to have a women president if a suitable candidate could be found.” 40 With such a backhanded slap, Hanson was elected the first woman president, permitted, in a sense, to take on a leadership role. Artists were still in turmoil and the New Art Association was still pushing for change. Douglas Druick, then a graduate student at Yale and subsequently curator of prints at the Art Institute of Chicago, became the first graduate student to be elected to the board.41 Larry Rosing, artist and one-time faculty member at Rutgers University, brought another resolution from the New Art Association to the board meeting in 1972, a motion to have CAA take action against schools at which the MFA was not recognized as a terminal degree and also schools that used part-time positions for artists, thus avoiding placing them as full members of the faculty. The board approved this resolution because it did not involve the word “censure.” The board separately had decided that it was not in a position to censure its member schools. As a way to recognize the artist membership, a Distinguished Teaching of Art Award was proposed and also a national art students’ exhibition. The award was passed, but the exhibition proposal was sent to committee. And significantly the Committee on Women was established with Linda Nochlin Pommer as chair.42 If one can draw a conclusion, it is that the board remained essentially conservative. It continued to serve the traditional art history community, making some concessions to the demands from underserved membership, including artists, junior faculty, graduate students, and women. While Hanson had become the first woman president, the next presidents were both men, Elsen and George
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Sadek. Although some changes in governance had come about in the 1960s that moved the association toward inclusivity, the stage was set for the confrontation between the CAA and the women members of the association, to be addressed in the next section of this chapter.
governance and diversity in the 1970s: caa and the women’s caucus for art Mary D. Garrard In 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John, “In the new code of laws, remember the ladies and do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.” John Adams replied, “I cannot but laugh. Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems.” 43 Shortly before the CAA meeting in San Francisco in 1972, word got out that on January 28 there would be a lunchtime meeting of women members. One of them called the association’s office in New York for more information. A young man replied that the meeting seemed to have no chairman or agenda, and was merely an informal get-together for the “ladies to air their gripes.” 44 By noon that day, the designated meeting room had been expanded into a double suite to accommodate the crowd of women; we sat on the floor and overflowed into the corridor. The meeting had been arranged by Paula Harper and Miriam Schapiro, faculty of the pioneering Feminist Art Program at Cal Arts. The agenda hardly needed to be articulated: everyone knew it was sex discrimination in the arts. That day a women’s caucus was formed, which would eventually transform both the CAA as an organization and the women members who stepped into leadership roles for the first time, initially within the Caucus and then in the association itself. The meeting of the women in San Francisco was fired by the revolution that had gripped American culture and the art world for three years. In 1969, Women Artists in Revolution (WAR) broke out of the male-dominated Art Workers’ Coalition. In 1970, artists Faith Ringgold, Poppy Johnson, Brenda Miller, and critic Lucy Lippard formed the Ad Hoc Committee of Women Artists to protest discrimination in Whitney annual exhibitions, which included women in a 5 to 10 percent range. In 1971, Women in the Arts emerged to sustain the pressure on museums, while the Los Angeles Council of Women Artists attacked the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for excluding women from their major Art and Technology exhibition.45 These actions produced change that was rapid by institutional standards: the Whitney sculpture annual of 1970 was 22 percent female, a clear response to a massive political wave. LACMA responded with a four-woman exhibition in 1972, and a proposed historical show of women’s art
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that would become the groundbreaking Women Artists: 1550–1950, curated by Ann Sutherland Harris and Linda Nochlin. Networking brought women from every corner of the United States into the dialogue. Art and slide registries were created by West-East Bag, Redstocking Artists, and Women in the Arts. In 1971, Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro created the Feminist Art Program at Cal Arts, whose showcase project, Womanhouse, brought national recognition to the feminist shake-up of the visual arts. Women constructed female-only spaces, such as the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles and the Women’s Interart Center in New York—simultaneously “rooms of one’s own” and bases of power. Soon after the birth of the CAA Women’s Caucus came the Corcoran Conference of Women in the Visual Arts in Washington, D.C. (April 1972), and similar conferences in Ithaca, Buffalo, New Haven, Los Angeles, and Wisconsin. In important respects, the feminist network in the visual arts embraced a larger world than the entire CAA membership. Yet these worlds were not separate spheres. The issues of “women’s liberation” intersected directly with the interests and activities of the CAA, as they did with other professional associations that saw women’s caucuses form in the early 1970s. Preeminent was the status of women in the colleges and universities that were the CAA’s primary constituency. (Museums and art schools were peripheral factions of the membership in 1972.) Half or more of the students in art departments were female, yet women were a small part of the faculties. And the situation was worse for art professions than other academic fields. Ann Sutherland Harris, who emerged from the organizing meeting as president of the Women’s Caucus, took the lead in investigating academic sex discrimination in the art professions. Her survey of forty-one fine arts departments showed that women were 4.7 percent of full professors, 11.6 percent of associate professors, 17.5 percent of assistant professors, and 23.6 percent of instructors—slightly less than in academia in general. As Harris pointed out, since art history and studio attracted a higher proportion of women than other disciplines, the figures indicated clearly discriminatory practices.46 The abstract numbers were humanized by the war stories behind them, widely publicized through The Rip-Off File, created circa 1973 by Joyce Kozloff and Nancy Spero for the Ad Hoc Committee of Women Artists. This ongoing collection of individual experiences resonated for art-world women: “One male colleague said to me after my daughter was born that that was the most creative thing I had ever done.” “One male instructor, when asked how difficult it was for a ‘girl’ to get into the Fine Arts Department, replied that it depended on how pretty she was.” Women got discriminatory questions in job interviews: Are you planning to marry? What does your husband do? How does your husband feel about you working? A cultural snapshot of the situation for women in art around 1970 is seen in one painfully honest rejection letter: “We simply did not have the
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nerve to add another woman to the art department faculty and thus bring the departmental balance to half male and half female.” 47 In response to the concerns voiced by women members, the CAA board created a Committee on the Status of Women (COSW) at its January 1972 meeting, chaired by Linda Nochlin. Surveys of the profession were nominally the committee’s first order of business, but the first surveys were initiated and conducted by Women’s Caucus members and were not funded by CAA. In 1973, Barbara Ehrlich White, with Leon S. White, conducted a statistical analysis of the status of women in 164 art departments. A survey of women in museums was initiated in 1973 by Marcia Tucker and completed by H. Diane Russell. In 1974–1975, the association finally joined in to sponsor a survey of MFA programs, carried out by Janice K. Ross and Landa L. Trentham. At the November 1975 board meeting, Sheila McNally, now COSW chair, reported the results of a questionnaire the organization had sent to the 45 PhDgranting institutions in the United States (minus two: Columbia and New York University, the two largest departments in the country, refused to provide sex breakdowns). In the 43 schools, women were 22 percent of all faculty, and 15 percent of the tenured faculty. Yet the pipeline looked quite different: women were 62 percent of the PhD candidates.48 In 1978–1979, as the next COSW chair, I conducted a follow-up survey to the same PhD-granting institutions. By this time, 74 percent of all MA and PhD candidates were female.49 In 1996, Marjorie Och, on behalf of the renamed Committee on Women in the Arts, surveyed 157 studio and art history programs, to find that, nearly twenty years later, this 74 percent female cohort held only 37 percent of all full professorships. As Och put it, the men “who numbered 26% of MA and PhD candidates in 1978–79 were . . . 63% of full professors in 1995–96.” 50 At its January 1973 meeting, the CAA board passed resolutions brought by Ann Harris as interim chair of COSW stating the association’s opposition to discriminatory practices in hiring and promotion, admissions, and fellowships. Noting that under the Equal Pay Act, it was now a federal offense to base salaries on anything but professional criteria, the resolutions urged individual and institutional members to cooperate fully with campus affirmative-action plans. In April 1973, the board reaffirmed its stand in the face of the Nixon administration’s “backsliding” on affirmative action.51 Other progressive steps were taken by the CAA in the early 1970s. The number of women on the board of directors grew from two in January 1971 to eight (of twenty-seven) in 1973. In 1971, the association chose its first woman president (as discussed in the preceding section). But as more women joined the board, there came a tipping point, and resistance set in. Similarly, early tensions between the CAA and the Women’s Caucus over spheres of activity developed into serious rifts. Caucus leaders repeatedly urged the association to help collect
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statistics on gender in the art professions, but the board gave mixed messages, simultaneously claiming such activity as its own purview, and pushing the responsibility onto the Caucus. Matters came to a head at the board meeting of November 1973, when President Hanson reported that, “on advice of Counsel, the Executive Committee is asking the Women’s Caucus, which is not officially affiliated with the CAA, to drop the use of the phrase ‘of the CAA’ from its name.” At the January 1974 board meeting, Harris announced that the Caucus’s new name was the “Women’s Caucus of College Artists, Art Historians, and Museum Professionals,” and promised that in future listings the independent status of the Caucus would be noted. Pointing to the overlap of membership and the fact that the Caucus provided much of the labor to carry out COSW projects, Harris voiced the hope that a “friendly informal relationship” would continue.52 Women’s Caucus for Art In 1974, as the second president of the Caucus, I oversaw the creation of a new, nonprofit organization now called Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA). Members were ambivalent about this step. Most of us belonged to CAA, and, on the one hand, we felt the sting of exclusion and of the implication that our concerns were external to the association. On the other hand, there were clear advantages. We could expand our membership beyond CAA, conduct activities without the organization’s board approval, and, with tax-exempt status, apply for grants. The transformation of the “Women’s Caucus” into WCA also initiated a new phase of collective rather than individual action. By January 1975, WCA membership had tripled to one thousand, and several national chapters had been formed. In order to strengthen the organization, I created a national advisory board, and together we invented a structure of governance for WCA, setting procedures for the election of the president and the role of the advisory board. In the long run, the “banishment” of the Caucus from CAA was beneficial, allowing the WCA to grow and change. The latter morphed from a group dominated by art historians into a primarily artist-focused one. With the development of WCA chapters across the country, women artists in local communities were supported, and their identities strengthened, by affiliation with a national organization. Thanks to the work of Judith K. Brodsky, the third president of WCA, the organization grew to play a significant role in the national feminist movement, joining Women in the Arts and other organizations to form a large umbrella coalition called the Coalition of Women’s Arts Organizations (CWAO), which gained important government support for women in the arts. With a special lift from the Carter administration, in 1979 the WCA held its first lifetime achievement Honor Awards ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House.53
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Anatomy of a Board Meeting Perhaps because of these outside successes, the WCA’s relationship with CAA grew increasingly adversarial in the mid-1970s. One important turning point was the contentious April 1975 board meeting, when several key WCA proposals were fought down. I will describe it in depth because I have very full notes on it, which effectively convey the new combative tone.54 At issue was CAA’s role in monitoring sex discrimination. Norma Broude, representing the WCA as its affirmative action officer, put several proposals on the table, explaining that the WCA wanted CAA to fill a vacuum of ethical leadership. Noting the backlog of cases before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and a general sense among women in academia that the law was not working, Broude cited the opinion of our counterparts in sociology that “academic departments will abandon discriminatory practices not because the federal government requires it, but because their peers require and expect it of them.” 55 Broude pointed out that CAA lagged behind sister organizations that considered sex discrimination a problem for their whole professions, whose members saw themselves playing a crucial role in changing prejudicial attitudes. She cited the precedents of the American Anthropological Association, which had a 25–30 percent female membership; and the American Political Science Association, with only 12–15 percent of its members female. Each had been proactive in monitoring fair practices, publishing gender statistics, and producing rosters of women in the field.56 CAA, by contrast, had refused to support two art historians in their sex-discrimination suit against Tufts University. The class action suit initiated by Christiane Joost-Gaugier and joined by her colleague Barbara Ehrlich White was the first case taken up and eventually won by the EEOC.57 When Broude presented the WCA request that CAA actively monitor discrimination for art professions, the board’s resistance was palpable. As she reported to me in a letter written just after the board meeting, President Albert Elsen told her that the executive committee could not believe that other associations were assuming a regulatory posture. “Go back and check your facts,” he said. “No association will censure a department or drop it from membership for alleged discriminatory practices.” Despite documented evidence to the contrary, included in advance packets in front of each board member, and despite the contrary example given by one board member, the WCA proposal was not even voted on, merely talked down. The talking down was partly woman-supported. One female board member ventured that women in CAA were better off than in other professional fields, because their very numbers had led the association to respond to their needs. (In reality, every single change proposed by female members had been hard won.) As Broude later reported, “All faces were suffused with smiles and heads wagged
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up and down in satisfied approval.” 58 At that point, a male board member asked about the overlap of WCA and CAA membership, and whether any WCA officers were on the CAA board. Broude replied that several were. Yet none of those present “seemed willing to stand up and be counted,” perhaps fearing conflictof-interest accusations (which is where the questioning seemed headed). Yet, as Broude emphasized, the fact that most of the 1,000 WCA members were also CAA members indicated a commonality, not divergence, of interests and goals. Elsen then turned to the WCA request that a questionnaire be sent to institutional users of the CAA placement bureau, requesting data on interviewing and hiring practices. Against the WCA argument that such record-keeping was required by law, and that a CAA questionnaire naming sex as a category would signal its concern to member departments, Vice President George Sadek said the board “feared over-kill if it were to inundate departments with too many questionnaires.” President Elsen added that such a questionnaire would cause unnecessary duplication of effort that might alienate the institutional membership.59 A related issue was that of our seemingly dueling placement operations. Rose Weil, the CAA executive secretary, refused to circulate to institutional members a leaflet describing the WCA placement service, on the grounds that this might discourage them from using the placement bureau.60 She further argued that the association had a commitment to all members, male and female. We argued that professional organizations had an additional commitment to their member institutions, which is to facilitate their efforts to comply with affirmative action requirements. Moreover, as I wrote to Weil, the WCA’s placement service actually got the CAA off the hook: “You cannot of course directly promote female candidates. You may, however, direct an inquiring department to another source, and this would be a referral action only, not a partisan stance.” 61 It would be logical to conclude that the WCA was playing a useful “outsider” role for the CAA. But having pushed the WCA out of the CAA, the leadership seemed to resent it all the more. And so, gradually, the consensus was to Otherize the Caucus. This attitude was captured in a letter Anne Coffin Hanson wrote to Ann Sutherland Harris just before the Caucus was expelled from CAA: “The main problem here seems again to be a confusion about the Caucus and the Committee [COSW]. . . . I am sure that the new president and the Executive Committee will want to continue support of our own Committee rather than an outside group like the Caucus.” 62 It has seemed paradoxical that sex discrimination in academia is greater in fields with a strong female presence such as art and art history, and that our own CAA leadership was initially more resistant to advocating for women than professional associations with a far smaller female constituency. But this is no paradox. There was more good-willed advocacy of women’s issues in those associations precisely because women were a genuine minority. In the CAA, women
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were technically defined as a “minority” to conceal the fact that they actually constituted a majority, and the reality that women’s interests were CAA’s interests, when their proportional share of the membership was considered. The men of CAA who saw their numbers shrinking and their gender entitlements threatened in the 1970s were motivated by self-interest to resist and demonize the efforts of the feminist women. And in the CAA, as in other organizations, the power and status of “masculine systems” were vigorously defended by the selected women who were judiciously given a taste of that power. Accordingly, there formed an unspoken coalition between (many) men and (some) enabling women who were scornful or skeptical of feminism in the belief that they were exempt from its concerns. Thus it was convenient for the board, even when its female members numbered nearly half, to maintain the fiction that the WCA was an alien, outsider organization, the relevance of whose activities to CAA must always be explained and defended. The WCA and the CAA Board Following the open hostility manifested in the April 1975 board meeting from a group that prided itself on civilized discourse, we began to coordinate the efforts of WCA and board members more effectively. I wrote to the feminist-identified women on the board in advance of the November 1975 meeting, inviting them to meet with us and/or support the Caucus’s proposals. The night before that meeting, the women on the board and I as WCA representative met and planned our strategy. At the board meeting the next day, we worked together to secure the necessary votes.63 We nodded encouragement to one another, passed notes, and smiled broadly at our little successes. Although we disrupted the usually polite tenor of the board meeting, our entirely open, even caricatured, exercise of political power contrasted only in style with the male-dominated establishment’s way of securing its base behind the scenes. The issue that day was gender parity on the CAA board. With the membership 51 percent female, and women now numbering eleven of twenty-five board members, the nominating committee presented the board a slate with only two women among twelve nominees. In response to this backlash, the WCA put forth a resolution that the CAA board should “continue to reflect the membership at large, in respect to geography, professional field, race and sex,” and that the nominating committee should see that proper balance, “especially between male and female members,” is maintained. At that time, the nominating committee offered the membership a slate of candidates, but was only required to be guided, not bound, by the members’ vote. We objected to the underrepresentation of female nominees and also to the undemocratic process, since members
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were ratifying a preselected slate. The WCA resolution was bitterly fought, but finally passed, with twelve ayes, five nays, and seven abstentions. Only in the late 1980s would the process of electing new board members be changed to represent the votes of the membership, rather than the will of the executive committee. By this time, the CAA was dealing with both the WCA backlash and regressive segregation. When we requested three sessions on women-focused topics at the 1975 conference, we were allotted three simultaneous sessions at the noon hour, carefully labeled in the conference program as WCA rather than CAA sessions. (Sessions sponsored by the Marxist Caucus were similarly segregated.) At the 1975 conference, as earlier, there were a few women- or gender-focused sessions scattered throughout the program, but there was no particular rationale for the distinction between the WCA-sponsored sessions and these so-called “regular” sessions. Throughout the 1970s, the CAA continued to differentiate its concerns from those of the WCA, which they treated as a special-interest organization, and even from the concerns of WCA-identified women members. When COSW chair Sheila McNally requested joint CAA sponsorship at the 1978 meeting for the WCA art history session “Questioning the Litany: Feminist Views of Art History,” the request was denied on the grounds that “the CAA presents a single coherent program based on what is presently significant for the discipline . . . [though] that does not preclude a limited forum for the specialized interests of liaison groups in the sessions set aside for that purpose.” 64 As for the relationship of that session to what is “significant for the discipline,” I can comment, as cochair of the session and co-editor with Norma Broude of the volume that came out of it, that Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany has been a staple of college art history courses since its publication in 1982, and is still in print. From Caucus to Affiliated Society In the late 1970s, the Othering of the WCA was facilitated by the emergence of other “liaison groups,” which permitted the CAA to eliminate its special ties with the Caucus on the grounds of fairness to other such organizations. For example, a WCA representative had been present at CAA board meetings since 1974. In January 1978, CAA President George Sadek discontinued the practice because “the birth and growth of other liaison groups required that a rational and equitable policy be established.” 65 At its April 1978 meeting the board tried to devise a policy, dividing “affiliated societies” into three categories: (1) subdisciplinary (e.g., the American Committee for South Asian Art, with 107 members); (2) professional groups (such as the Ad Hoc Committee on Foundation Education, with 150–200 members); and (3) “groups with ideological/social orientations” (which
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included the Caucus for Marxism and Art, with about 300 members, and WCA, the oldest and most established of all the groups, with 2,500 members, approximately 1,200 of whom were also members of CAA).66 The discussion, as reflected in the minutes, clarified starkly what had been at stake for WCA all along. On one side: “the CAA is a specialized organization devoted to very specific and clearly articulated aims; those aims are intellectual and aesthetic, not social or ideological. The CAA can serve as an umbrella organization only to a very limited degree; otherwise the rain of demands will rend the very fabric that holds us together.” On the other: “Neither art nor the CAA exists in a vacuum; it is precisely the liaison groups—in particular the socially and ideologically oriented liaison groups—that have brought new vitality (and new membership) to the organization. The relationship is symbiotic, not parasitical. For its own sake, it is essential that the CAA absorb the social, professional, and disciplinary concerns represented by those organizations that are legitimate offshoots of the Association.” 67 These contrasting views of the CAA’s organizational responsibilities precisely mirrored the growing divide between the “old” and “new” art history at that time, and echoed the challenge mounted by socially and ideologically focused scholarship to an aesthetically focused “old guard.” 68 Discussion of how to handle the affiliated societies produced two choices: all groups should be treated alike, or some should have special status. CAA President Marilyn Stokstad formed a committee to draft guidelines. The WCA position was that we were a special case, easily distinguished from other groups under consideration by size, membership overlap with CAA, and the interface of our concerns. As a member of the committee, I argued that one cannot “make a clear-cut distinction between the practice or study of art and an interest in social or political issues as they bear upon the practice of the profession,” noting the contradiction “that a majority of CAA members remain professionally disadvantaged as a class, yet their interests are defended more vigorously by a ‘special interest’ organization than by the professional organization itself.”69 Despite strong support of the WCA position by the three women on the fivemember committee, the executive committee produced draft guidelines at the next (October 1978) board meeting that would permit liaison representatives at board meetings only ad hoc and at presidential discretion, and would allow groups one time slot each at annual meetings, regardless of size or stability. For various reasons, discussion of the affiliated groups issue was tabled until the next (January 1979) meeting. According to the minutes of that meeting, in the eight months since this topic was first introduced, “passions had cooled considerably.” 70 In fact, we had become more steamed up than ever. On the eve of the January meeting, the WCA advisory board wrote to the CAA board strongly urging
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the restoration of our previous relationship with the association, with three sessions, a business meeting, and a continuing WCA representative to the board. The WCA board stated that it was “deeply distressed” by the CAA board’s equating of the Caucus with fifteen varied “special interest” groups listed in that year’s preliminary program.71 Despite our efforts, the guidelines were accepted and it became the official policy, still in place today, that each affiliated society would get only one prime-time slot at the annual conference. The issue became increasingly less pressing when WCA began to hold an independent conference that overlapped with that of the larger organization, and as CAA programs contained a growing number of sessions and papers on women and gender. Yet as the passions generated over the issue demonstrate, for WCA members, being labeled “affiliate” was effectively being ostracized from one’s own community. Toward a More Progressive CAA As these examples show, CAA was more conservative and resistant than most professional organizations to the challenge presented by feminist activism. Ultimately, I think, its long-standing denial that women’s concerns are CAA’s business, and the lingering residue of Otherness that attached to WCA-identified women, were psychically damaging to both women and men of CAA. If gender relations equalized less quickly and easily here than in other associations, it may also have been because the feminized position of art among professions (affecting both art historians and artists) provoked the construction of a defensive masculine posture. We have faced a “feminization of the discipline” perception problem since the 1970s, and today, when the percentage of women in art history is higher than ever, this problem of perception is all the more acute.72 Despite the board’s initial resistances, CAA adopted a number of progressive, gender-related changes in the 1970s. In April 1976, the board passed a WCAsponsored resolution that the group insurance plan should include full pregnancy benefits. Spurred by the WCA, the CAA was the first large professional organization to challenge the sex-discriminatory pension plans of TIAA-CREF, and our action encouraged other associations to do so.73 In October 1976, the board passed the WCA proposal that eligibility for the annual Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize (best Art Bulletin article) be changed from an age limit of under thirty-five to ten years after the PhD is attained, to acknowledge that women and minorities are often obliged to “interrupt or postpone their careers for economic and social reasons.” The proposal’s whistle-blowing on gender favoritism was justified, because every single winner of the Porter Prize from 1970 through 1976 was male, even though women had authored nearly half the articles published in the Art Bulletin (61 of 131).74 The so-called women’s issues proved to be, moreover, not supplementary but
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transformative. The CAA began to absorb and reflect new values, including the view that a professional organization should assume social responsibilities and respond to the profession’s changing demographics. The Caucus’s hard-won victories paved the way for other “minority” groups to have their voices heard— gays and lesbians, African Americans and other ethnically defined groups, and people with disabilities. After a long struggle, the WCA finally persuaded the CAA to adopt grievance procedures for its members, noting that it had taken a stand on ethical questions such as artists’ rights, sculptural representation, and affirmative action.75 It was through the model of affirmative action, especially, that the CAA took on the broader role of adjudicating the grievances of members. And it was through the leadership of women who earned their political stripes as WCA activists that the CAA was transformed into a more broadly representative and socially responsible organization. The tenor changed conspicuously when former Caucus activists moved up the ladder to become CAA presidents, particularly Ruth Weisberg (1990–1992) and Judith Brodsky (1994–1996). But as the 1970s ended, CAA once again retrenched, reiterating that women’s rights issues were not its proper ethical concern. The ERA and the 1980 New Orleans CAA Meeting In 1972, the United States Congress passed the Twenty-Seventh Amendment to the Constitution and sent it to the states for ratification. As the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) moved through the country, feminist leaders mounted a national boycott of states that had refused to ratify it. In 1977, the CAA board selected New Orleans as its 1980 convention site; Louisiana was an unratified state. The WCA unanimously adopted a resolution “deploring” the selection of New Orleans and urging the board to select an alternative location and join some forty professional organizations that had refused to hold conventions in non-ratified states (the American Psychological Association had recently cancelled New Orleans, Atlanta, and Las Vegas).76 Again, CAA was in the rear guard among professional associations. Many objections were voiced at the January 1978 board meeting: “The CAA is a scholarly society that has no reason or right to speak for its membership on nondisciplinary issues;” or “The ERA is a moral issue, but the Equal Rights Amendment is a specific legislative mechanism that is not necessarily supported by all persons favoring equal rights” (though it was the only such mechanism in play at the time). Others found higher moral ground in the contract CAA had signed with the New Orleans hotel, pointing out that it is “immoral and/or irrational to breach a contract.” 77 In the end, the board resolved that CAA would not hold future conventions
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in non-ratifying states, but that it would, with regret, meet in New Orleans in 1980, unless the president could get the hotel to release us from our contract (he did not succeed). CAA went to New Orleans, and with it one wing of the WCA, which was also deeply divided over this issue. One segment of its membership chose to sustain a modified boycott in New Orleans and dramatize women’s issues there; another segment supported the full boycott and staged an alternative conference in Washington, D.C., where WCA awards were presented to prominent feminist activists.78 The ERA drive stalled three states short of the necessary thirty-eight needed for ratification. Against well-organized opposition in an increasingly conservative political atmosphere, time ran out in 1982. In 1980, when CAA broke the boycott, it did so in the name of an organization whose membership was over half female.
outsiders within: caa from 1980 to 2008 Ferris Olin By the late 1970s and beyond, CAA’s membership rolls had increased with an ever-expanding number of women joining, while visual arts professionals from culturally diverse backgrounds remained low in number, but also grew. These pluralistic constituencies clamored for their voices to be heard in the board room, in conference sessions, within committee and caucus meetings, and on the pages of the Art Journal and Art Bulletin. Many in this group, artists and art historians alike, were employed as professionals within the field, yet remained marginalized within the organization. However, the positionality of being an “outsider within” can often be an effective place from which to become an agent of change.79 These individuals served on CAA committees and the board of directors and worked with the executive director to set new goals, missions, and core values for the organization as it approached the new millennium. With the arrival of Susan Ball as executive director in 1986, the atmosphere at CAA was soon transformed. Phyllis Pray Bober (president of CAA, 1988– 1990) characterized the leadership of the organization from earlier times as “an East Coast group of old guys . . . a men’s club of the Ivy League.” 80 But the board by the mid-1980s already had a more diverse makeup, with more women and more artists serving on it. This transformation was catalyzed in part by the activities of the WCA, the explosive growth of studio art departments, the Civil Rights movement, and the beginning stages of identity politics. 81 The mixture was both conservative and liberal simultaneously during an era when some of the leading figures of the art world in the United States sat on the board of CAA. Among them were not only distinguished male art historians like Oleg Grabar
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and James Cahill but also distinguished female art historians like Bober, Barbara Maria Stafford, and Irene Winter. Artists on the board in the mid-1980s were Joyce Kozloff, an important feminist, and pattern and decoration artist Cynthia Carlson, the late Nancy Graves, and William Bailey. Museum curators and directors were now represented as well, among them Alan M. Fern, Richard R. Brettell, and Henry A. Millon, director of the American Academy in Rome. Women who had been through the discrimination mill in the 1970s, such as Christiane Joost-Gaugier, were elected to membership on the board. So the stage was set for further movement toward inclusivity. The class of 1987 was distinctive in that two women of color were included—Mary Schmidt Campbell and Faith Ringgold. Other African Americans had already been elected to the board in the preceding two decades—Sam Gilliam, Howardena Pindell, David Driskell, Benny Andrews, and Richard Hunt. The diversity of the board also reflected the changing demographics found within higher education, including the visual arts and art history. In post–World War II America, 71 percent of undergraduate enrollment was male; yet by 2001 that percentage had dropped to 44 percent. In the mid-1960s, 94 percent of college students were classified as white; yet by 2000, the figure of non-Hispanic whites in college had decreased to 71 percent. While in the decade between 1984 and 1994 American colleges and universities saw a huge increase—by two million—in the number of enrollees, none of those new students were white, male, and American-born. Instead, this large figure included women, nonwhites, and students from abroad. Full-time faculty statistics also parallel this cultural democracy of the country—those hired prior to 1985 were 28 percent female and 11 percent nonwhite or Hispanic; since the mid-1980s, the figures have nearly doubled. These statistics do not take into account the large numbers of parttime and contingency faculty, many of whom are women and/or from culturally diverse origins.82 In a 1981 survey of PhD-granting art history departments conducted by Mary D. Garrard to determine the status of women, she concluded that the number of women full-time faculty members increased in the 1970s by 47 percent; even so, in 1979 women still composed only 26 percent of the full-time faculty, 17 percent of the tenured faculty, and 10 percent of full professorships.83 CAA’s board was cognizant of the changing times and discussed the future needs of the discipline, seeing it as a social imperative that “new audiences” in the academy as students and visitors to museums meant that “neglected cultures” would be getting more attention and art historical issues would receive new interpretations. “The face of the field of art history is changing in an evolutionary manner and we believe for the social good. All that can be done to foster diversity will be money well spent.” 84 With the bylaws change of 1991 that encouraged inclusion and discouraged
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discrimination, the board and membership signaled their commitment to increase CAA’s membership of underrepresented groups and to focus scholarship on more diverse cultural praxis and production. This revision took place under the stewardship of Ruth Weisberg (president, 1990–1992). She wrote in her farewell statement that: “Our current representation of the various constituencies of CAA, professional, geographic, gender, racial and ethnic, nourished and strengthened us. It has also heightened our awareness of underrepresented groups and unacknowledged points of view. My hope is that we can now proceed thoughtfully and openly discuss and debate the issues in the very charged areas of freedom of expression, sexuality, gender.” 85 Leadership on the board also changed dramatically beginning in the mid1980s. There were several resignations among the officers, opening the way for Weisberg, Larry Silver, and Judith K. Brodsky to enter the ladder of succession. The era of identity politics and the culture wars of the 1990s were boiling up in the art world, resulting in renewed activity on the part of members involved in social and political issues. June Wayne was selected by Weisberg to be convocation speaker and she gave an impassioned speech against the censorship that was then raging in Washington. Susan Ball led the way for a renewed emphasis on advocacy. CAA supported the National Endowment of the Arts during attacks from Congress, and Ball became active on the part of the organization in the National Humanities Council, which lobbied on behalf of the humanities for more funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment of the Arts. Board members continue to this day to participate in both Arts Advocacy Day and Humanities Advocacy Day in Washington. One of Ball’s first acts as the new executive officer was to institute a strategic planning process, signaling a new era at CAA. Paul Arnold, who had been one of the few artists to become president of CAA (1986–1988), led the strategic planning team. From those planning sessions emerged some of the leaders of CAA in its next phase: Bober, Weisberg, Silver, and Brodsky, all of whom served as president of CAA during the late 1980s and into the 1990s. That strategic planning resulted in a number of innovative developments centered on inclusivity, including establishing the Professional Development Fellowship Program (see chapter 7 for a full description of the program). Bober was the first to suggest the program.86 She herself had been a recipient of a CAA fellowship in the late 1940s, funded by the Carnegie Foundation. Her thought was that such a program would ensure a new generation of art historians who would then become CAA members—the concern of the group at that point was how to maintain and increase membership numbers. Ofelia Garcia, Brodsky, and Ball then began to create a structure for such a program, but expanded the recipient pool to include artists in MFA programs. The goal of the program also became specific: How to increase the diversity of the field? The idea was to
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award fellowships to candidates of color in order to give them a boost in entering the mainstream. The program helped to fund students in the last year of their degree programs and, in partnership with institutions such as museums and art departments in institutions of higher education, to provide them with their first professional jobs for the year after their studies concluded. An article in CAA News reported: It is CAA’s opinion that intervention at this level is significant, because though the transition from academic life to professional life is difficult for all students, it is especially so for students of color. Criteria for selection will be excellence and financial need, with special attention given to selecting candidates who will adequately represent the cultural diversity of the population of the US.87 Initial funding of $90,000 was awarded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, which had already underwritten a New York Foundation for the Arts report on cultural diversity for boards of arts and cultural organizations. The program was launched in 1993 after successful NEA and NEH proposals, written by Ball and Brodsky, were awarded to fund candidates who had been marginalized because of race, ethnicity, economic class, or sexual orientation.88 By February 1996 and under Brodsky’s presidency, more than $750,000 had been raised in support of the program from individual donations and the Getty, Andy Warhol, and Luce Foundations.89 Later the Fellowship Program’s focus came to be on economic deprivation, but initially it was a bold challenge to a mostly white visual arts field to become more inclusive. Like many not-for-profit organizations in the 1990s, and under Brodsky’s and Ball’s leadership, the association began to look beyond dues for funding from foundations, government agencies, and individual donors. The emphasis was on raising funds to support new initiatives, like the Professional Development Fellowship Program, to provide travel support for artists and art historians without the resources to come to the conferences, and on providing ongoing financial coverage for publications. Ball and Brodsky organized a fund-raising campaign among the membership with some significant success. For example, members were offered opportunities to purchase prints made by CAA artist members in collaboration with the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, which donated staff time to create limited editions. Among the artists whose work has been sold under this arrangement are former board members Miriam Schapiro, Sam Gilliam, Faith Ringgold, and Buzz Spector, as well as Kiki Smith and Willie Cole, all of whom donated their time and talent to the effort. CAA’s Long-Range Plan, 1990–2000, was conceived to set the organization
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on its course toward the twenty-first century at a time when there had been many changes in society, in the country’s demographics, visual arts discourse, and images. The fellowship program was one of several initiatives embarked upon related to educational programs and diversity that would achieve the plan’s goals: The CAA is working toward the achievement of diversity in the field and in its membership, governance and programs. . . . The CAA must take active measures to identify and involve people of color and other underrepresented groups within the academic and museum professions, unaffiliated artists and those individuals in the museum world who can add breadth and scope of the association in the field. The focus on the diversity will also extend to international horizons, as cultural and economic exchange among nations will also be a key factor in the 1990s.90 To this end and under the leadership of board member and artist Faith Ringgold (1986–1990), CAA published a 1993 Directory of People of Color in the Visual Arts. Approved by the board in 1989 as a survey, it took five years to compile and was not without its detractors.91 Letters in CAA files reveal objections to the survey on such grounds as grouping Hispanics under the rubric of “people of color,” using third parties to identify an individual for inclusion in the directory, and setting a precedent such that any group that felt discrimination would expect CAA to publish one for them. The intent of the directory was to provide opportunities for artists of color to network and to serve as a resource for potential employers and organizations searching for broad representation on panels. It listed more than 750 visual arts professionals and students of African American/black, Asian, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, and other nonwhite descent. It is significant that only 15 percent of the academics listed were tenured.92 Simultaneous with this initiative, the board also “took immediate measures to ensure that CAA annual conference sessions consistently consider in a serious manner issues of gender, race, and ethnicity.” 93 The February 1988 board minutes note that Ringgold raised the issue of the absence of annual conference panels dealing with minority issues for studio and none related to gender or race in the art history sessions. An exchange of letters between Ball and representatives of the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, a CAA-affiliated society, confirms dissatisfaction with the lack of “ethnic” panels at the annual conference.94 Later, a board subcommittee of artists—Kozloff, Ringgold, and Weisberg—submitted for consideration a general policy recommendation (not passed by the board) that included the suggestion that CAA
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actively promote the full participation of people of color. . . . All CAA panels, workshops, sessions, panels of selections, nominating committees, award committees and award recipients and the board of directors include 30 percent people of color. Panels should cover the broad range of art of people of color, both historical and contemporary.95 Yet by February 1991, board members praised the studio program chairs for a “great program that encompassed important issues such as people of color . . . , but M. Ramirez-Garcia noted that the program lacked sufficient Latin American interest.” After further discussions concerning the lack of annual conference papers and panels focused on topics other than the Anglo-European traditions, in 1991 the board approved a recommendation that board members Murry DePillars, Mari Ramirez-Garcia, and Leslie King-Hammond develop a group of board-sponsored sessions on culturally diverse topics for the 1992 conference.96 By mid-decade, chairs of the Art Historians and Artists Committees, which then planned conferences, reflected the diversity that was the board’s goal. For example, the 1994 New York City conference chairs included Lowery Sims and Juan Sanchez (studio sessions) and Kinshasha Conwill and Marcia Tucker (art history sessions); and subsequent conferences hosted convocations speakers such as Tom Hill, Kerry James Marshall, and Roger Shimomura. Meanwhile, CAA’s Committee on Cultural Diversity worked earnestly to contribute to the pluralist dialogue. During this last decade of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century, it continued to sponsor conference sessions, compile and disseminate bibliographies on multiculturalism, and advocate for a more inclusive association. And the organization itself continued to be an active participant in the national conversation about diversity, collaborating with other professional associations. For example, in 1993, President Silver reported that CAA had joined OPENMIND, an organization that sought to increase the numbers of culturally diverse scholars and administrators in higher education.97 In the 1990s, the Committee on Women in the Arts undertook a study to determine what changes had occurred for women in the visual arts since the 1981 Garrard report. The committee sought to chart the status of women and people of color at the graduate level and beyond. The results noted that women were represented in higher numbers then men in art history faculty positions for the first time, but that the men continued to hold the majority of tenured and full-professor positions; and that the majority of students in graduate art history were women. Men of color were found to hold 7.5 percent of the assistant and associate professor positions in the visual arts and 7 percent of art history tenuretrack positions; while the results demonstrated that women of color were found to primarily hold non–tenure-track positions.98
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These statistics demonstrate the increased numbers of women seeking advanced degrees and job opportunities. Anecdotally, however, evidence suggested that women job applicants were often subject to a standard different from that of their male peers. Robert L. Herbert, Robert Lehman Professor of History of Art at Yale, wrote a letter to the editor complaining of numerous incidents experienced by recent women PhD graduates of Yale and other schools whose interviewers asked pointedly illegal questions, such as inquiring about the candidate’s marital status. This was in direct violation of the Equal Employment Opportunities Act, as well as CAA’s own published standards. Herbert wrote: “I know that women can fight their own battles . . . , but I want to go on record as being ashamed of my male colleagues, who engage in such sexist questioning.” 99 Ball asked the Committee on Placement Ethics, established in 1986, to make recommendations to prevent such occurrences. Other examples of the board’s initiatives to encourage diversity included a 1991 board resolution, introduced by Silver and Catherine Lord and passed unanimously, that called on the organization to acknowledge discrimination based on sexual preference, asked for gay and lesbian issues to be addressed in the association programming, and called for an end to biases based on sexual orientation.100 In the early 1990s as well, the board established a Committee on Members with Disabilities for Accessible Programs and Practices, chaired by Jacqueline Clipsham, an artist. Indeed, committee assignments were opened to the entire membership through nomination and self-nomination. In an effort to be more responsive to artist members, the board in response to a proposal from Brodsky, who was president at the time, also reinstated the annual MFA exhibition, and at the 1996 annual conference co-sponsored with the Gay and Lesbian Caucus and the Archive Project a show at the Boston Center for the Arts entitled AIDS Communities/Arts Communities: Realizing the Archive Project. Later, the board created an Exhibition Task Force to select annual conference exhibitions, prompted by Ellen Levy’s proposal. The governance of CAA changed as recognition that the intellectual inquiry of the field was also in flux. Many of the organization’s caucuses exerted pressure on the organization to change and often worked together in partnership with the board. For example, in the 1990s and early twenty-first century, the Gay and Lesbian Caucus, Committee on Cultural Diversity and WCA each had a liaison on the Committee on Women in the Arts. The Students and Emerging Professionals Committee collaborated with the Committee on Women in the Arts in their investigation on the status of part-time faculty.101 Such alliances occurred in other learned societies, as well, as in the case of the American Studies Association when its Committee on the Status of Women and Marxist Caucus joined together to strategically place women and minorities in leadership roles. Although the first long-range plan was set to cover a ten-year period, the
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board decided in 1994 to develop a second ten-year plan for the period 1996– 2006. Among its goals was global outreach, accomplished through Brodsky’s establishment of an International Committee, expanding the arenas in which CAA would be visible in such organizations as UNESCO (which CAA advocated that the United States rejoin); and, through the actions of Brodsky and board member Irving Lavin, rebuilding alliances with the American National Committee of the Comité international d’histoire de l’art (CIHA) so that the CAA could be represented once again as it had in the past. Ball, Jonathan Fineberg, and CAA President Leslie King-Hammond met with the director general of UNESCO in 1995 and signed a letter of intent to initiate a feasibility study to determine how to facilitate participation and engagement of artists, art historians, and cultural institutions as members of CAA with UNESCO.102 Around this time as well, the International Committee of CAA was established. It published a Directory of International Arts Organizations and its presence at conferences further internationalized the program content. In these ways and others, CAA members were kept informed of events happening abroad at a time when the art world itself was moving to a global and transnational platform. By 2000, the governance of CAA had been further transformed in an effort to respond to the needs of members and to be more transparent. The Strategic Plan for 2000–2005 included among its core values “Encouraging pluralism and different points of view among the membership and in all the Association’s activities, including publications.” 103 Regular calls for participation on committees and in editorial positions for the organization’s publications were made; the association’s bylaws were amended often (five times since 1989); the Annual Conference Committee, traditionally split between artist and art historian chairs, was merged into one committee chaired by a board vice president for the annual conference; the vice president of external affairs focused attention on development; and the vice president of committees oversaw both the annual awards juries as well as the Professional Interests, Practices, and Standards Committees (PIPS). They were later joined by a vice president for publications.104 The association continued in the 1990s and well into the twenty-first century to grapple with the issue of maintaining diverse representation on its board and the officers elected from it. In 1990, the executive committee noted the imbalance on the board of a majority of women, reflecting CAA’s own membership of 61 percent female. However, the then executive committee “felt that it was important to nominate more men in that the membership will not see the Association as predominantly female. (The field still continues to be divided between men and women about equally.)” 105 Imbalance of representation of artists vs. art historians also was a topic often discussed. Changes in the nominating process, with an open call to the membership and the convening of a nominating committee that was chaired by the vice president of committees,
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composed of three board members (elected by the board) and representatives from the membership (selected by the previous year’s nominating committee from among those nominated for this purpose) attempted to present a slate of new board members for vote by the CAA members that was representative of the entire composition of the membership. A board resolution on May 2, 2004, reiterated that recruitment for new board members would “ensure the best possible board, of primary importance will be diversity of board members in such areas as race, gender and age; professional and institutional disciplines and types of institutions (e.g. research, university, art schools, museums, etc.); geography; and philosophies about the visual arts and art history.”106 Members received ballots, nominees’ statements, and a brief report with pie charts of statistics indicating the diverse representation on the board. However, the low voter turnout concerned the board. Ball reported in an article entitled “Voters Fail to Correct Imbalance on CAA Board” that only 12 percent of eligible voters cast ballots and she urged members to participate in the election process. She went on to explain that the nominating committee had prepared a slate to provide proportional representation on the board based on CAA’s membership and that members were “to take into account the comparative data in their final vote.” 107 One year later, the number of members voting had doubled, a record turnout. The election process continues to be refined, and now can be done by mail or electronically on site at the annual conference. In preparing the Strategic Plan for 2005–2010, board members met to determine what impact the 2003 Supreme Court decision on the University of Michigan’s admissions policy, which generally reinforced the validity of affirmative action principles in higher education, had on planning for the organization. Discussions ranged over a variety of questions: “Are diversity and Affirmative Action the same? Should CAA narrowly target specific minorities or broadly contribute to the ethnic, racial, economic, geographical, gender and sexual diversification of CAA fields? Is CAA a U.S. organization that welcomes members from around the world or is it an international organization comprised of members globally?” 108 A survey of board members, conducted by a management consultant helping to frame the new long-term plan, found that the board felt that the strength of CAA lay in its diverse membership, particularly professional interests and specializations; and that the Fellowship Program diversified the community of artists and art historians. The final plan reaffirmed that diversity and affirmative action were principles CAA upheld in the workplace, as well.109 One of the most interesting developments has been the backlash against women. Members of the board discussed “Is the CAA projecting an image of feminist, multicultural, revisionist ideology since the last few conferences focused on these issues?” 110 Some recent male leaders, particularly under Michael Aurbach’s presidency, have argued that an organization in which women make
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up the majority of the membership no longer needs a Committee on Women in the Arts; while suggestions were also made by several board members that the women members of CAA voted in a block along gender lines to ensure that only women could succeed in being elected to the board. In the early 2000s, the board discussed merging the Committee on Cultural Diversity with the Committee on Women in the Arts in a streamlining effort and because there was a perception that their missions were closely aligned—though this was never enacted. Indeed, the Committee on Women in the Arts succeeded in institutionalizing one of its major activities—the committee’s Annual Recognition Award, which with board approval established an organization-wide jury to select for the Distinguished Feminist Award, first presented at the 2009 annual conference. This award is an additional category among the annual awards announced at the conference’s convocation. So gender is an ongoing contentious issue for the organization, built into its culture as much as the tension between artists and art historians that characterizes the whole history of the organization. At its October 2007 board meeting, Paul Jaskot (art historian, De Paul University) was elected president. His candidacy is clear evidence of the transformation that has taken place in the organization since its early beginnings. As a result of the post-1960s culture wars and the success of many individuals embedded in CAA, formerly “outsiders within” themselves, the organization has been actively transformed. Jaskot, a Marxist art historian, member of the Queer Caucus for Art and Radical Art Caucus, is a scholar and activist. In a post-election interview, he remarked that CAA must “think about the continued perpetuation of social hierarchies—gender, race, class, sexuality—and what CAA’s role might be.” 111 With population movements across the globe, the rise of technology and global access to information, and an art world driven by an international market, CAA’s efforts in support of inclusivity over the last two decades attempted to meet a world transformed. Each “class” of presidents and board members continued the discussions of their predecessors to address a rapidly changing world, academically and in the larger realm, and to govern in a way that would be both transparent and accountable to the membership. The one constant throughout this volatile period was Susan Ball, who provided leadership and guidance for many individuals who volunteered their time to govern the association. Demographers predict that by 2018 the Anglo-European residents of the United States will evolve into its “minority” populace. While the diverse composition of student bodies increases, faculty in the “ivory tower” remains much less diverse.112 In fall 2008, for instance, more than half of Rutgers’ first-year students identified themselves as nonwhite and 39.9 percent of Princeton’s incoming class were from minority backgrounds.113 CAA’s membership will not
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reflect this transformation because there has not been a groundswell of emerging artists and art historians from among these groups.114 However, the very students taught by members will become the basis of this new majority. CAA’s efforts to encourage inclusivity, then, are vital to the organization’s health as well as to future generations of visual arts professionals and those who support the arts and culture.
12 CAA Advocacy The Nexus of Art and Politics karen j. leader
Purpose 11. To examine the policies of governmental agencies, corporations, foundations, and other relevant groups with regard to the arts and to lend or withhold the support of the Association wherever its basic interests are involved. ow does a professional organization with a politically diverse, geographically diffuse, and temperamentally challenging membership actively work to address the concerns of competing constituencies? Certainly, institutional labyrinths are part of the maneuverings of all such organizations, where Robert’s Rules of Order heroically push the proceedings beyond posturing and protecting territory. With the College Art Association it is that middle word in its name that has provided the colorful fireworks in its history of advocacy. The organization has repeatedly soul-searched regarding its mission and whom it serves, has considered a name change numerous times, and has mediated countless disagreements between artists, art teachers, art historians, university administrators, and arts administrators. But throughout its political life as an advocacy organization there have been certain basic principles at play in the association’s deliberations and actions: the protection of the sites and objects of cultural significance, the importance of rigorous, high-quality arts education, the centrality of safeguarding intellectual and creative freedom, and the need to take a progressive stance on any issue where civil rights are at stake. The result is a history of navigating the murky waters between art and politics, sometimes timidly testing them, other times plunging into the deep end. The history of CAA is a microcosm of the century’s upheavals, its genocides and
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cataclysms, its triumphs and social transformations. The story is not told in successes or failures, but in negotiations, resolutions, actions. This chapter, through select case studies, will examine how a learned society like CAA advocates for the rights, needs, and demands of its membership, and for the greater goals for which the humanities exist. The most controversial are the most revealing, and demonstrate how hard it is, even with the best intentions, to make the world an even slightly better place. From its founding, the organization’s primary focus has been to promote quality arts education, and to increase awareness and appreciation for art in the United States. Its earliest interventions into politics promoted this purpose above all, and its most successful programs have stemmed from the principle that art, and the humanities more generally, play a fundamental role in the functioning of a democratic society. Two examples from the organization’s early years show which directions into the political realm such a core standard might lead. The first, covered in more depth elsewhere in this volume, indicates the role that art was to play in the Depression-era programs of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. An early transcription of CAA’s board of directors activity, dated 1933 (there are no substantive minutes before 1930), records a local initiative undertaken with New York’s Emergency Relief Bureau to provide work for artists restoring church decorations and painting murals.1 This type of project would be codified in the Federal Art Project beginning in 1935, but the early date of CAA’s involvement demonstrates a response that put artists to work and offered more art to the public. It seems, though, that the board of directors was split over the need for social action. An interview of Mildred Constantine about the development of New Deal arts projects reveals details about the internal battles that she describes as including “overtones of class objection, overtones of political objection, overtones of religious objection.” The energies of Executive Secretary Audrey McMahon were the driving force for moving the organization toward action.2 The second, appearing in the early years of World War II, shows the potential for the participation of the arts in the war effort. CAA, in conjunction with the American Federation of Arts, organized art exhibitions and provided participatory resources, such as studios, supplies, and darkrooms to the army base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to raise the morale of soldiers. A report to the U.S. Office of Education, Wartime Commission stated: “The arts, indeed, can demonstrate to soldiers and workers the essential values of all culture—of what they are fighting and working to preserve.” 3 Whether the program was a success is unclear, and exactly how that could be determined is an open question. The underlying premise of the quote, though, would be an appropriate consideration for any country’s military decision-making process. CAA was deeply engaged in one vital activity of the war years, the response
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to looting, especially by the Nazis. The tale of the efforts of international art experts alongside Allied occupying forces to protect and return looted artworks has been dramatically told in The Rape of Europa, first in book form by Lynn H. Nicholas, and then in the 2007 film adaptation directed by Bonni Cohen.4 The College Art Journal is filled with accounts from those involved in the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Section of the United States Forces, reporting on both the state of bombed-out sites, and the arduous process of retrieving and protecting objects. In an ironic twist though, ethics put these individuals on the defensive when it appeared that the United States planned to remove 202 masterworks, including paintings by Raphael, Rembrandt, Titian, and Vermeer, from Germany for “protective custody” in air-conditioned storage in Washington, D.C. Twenty-four of the thirty-two specialists signed a joint letter protesting what they saw as establishing a “precedent which is neither morally tenable nor trustworthy.” Rensselaer W. Lee, president of CAA, wrote a letter to Secretary of State Byrnes; the response from Acting Secretary Riddleberger, a rehearsal of the “official story” of redeployments and coal shortages, was clearly unsatisfactory.5 The specialists were put in this position of moral relativism after witnessing abhorrent Nazi rhetoric, where “protecting the objects” had been justification for the rapacious confiscation of artworks which only the “master race” was worthy of possessing. Mason Hammond wrote: A country which entered upon conquest with as high moral pretensions as did the U.S. should, like Caesar’s wife, be above suspicion. It should have taken no step, however high the expressed intentions, which might lend color to charges that as a victor its inner motives are no different from those of its enemies.6 It cannot have been easy to lodge a criticism against the United States given what was being uncovered each day about Nazi atrocities. In addition, such a protest was potential grounds for court-martial. Nevertheless, the taint of duplicity and opportunism was in that historical moment morally reprehensible. Eventually ninety-five art historians petitioned President Truman to recognize the tenuous precedent being set, but the battle was lost. The works came anyway, where their exhibition in Washington, D.C. was the must-see event of 1948; a selection then went on tour, was viewed by millions, and raised money for German children. All 202 objects were eventually returned to Germany, but not home to East Berlin, which was by then behind the Iron Curtain.7 This was by no means the end of CAA’s intervention on the issue of illegal looting of art and artifacts. In the early 1970s, a resolution was drafted defining the responsibilities of museums in their acquisition practices to refuse “to acquire through purchase, gift, or bequest cultural property exported in violation
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of the laws obtaining in the countries of origin,” and urging nations to “establish effective export laws and develop proper controls over export so that illicit traffic may be stopped at its sources.” This collaboration between museum, archaeology, and anthropology professionals and their associations remains a standard statement of ethical guidelines in this area.8 In the first decade of the twentyfirst century, Iraq would test the limits of the enforceability of such parameters. Returning to the postwar era, we find McCarthyism, with its descending dark cloud of anti-Communism and cold-war politics predictably inflecting advocacy activity. The nexus of art and politics resulted in perhaps the first sustained and successful collaboration between arts organizations, spearheaded by Lloyd Goodrich, CAA board member and director of the Whitney Museum. Under the auspices of the United States Information Agency (USIA), the United States government launched a cultural exchange program with the Soviet Union, designed on the surface to be a cooperation-fostering enterprise, but tacitly understood as an anti-Communist propaganda tool as well: “The State Department will always be in the propaganda business, and will never be in the ‘art’ business” declared a former secretary of state, William Benton.9 The art, in this case, was a selection of works by Americans, put on view in Moscow, and condemned as “communistic,” fatalist, anti-American, anticapitalist, antiwar and degraded (descriptions uncomfortably close to the Nazi characterization of “degenerate” art) by a vocal right-wing constituency in the United States (including artists with stakes in government commissions) who had access to sympathetic ears in Washington. Soviet-style censorship was looming in the United States, and artists with ties to the Communist party were being threatened. McCarthyism had infiltrated the art world. Goodrich convened a joint committee composed of representatives from CAA, the American Association of Museums, the American Federation of Arts, and the Association of Art Museum Directors. A unified voice convinced President Eisenhower to take a hands-off approach to government intervention, refusing to allow the omission of any artist from the Moscow show because of political attacks. Yet soon after, an exhibition of sculpture scheduled to be sent abroad, sponsored by the USIA and organized by Yale Gallery Director Andrew C. Ritchie, was inexplicably canceled. The committee released a statement agreed upon by all organizations, and delivered by Goodrich at the USIA, that stated unequivocally: All of us in the art world do our utmost to strengthen the hands of our government in maintaining the principle of artistic freedom in cultural exchanges. We believe that the basic issue is simple. An artist’s political opinions and affiliations are personal matters, distinct from his work, which must be judged on its merits. The government is not exhibiting artists, but their works.10
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This controversy made it to the pages of the Art Journal, and thus to the CAA membership at large as a victory, in the form of a statement from the government’s Advisory Committee on the Arts regarding the selection of American art for international exhibitions, which included the stipulation: “Since in sending works of art abroad artistic content and quality . . . are the principal factors to be considered, it follows that the personality, character, or beliefs of the artist, unless he is to accompany an exhibit, are largely irrelevant.” 11 The longer-term ramifications of this episode for CAA are crucial. The government’s ability to recognize art as an asset in cultural diplomacy, and its willingness to support the arts at home, combined with the cooperation shown among the organizations fueled the lobbying effort to create the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities.12 The collaboration between and among professional and learned societies had been a goal from the beginning, and it is not unusual for CAA board members to sit on other boards, offering communication links and sharing resources. The founding of the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities in the early 1960s represented a persistent lobbying and advocacy effort by the American Council of Learned Societies, Phi Beta Kappa, and others, and CAA would play a major role in subsequent reauthorizations of the Endowments. The creation and continuation of the Endowments cannot be overlooked here, given how central they would become in the highly politicized battles over indecency, censorship, and government support for the arts. As the case of the USIA demonstrated, there was willingness to recognize that the arts could have a salutary effect, not just as a form of propaganda, but as a universal language. They are nevertheless an endlessly popular punching bag.13 Since the founding of the Endowments, there seems never to have been a time, and the present is no exception, when CAA’s list of advocacy issues does not prominently include protecting them, and by extension battling censorship and promoting the value of the arts in a democratic society. To return to the history, in the charged political environment of the Civil Rights, student-rights, Vietnam War era of the late 1960s, certain ongoing advocacy issues gained urgency.14 Part of the upheaval of this period was the result of a youthful insurgency anxious to shake up the board of elders. Early evidence of this incursion appears in the minutes of the board of directors, which describes Linda Nochlin Pommer, representing the New Art Association, introducing a four-part resolution. Composed primarily of the association’s main concern with issues of junior faculty and graduate students, the statement contained an explosive resolution: Be it resolved that the College Art Association take the opportunity provided by its annual meeting to state its opposition to the war in Vietnam, and pass a resolution demanding that the United States government unilaterally withdraw all troops from Vietnamese soil without delay.15
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Here CAA was thrust into the middle of global politics and government policy on an issue that one is hard-pressed to fit neatly into any of the association’s stated purposes. What had entered the board’s agenda two years earlier within the more traditional discourse of the protection of artifacts would now culminate in a strongly worded letter to President Nixon (May 9, 1970), which was published in the Art Journal.16 The letter mentions, among other things, the gunning down of student protesters by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University, which brought home the pervasive destruction the war was causing to American, as well as South East Asian, society. Nevertheless the move was criticized by some as propaganda. One letter to the editor of the Art Journal complained that the Kent State students “were far too young and immature” to be second-guessing the president, and wouldn’t have been shot at if they had stayed in the classroom.17 Executive Director Emerita Susan Ball compared the relatively activist Vietnam response to advocacy regarding the Iraq war and occupation.18 Ball recalls the run-up to the 2003 invasion as a difficult time for the board, with emotions running high on all sides. When first introduced at the executive committee meeting in December 2002, a proposal from the Radical Art Caucus (RAC), which contained a strong antiwar message, was raised and rejected as not falling within the purview of the association’s advocacy policy. A petition was presented again, this time with the RAC joined by the Women’s Caucus and the Queer Caucus, at the general business meeting, and then the full CAA board meeting in February 2003. The Nixon letter was read into the record and offered as a precedent by board and RAC member Gregory Sholette, who shared with me the Byzantine parliamentary maneuverings required to reach this point, which included not only procedural hoops but also close readings of the association’s bylaws and advocacy policy.19 The main debate at the board meeting was about the ramifications of stepping beyond CAA’s stated advocacy policy. The most vocal opponent of any antiwar statement was President Michael Aurbach, who warned stridently against “politicizing the organization.” Aurbach told me his main concern was that CAA would risk losing its “non-profit status with the federal government,” or its “charter” and he was not going to allow that to happen.20 To clarify this point I asked CAA counsel Jeffrey Cunard, who assured me that political activity such as what was being considered was of no risk to the organization. A corporation’s charter as a not-for-profit organization is a matter of state law, while public charities such as CAA that are tax-exempt under the federal income tax law are not precluded from making political statements, but are prohibited by federal law from engaging in certain political activities, including supporting candidates and substantial lobbying, neither of which applied in this case.21 The board did approve (17 in favor, 1 against, 2 abstentions) a carefully worded
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resolution that visibly strained to express its alarm at the war momentum, while staying within the rubric of the advocacy policy, which was published in CAA News.22 Cunard pointed out that this version, rather than expressing opposition to the war “as a general proposition” tied the issues of concern to the organization’s stated interests, including freedom of expression, cultural heritage, and arts funding.23 The organization had become, in Ball’s words, more “professional and mission-driven,” with advocacy defined by more specific guidelines. This, she insists, was a necessary corrective driven at least in part by the number of requests made upon the organization to intervene on its membership’s behalf in the political arena, which had been rising steeply since the 1990s.24 Necessary perhaps, but such professionalization may have also limited CAA’s flexibility to respond with urgency to matters of grave concern. In relation to Iraq though, the organization did respond forcefully when the horrific reports and images of looting began to appear in the early months of the war. As a clearly appropriate target for action, the membership’s anger was unleashed, and CAA, in its statement on the looting, expressed its outrage. Another book would be needed to fully account for the actions taken.25 But as a session on the current state of Iraqi cultural institutions at the Dallas Convention in 2008 revealed, much of the damage had been done. In a striking case of cognitive dissonance, this writer has tried to square the precipitous, aggressive lead-up to the Iraq war, driven with bombast by every arm of the Bush/Cheney administration, with the decision announced by President Bush in November 2002 to support United States reentry into UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) after an absence of eighteen years. President Bush made the surprise announcement at the United Nations in the same speech to the General Assembly that denounced Saddam Hussein. While some cynically read the move as a ploy to shore up United Nations support for his war (and perhaps it was), in fact it seems that Laura Bush was pushing this particular initiative; she made an official appearance in Paris in October 2003 to formally acknowledge U.S. reentry. CAA’s involvement with UNESCO dates back to its founding in 1945, when the United States was one of the first twenty nations to ratify its constitution. Even after President Reagan withdrew the United States in 1984, with accusations of mismanagement and anti-Western, even pro-Soviet bias, CAA continued to undertake international initiatives with the United Nations, earning nongovernmental organization status in both the Economic and Social Council and the Department of Public Information. However, it was always UNESCO whose purview most mirrored CAA’s advocacy agenda, especially “supporting the intellectual and artistic freedoms of practitioners and educators around the world and protecting the free flow of information among scholars.” 26 James Rubin, chair of the CAA International Committee, took the lead in the early 2000s
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in exploring the possibilities of involvement, and discovered immediately that as long as the United States was the conspicuous hold-out (the United Kingdom had rejoined already) there could be no fruitful relationship. A session at the yearly conference, followed by an enthusiastic reception at the business meeting, led the committee to strongly recommend that CAA actively advocate both for the reentry and for a seat on the U.S. National Commission to UNESCO, where the ability to convene international experts on issues of culture and education might actually result in considerable clout. Although in the end CAA was not seated, it is represented through Americans for UNESCO, and it continues to seek a seat on the commission. Perhaps with a new political climate in Washington, D.C., its chances will improve.27 Returning to the discussion of the activist 1970s, the emergence of identity politics (in the positive sense of the term) and the caucus movement, which formed to give voice to underrepresented groups, fundamentally changed the structure of learned societies.28 A fiery meeting of the CAA board is documented where, after reports from various caucuses were presented and their representatives had left the room, the room was filled with rhetoric about politicization, balkanization, and groups that are parasitical versus symbiotic. In the strongest language in the minutes a warning is sounded from some that succumbing to the “rain of demands would rend the very fabric that holds us together.” 29 Mixed metaphors aside, the canvas has proved remarkably weatherproof. Specific details are discussed elsewhere in this volume. The caucuses were emblematic, to conservative critics, of the scourge of “political correctness” that was stifling academia and muzzling conservative viewpoints. The most notorious target, the Modern Language Association, is the subject of the Blolands’ case study, but CAA came under fire as well.30 A flippant story in the Wall Street Journal by Lynne Munson, a research associate for Lynne Cheney at the American Enterprise Institute, cherry-picked panels and papers from various conferences to characterize the “radicalized” organization as drenched in pornography and bereft of art. Trenchant letters to the editor from Paul Jaskot (then a CAA member, and not yet president) and Susan Ball ably laid bare Munson’s ideological presumptions, although it is unlikely that her readers took note. The drive-by, unsubstantiated reporting in which she engaged, a scourge of the twenty-first century media universe, already had its networks and transmissions in place in the 1990s.31 CAA’s life as an advocacy organization has always been dependent on, and challenged by, establishing conduits to Washington, D.C.; opening lines of communication with other organizations, institutions, and learned societies; enabling productive dialogues between diverse and sometimes combative constituencies; and effectively conveying the board’s actions to the membership as a whole. The last is especially crucial. When members pay their dues each year, do they know what they are buying? Having included news in the publica-
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tions, the board finally decided in 1976 that more direct communication with the membership was needed, and made the investment in the bimonthly CAA News. Perusal of the newsletter across the decades offers a startling reminder of how activist the organization has been in the face of a constant barrage of challenges: first-amendment issues and censorship, destruction of sites and artifacts, civil liberties and artistic freedom, intellectual property, workplace safety and employment issues—each of these is a constant in the history, and each is on the current advocacy agenda. After a brief stint as an online-only publication, the newsletter returned to a print format in 2008 for one year before becoming online-only again. In addition, CAA has an active presence online. Resources on collegeart.org demonstrate the organization’s effective use of technology and a commitment to giving its members and others access to a broad range of tools, links, and archival material. E-mails also reach out to members to participate in the process, encouraging them to contact their representatives or sign petitions when issues of concern arise. One of the most influential of those online resources dates from the activist 1970s and was spearheaded by Albert Elsen, president of the board from 1974 to 1976. In reading the minutes from this era Elsen, like Nochlin, jumps off the page. His greatest accomplishment, the development of “Standards and Guidelines,” would seem a likely project for a professional organization, a means of streamlining and regularizing interactions between interested parties. In the art world such interactions, murky gentlemen’s agreements (the characterization does not exclude the ladies) about attributions, deaccessions, international exchanges, and gifts can involve reputations, careers, and, of course, hundreds of millions of dollars. The accomplishment of Elsen, along with CAA counsel Gilbert Edelson and John Merryman, was to provide not only an agreed-upon code of ethics to refer to in moments of uncertainty, but also to inscribe an “industry standard” for acceptable practices for both individuals (artists, dealers, museum professionals) and institutions, which continues to set the terms for professional practice today.32 Whether CAA could, or was meant to be, the arbiter or enforcer of such ethical behavior in the arts professions is an open question; nevertheless the “Guidelines” tab at collegeart. org is one-stop shopping in the conscience-check department. Several interviewees agreed that this initiative, at its origin and as an ongoing enterprise, is a signal accomplishment for the organization, and much of CAA’s day-to-day advocacy activity relies on the establishment of these procedures to protect its members. Policing oneself is one thing, being policed is another matter entirely. When Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan spoke on the Senate floor on July 26, 1989, he perfectly encapsulated the stakes of adopting the censorial position being proposed in Congress:
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Do we really want it to be recorded that the Senate of the United States, in the 101st Congress of the Republic is so insensible to the traditions of liberty in our land, so fearful of what is different and new and intentionally disturbing, so anxious to record our timidity that we would sanction institutions for acting precisely as they are meant to act? Which is to say, art institutions supporting artists and exhibiting their work?33 Although martial terminology should be used advisedly, it seems wholly appropriate to refer to the onslaught of attacks against artistic freedom under the guise of “obscenity” as the culture wars.34 Moynihan’s comments were in the context of the Helms Amendment, which sought to restrict federal funding for art depicting, among other things, sadomasochism, homoeroticism, exploitation of children, or individuals engaged in sex (violence against women, not surprisingly, is absent.) This was a sort of ideological witch-hunt that singled out the most controversial work to have received federal funds, trumpeted the shame, the outrage, the affront to human decency on the House floor, and then blamed the NEA, which in truth had funded only a small fraction of such work. The goal was not just about funding, but about, as Barbara Hoffmann commented at a panel discussion sponsored by ArtTable, “one more attempt by some people in this country to impose their fundamentalist views on our society.” 35 Amicus briefs were filed, letters were sent and calls were made to Congress, and roundtables were held that included artists, critics, academics, and elected officials. The full brunt of CAA’s advocacy portfolio was brought to bear in opposition to a relentless barrage of hyperbolic rhetoric. It would be impossible in this short account to discuss the myriad responses, but two case studies in particular illustrate the possibilities of forceful action. First, CAA made the decision in 1991 to devote two numbers of the Art Journal to the issue of censorship.36 Edited by Barbara Hoffman (who was CAA counsel at the time) and Robert Storr, the two issues marshaled resources from all corners of the art world and its own membership, offering First Amendment analysis, historical context, artists discussing art (Vito Acconci, Philip Pearlstein), or creating art for the journal’s pages (Group Material, Faith Ringgold). In addition they reproduced some of the period’s most controversial images, including selections from Robert Mapplethorpe’s X Portfolio (1977–1978), Jock Sturges’s prepubescent and adolescent nudes (1984–1989), and Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ (1987). Eliciting lively, sometimes furious responses from its readership, which included very few canceled memberships, the exercise still stands as a marker for what was, and still is (perhaps more) at risk. At the writing of this chapter, constitutional guarantees are increasingly embattled, and Representative Jerrold Nadler’s words ring truer than ever:
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There is still another aspect to the ideological attacks on the NEA, a deeper agenda than the philosophy of the proper role of government. Many tyrants have risen to power by first assaulting freedom of expression and using words like “morality” and “obscenity” to camouflage their desire to control what people know and how they think. . . . [T]he last thing a demagogue wants is a critically thinking citizenry.37 Representative Nadler figures in the second initiative undertaken during the culture wars, which was Susan Ball’s determination to have a sustained presence in Washington, D.C. While other professional organizations and learned societies could afford offices and lobbyists, Ball and her staff nurtured collaborative efforts with other organizations to demonstrate, hold press conferences, visit legislators, and actively mobilize their memberships to engage with their representatives. Representative Nadler established the Eighth Congressional District Advisory Committee on Culture and the Arts in 1993, chaired by his aide Leida Snow, of which Ball was a member. A staunch ally for the arts and a respected source of advice, Nadler offered updates on legislation, demystified arcane legislative procedures, sponsored rallies, and appeared at press conferences. Monitoring and weighing in on relevant appropriations bills, lobbying for membership interests, and participating in Advocacy Days remain part of CAA’s advocacy agenda. A historical account of CAA’s successes and failures provokes the more general question: when it comes to advocacy, what works? One issue in particular, that of intellectual property and copyright, has seen admirable successes as a result of concentrated, collaborative, and proactive efforts, whose details are beyond the scope of this short essay. Briefly, through the use of town hall meetings bringing all interested parties to the table, and an education program to tutor individuals and institutions on their rights regarding reproduction, copyright, and fair use, those in the visual arts have gained a powerful voice in debates over who owns, and can charge for, the right to reproduce visual material.38 Anyone visiting collegeart.org today will encounter a varied agenda of issues upon which CAA acts on its membership’s behalf. Some represent long-term engagements with thick files, such as intellectual property rights; others respond to current events that fall under the approved policy. The current policy was approved by the board in 2000. According to CAA counsel Jeffrey Cunard, who advised on the drafting process, the policy is shaped around two overriding factors: “a) CAA is a membership organization, which means that CAA’s resources should be deployed principally to focus on the issues of concern to the membership and b) CAA should involve itself where, given CAA’s mandate and membership, invoking the name, presence and credibility of CAA will have some mean-
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ingful effect on the outcome.” 39 The policy reads, in part, “CAA’s goal is to serve its members by providing them with information regarding issues of concern to them, raising their awareness, and motivating them to take action.” 40 When I asked CAA President Paul Jaskot where he saw advocacy heading in the future, rather than ticking off a set of pet projects, he offered a definition of what distinguishes CAA from other learned societies or professional organizations. Creativity, he said, defines the membership, their diversity, their practices, and at times their willingness to be “disruptive.” The key issues for him are, first, communication, which he envisions as more directed in terms of CAA accepting its role as the “mouthpiece” for certain issues; and more interactive, in the focused use of listservs, blogs, or artist postings. Second, in terms of strategic planning, he intends to emphasize advocacy while pursuing a balance between pragmatic and progressive goals. This is not idle rhetoric, as he demonstrates with two examples: contingent faculty, a virus that has infected academia since the 1960s, and which CAA has tackled numerous times; and censorship in the digital age, an issue so complex and far-reaching in its ramifications for democratic society that confronting it will require a great deal of creativity indeed. “Advocacy,” Jaskot wrote to me, “is not ‘on top’ of everything else, but is integral, both to the details of our daily lives and to the generalities of our lives as citizens.” 41 The protection of intellectual freedom, a central principle throughout CAA’s history and the source of numerous advocacy interventions, was recently severely challenged, and the incident reveals the difficulties faced by an institution wedded to the protection of such freedoms and yet vulnerable to legal challenges it hardly has the resources to battle. In a so-called libel tourism claim, Hebrew University professor Gannit Ankori threatened legal action against the organization for a critical review by Columbia professor Joseph Massad that appeared in Art Journal, a review which Ankori claimed had defamed her.42 CAA paid Ankori a settlement of $75,000 and instituted various measures to remove the contested portions from availability. The phrase “libel tourism” refers to the practice of non-British plaintiffs bringing libel actions in British courts, which are known to favor the plaintiffs in about 98 percent of libel cases.43 Jaskot outlined the three major considerations the executive committee and the board considered in the time between when the claim was sent, in February 2008, and when it was settled by CAA, in May 2008. The financial implications were immediately understood, while those months were spent closely examining the legal merits of the matter. Jaskot asserts that errata would be published, but hesitates to speculate beyond that, although he stands by the apology made on behalf of CAA and the Art Journal.44 In addition, the board needed to weigh CAA’s legal responsibilities in light of its international readership. The learning curve, Jaskot recalls, was steep.45 Nobody, it seems, won. Executive Director Linda Downs publicly stated
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her deep regret that it was a legal rather than intellectual path that Ankori chose to take, but also admitted that “[W]e really didn’t have a choice but to settle it.” Massad called CAA’s decision “a cowardly act.” 46 Ankori gave the money to charity (she received a settlement from the British journal Art Book as well) after paying her legal expenses.47 Ankori’s lawyers publicly accused Boulatta and Massad of “a litany of lies,” and the validity of her work is still contested in the press.48 Jaskot publicly stated that the claim grew out of a more globalized intellectual community, where not only different cultures, but also different legal cultures must be considered.49 In the aftermath he reported: CAA has set up a series of workshops on legal issues, editorial best practices, and questions of censorship for staff and editors. The point of the workshops is to get a better understanding of all the issues of which a learned society should be aware. Our hope is, however, that by having a deeper knowledge of the legal implications of speech that we will be better able to protect our authors and preserve the independence of the journals.50 The fact that even one of the considerations had to be a financial one, for the health of an organization rooted in intellectual freedom, is the cautionary tale of this episode. This was not the first, nor is it likely to be the last time this is the case, but one other example from CAA’s history exposes the difficulty of balancing fiscal responsibility with an obvious moral and ethical imperative. In 1985–1986 the board of directors and the membership at large undertook the difficult deliberations around the organization’s divestiture of investments in stock of companies doing business in apartheid South Africa. The board minutes record a general agreement on the abhorrence of apartheid, but indicate that passions ran high over CAA divestment. In the board meeting, questions were raised about the relevance of divestiture to the association’s overall mission, and about threats to the strength of its investment portfolio. CAA counsel Gilbert Edelson expressed the concern that a vote in favor of divestiture would not fulfill the board’s fiduciary responsibilities and that the board might face a suit brought by a member.51 The board passed two resolutions (fourteen in favor and five opposing or abstaining) and then unanimously decided to submit them to the full membership for ratification. Both passed overwhelmingly; almost three thousand ballots were returned and more than 92 percent voted approval for CAA’s actions on divestiture. John W. Hyland was brought on board at Treasurer Richard Ravenscroft’s recommendation to oversee the creation of a socially screened portfolio, taking “deliberate and prudent” action to divest the association’s stock from corporations doing business in South Africa.52 The happy ending was relayed to me by
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Ball, who wrote: “The fact that no one raised was that socially responsible investments might be prudent economically. That, in fact, turned out to be the case.” 53 Hyland agreed, reporting that there was no reduced return on investments after divestiture. While it might have seemed counter-intuitive, he wrote, there were, in fact, always alternatives to companies still invested in South Africa.54 In the end, any institution is the sum of its parts, in CAA’s case a creative constituency of arts professionals. In 2002, Ball addressed the key issue confronting the organization: “[P]rofessional service is an integral aspect of the academic rewards system, and society participation remains a key part of professional service.”55 Whether it is publications, awards, curriculum initiatives, statistical analysis, resolutions, or lobbying, the organization can set the agenda, but CAA’s success lies in the active participation of its members.
Conclusion The Next 100 Years paul b. jaskot
he work of a learned society is a complex affair that requires balancing the general professional needs and concerns of a diverse membership with the specific support of individual opportunities for creative and scholarly production. The College Art Association in this regard is little different than the dozens of other groups that negotiate those rocky shoals, pressured by external economic and social changes on the one hand while attending to internal exertions of force to move the organization on the other. Yet, as the contributions in this volume have shown, the dynamic development of artists, art historians, and visual arts professionals in the last hundred years has been a unique experience. With not a few moments of tension and conflict, the CAA has nevertheless become a place where professional standards in the arts can be codified, the latest in art scholarship published, the member’s voice heard through our diverse governance structures, and a site in which advocacy issues from all perspectives can be magnified in their impact with the powerful backing of the organization and its members. These various strands are often brought together in the messy creativity of the conference itself, a cacophony of artistic and art historical voices that have made for the life-blood of the institution in the last century. Yet as Edward Bellamy reminds us, looking backward inevitably means imagining the future. While the next century will certainly entail fantastic changes in the arts and whole new areas of art historical scholarship, it is unlikely that we could prognosticate on the nature of those changes with any hope of being exact. After all, who could have predicted a hundred years ago the scholarly emphasis that we find today even in the Art Bulletin? Beginning primarily as a journal
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devoted to publishing course outlines and pedagogic tips for presenting art in the classroom, it encapsulated the early goals of the organization. As President John Pickard stated in 1917, “the question of primary importance before this Association today is the great question of placing art instruction in the college curriculum in such a manner that it shall have a vital and effective influence upon the education and the lives of the entire student body.”1 The Art Bulletin served this goal until Parnassus took over that role. In the early days of Art Journal, it too reflected a predominantly pedagogic focus, with its interest centered on arts education until it became more theoretically and historically oriented with its name change in the 1960s.2 This publishing emphasis on pedagogy has also been complemented by a variety of sessions at the conference and, of course, in our Education Committee. This all reflects on one of the issues deemed of high importance to the founders, the “college” in CAA. Looking forward, though, how central is the role of pedagogy to our institutional identity, even if it is still central to the majority of our membership, whether in the university or museum environment? More broadly, who will our imagined audience be through the next decades? What tensions exist, if any, in our goals to engage and define the most important creative, intellectual debates in the field and our desire to address a predominantly nonspecialist audience both within the student body and in the population at large? Can the organization maintain a focus on educational institutions? Should it? As indicated in these pages, thinking about the important role CAA has played and continues to play in defining standards and guidelines for artists and art historians in educational professions, broadly construed, will help guarantee the viability of the organization into the future. But such thinking will also test our flexibility as the educational environment itself rapidly changes. Not only are scholarly and creative categories expanding in new global ways, but there is also an increasing overlap between the conceptual work done by artists and that of art historians, as has been noted by several contributors. For example, CAA now has a category of membership entitled “World Art,” Art Journal is increasingly looking at art produced by and for artists and audiences outside of dominant market centers, and the largest category of jobs for art history last year was in contemporary art. After all, contemporary artists tend to be focused on problems and aesthetic innovations that come out of their own experience or research into globalization that is shared as subject and condition by contemporary art historians. In addition to new areas of scholarly and creative activity, the educational environment itself has dramatically shifted just in the last decade, with online courses proliferating and international campuses expanding at a quick pace in the Middle East and elsewhere. This fluidity and internationalization of environments in which art is taught and experienced will place a great deal of emphasis on our current professional standards and practices, many of
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which will need to be updated to take into account these changing conditions. It will be the job of the organization to ensure that gets done to the benefit of all of our member categories. Of course, historical tensions of other sorts will also continue and pose both a stimulus for change as well as a challenge to the integrity of the organization. Notably, the ongoing debate between the different needs of artists and art historians, despite the new growth in the art historical field of contemporary art, will never be settled as each constituency articulates its own intellectual and professional needs. It is worth remembering that art historians and artists do not share the same trajectory within CAA. As Millard Meiss reported in 1964, the Art Bulletin arose out of art historians originally publishing in The American Journal of Archaeology with a thoroughly scholarly orientation, but CAA redirected their work toward a pedagogic mission by the perceived need to promote fine arts education, for which art history would serve as background. By the 1920s, the historical research focus had reasserted itself with a heavy emphasis on medieval art history, while the arts pedagogy question went elsewhere in the organization. This focus changed and expanded with the relative explosion of art history positions in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, helped along by the great influx of exiles from Hitler’s Germany who came from a context, of course, in which there was no institutional connection at all between artists and art historians. With the end of World War II, the seeming peace between the two membership categories had been established with the publication of the two journals of record, the bulletin and the College Art Journal.3 Then as now, though, the seeming balance between the needs of artists and those of art historians as readers and scholars lets no dust settle on any CAA solution. In a scathing 1946 report on the relation between the two irascible groups, a CAA task force put it bluntly: artist members in particular felt that, in addition to the “ivory tower” attitude of the board, “the articles published in the Art Bulletin are specialized items of purely art-historical research which are not apt to interest the teacher of the practice of art; that most of the papers read at the annual meetings deal with similar subjects; that such articles and papers, though representing the main efforts of art-historians, are little else than rather meaningless niceties of research divorced from any concern with vital artistic matters; and that the lack of illustrations in the College Art Journal [aimed at artists] makes difficult the discussion of problems pertaining to the teaching of the practice of art.” 4 This extraordinarily blunt assessment would be a laughable view of the past if it were not simultaneously a warning for the present and the future not to forget all of our constituencies. These have grown and will continue to expand beyond the seemingly easy categories of mere artist and art historian. The trick will be to develop along with the expanding nature of our diverse membership.
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But indeed, we don’t need to review the last one hundred years of CAA to know this story. It comes up at our board meetings and in our conferences with relative frequency, just as it is reflected in the broader field through search committees and shifting institutional demographics. We certainly have more work to do to address the multiple audiences of art historians, artists, curators, and other visual arts professionals and to assert the central importance of art and art education to a knowledgeable and critical public. Even in the age of digital publishing and new media artwork, the older structural divide, repeated in different institutional and market relationships, survives. For example, the dynamic Saatchi Web site is something to behold, but it will be viewed with different interests by our two large constituencies, however much we propose the digital realm as the great unifier for contemporary scholarly and creative production. Where do the other voices find a place in the growing diversity of our membership? And where is our diversity sorely lacking in demographic and intellectual terms? Too many global constituents don’t see themselves in art galleries or in art history classes. The flexibility to respond to this crisis is recognized but still eludes center stage in our actions. This, too, must change. Still, the example of the digital realm gives us some hope in the near future and in the next one hundred years. Mind you, we shouldn’t assume in an economic and institutional context that survives on fragmentation (the market niche is alive and well in academia as elsewhere) that we, as scholars or artists, will need to or should even pursue as a monolithic goal the idea of the universal and unified organization. But the ability to thematize and conceptualize the fragmentary is precisely the epistemological hope offered in the digital realm that will need to be taken up as such by the CAA of the future. Even now, it is easy to see how caa.reviews can be endlessly expanded in ways that a published journal like Art Journal can only dream about. The fluidity of the digital environment allows for the cross-pollination of ideas and images between artists and art historians that can never be achieved in the ink-bound page-limits of the Art Bulletin. It is necessary to create dialogues within the organization to address how our scholarly and creative paradigms have in general collapsed under the inevitable weight of new technologies and will continue to do so in the next century. Yes, indeed, we will still need to think in conventional terms, highlighting issues of peer review in publication or valuing and protecting traditional venues of art exhibition or art media and education. These are required as much by the institutional conditions of museums and universities as they are by the realities of the art world and its publics. But such conventions are already living side-byside with other kinds of interests, those that, for example, include more collaborative work, pieces that are multivalent in their layered applications and trains of thought, or interactive in real time, just to name some of the most prominent. CAA must grapple with these in all of its venues and use this as an advantage to
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increase the creative communication of ideas and professional needs among our membership. That is the immediate challenge that must be faced. In the most long-term sight, and putting back on our Bellamy glasses, naturally none of us can absolutely predict what will be. Still, we can say that art historians, artists, and other scholars will not be interacting in the same ways. We are fairly certain that, while we don’t know what direction scholarship and artistic practice will take, we do know some rather fundamental things. For example, the oil economy upon which our current geopolitical situation is based will be gone, perhaps sooner rather than later. This will both engender new technologies and also potentially place new pressures on basic elements of life, art production, and scholarship, such as travel or the price of resources needed to publish or make art. Naturally, we are well within being able to forecast such changes for our conferences (how will CAA respond to the potential for all members to attend conferences in the virtual realm?). But the longer view for the profession for artists and art historians is less clear. How will the labor market, a constant concern for our members, change with the unknown political and economic future? What protections do we need to advocate for our membership? What guidelines will become too restrictive? In terms of our production, there are so many new potentials for scholarly and artistic output that it seems that art in the expanded field is more central to our concerns than ever before. Such an expanded view will certainly be key to defining the future tomorrow. Any new move has economic and conditional consequences, both within CAA and in the field of art and art history. Identifying these consequences and imagining their alternative is something worth debating for the next one hundred years, much as our predecessors fought and argued over the last. To continue the work sampled in the histories in these pages is the exciting prospect open to us all.
appendix a purposes Bylaws of the College Art Association, Inc.
article two: purposes The purposes of the Association are: 1. To encourage the highest standards of creativity, scholarship, connoisseurship, and teaching in the areas of studio art, the history and criticism of the visual arts and architecture, and exhibitions; and to further these objectives in institutions of higher learning and of public service such as colleges, universities, art schools, museums, and other art organizations. 2. To encourage the inclusion among its constituencies of qualified individuals representing a diversity of race, religion, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, and physical disability. 3. To discourage discrimination based on race, religion, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, physical disability, and age in employment, education, exhibitions, scholarly and programmatic opportunities, the awarding of grants and prizes in the public and private art sectors, and media coverage. 4. To publish such journals as are desirable and feasible; to provide for the dissemination of the results of creative works, scholarly research, and exhibitions, the judgments of critical thought on the visual arts, and all other information valuable to the purposes set forth in this Article II. 5. To publish appropriate monographs, papers, bulletins, and reports of a scholarly, critical, or informative nature that the scope of the established journals may not permit. 6. To hold an annual conference for the purposes of presenting scholarly papers, presenting and discussing artists’ works, addressing other issues pertinent to the Association such as pedagogy, museum programs, and artistic and scholarly legal rights, and conducting the business of the Association. 245
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7. To acknowledge and develop the fundamental mutual interests between museums and other academic institutions. 8. To encourage curators, librarians, collectors, dealers, public officials, and all others entrusted with the custody of works of art or documents associated with works of art to make these available for study to scholars, artists, and students. 9. To encourage and support those groups and activities, inside and outside of this Association, that set themselves the task of elevating the standards of teaching and curricula, of improving the materials of teaching, and of generally advancing the cause of learning in the arts at the secondary, undergraduate, and graduate levels. 10. To encourage professional relationships with other learned societies and with international, national, and regional organizations which serve similar purposes in the fine arts or allied areas. 11. To examine the policies of governmental agencies, corporations, foundations, and other relevant groups with regard to the arts and to lend or withhold the support of the Association wherever its basic interests are involved. 12. To encourage qualified students to enter the arts as a profession and, to this end, to seek ways and means of establishing scholarships, fellowships, and awards for academic achievement or creative ability and promise. 13. To seek support from foundations, philanthropic organizations, or individuals for specific programs or activities of merit in the arts. 14. To administer funds contributed to the Association in order to finance pertinent conferences, meetings, symposia, publications, surveys, studies, exhibitions, residencies, scholarships, and similar activities. 15. To assist members of the profession and institutions in locating and filling positions on the staffs of colleges, universities, art schools, museums, foundations, government agencies or commissions, and other organizations engaged in art activities or programs consonant with the purposes of the Association. 16. To develop, disseminate, and, where appropriate, implement standards, guidelines, and statements of policy regarding the activities of the profession(s) and the Association.
appendix b presidents
Holmes Smith, 1912–1913 Washington University, St. Louis Walter Sargent, 1914–1915 University of Chicago John Pickard, 1916–1919 University of Missouri David M. Robinson, 1919–1923 Johns Hopkins University John Shapley, 1923–1938 Brown University, New York University, University of Chicago Walter W. S. Cook, 1939 New York University Ulrich Middeldorf, 1939–1941 University of Chicago Sumner McK. Crosby, 1941–1945 Yale University Rensselaer W. Lee, 1945–1947 Smith College, Institute for Advanced Study Frederick B. Deknatel, 1947–1949 Harvard University Henry R. Hope, 1949–1952 Indiana University
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S. Lane Faison, Jr., 1952–1954 Williams College Lamar Dodd, 1954–1956 University of Georgia Joseph C. Sloane, 1956–1958 Bryn Mawr College Charles Parkhurst, 1958–1960 Oberlin College David M. Robb, 1960–1962 University of Pennsylvania James S. Watrous, 1962–1964 University of Wisconsin Richard F. Brown, 1964–1966 Los Angeles County Museum of Art George Heard Hamilton, 1966–1969 Yale University H. W. Janson, 1970–1972 New York University Anne Coffin Hanson, 1972–1974 Yale University Albert Elsen, 1974–1976 Stanford University George Sadek, 1976–1978 Cooper Union Marilyn Stokstad, 1978–1980 University of Kansas Joshua C. Taylor, 1980–1981 National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution Lucy Freeman Sandler, 1981–1984 New York University John Rupert Martin, 1984–1986 Princeton University Paul B. Arnold, 1986–1988 Oberlin College
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Phyllis Pray Bober, 1988–1990 Bryn Mawr College Ruth Weisberg, 1990–1992 University of Southern California Larry Silver, 1992–1994 Northwestern University Judith K. Brodsky, 1994–1996 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Leslie King-Hammond, 1996–1998 Maryland Institute College of Art John R. Clarke, 1998–2000 University of Texas, Austin Ellen T. Baird, 2000–2002 University of Illinois, Chicago Michael L. Aurbach, 2002–2004 Vanderbilt University Ellen K. Levy, 2004–2006 Brooklyn College Nicola M. Courtright, 2006–2008 Amherst College Paul B. Jaskot, 2008–2010 DePaul University Barbara Nesin, 2010–2012 Art Institute of Atlanta
appendix c administrators
For nearly two decades, CAA was managed by its volunteer leadership—the president, other officers, and directors. Since there are no extant minutes of the board before 1930, we are dependent on references in CAA’s publications for information, usually notes of the annual business meetings. As late as December 1925, when the organization had been fourteen years in existence, there was no mention of any expenditure for staff. In his presidential address of 1919, John Pickard noted that during the five years of his presidency, he devoted between one-quarter and one-half of his time to CAA. Therefore, the first presidents are listed below, along with the managerial staff. It is unclear when the first paid staff leader started at CAA. The first mention of an executive secretary was Audrey McMahon in 1929. It is likely that she became involved as early as mid-1926, when her husband, Professor Philip McMahon, became a director and CAA was given office space at New York University, Washington Square, where Professor McMahon taught. (The address was first listed on the masthead of Art Bulletin in December 1926.) Holmes Smith Walter Sargent John Pickard David M. Robinson John Shapley Audrey McMahon David H. P. (Peter) Magill Eugene Lassard Nanette Rodney Rose Weil Susan Ball Linda Downs 250
President (volunteer) President (volunteer) President (volunteer) President (volunteer) President (volunteer) Executive Secretary Business Manager Business Manager Executive Director Executive Secretary Executive Director Executive Director
1912–1913 1914–1915 1916–1919 1920–1922 1923–1938 1929(?)–1939 1939–1958 1959–1971 1972–1973 1973–1986 1986–2006 2006–
appendix d editors of caa publications
editors of the bulletin of the college art association of america and the art bulletin Editorial Committees of the Bulletin of the College Art Association of America 1913 Alfred M. Brooks Homer Eaton Keyes Edward J. Lake 1917 John Pickard F. B. Tarbell G. H. Chase 1918 John Pickard A. K. Porter D. M. Robinson Editors of The Art Bulletin David M. Robinson, 1919–1921 John Shapley, 1921–1939 Millard Meiss, 1940–1942 Rensselaer W. Lee, 1943–1944 George Kubler, 1945–1947 Charles Kuhn, 1948–1949 Wolfgang Stechow, 1950–1952 J. Carson Webster, 1953–1956 James S. Ackerman, 1956–1959 David R. Coffin, 1959–1962 H. W. Janson, 1962–1965 251
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∏ Appendix D
Bates Lowry, 1965–1968 Donald Posner, 1968–1971 John Rupert Martin, 1971–1974 Howard Hibbard, 1974–1977 Kathleen Weil-Garris, 1977–1980 Creighton E. Gilbert, 1980–1985 Richard E. Spear, 1985–1988 Walter Cahn, 1988–1991 Richard Brilliant, 1991–1994 Nancy J. Troy, 1994–1997 John T. Paoletti, 1997–2000 H. Perry Chapman, 2000–2004 Marc Gotlieb, 2004–2007 Richard Powell, 2007–2010 Karen Lang, 2010–2013
editors of parnassus , college art journal , and art journal Parnassus Audrey McMahon, 1929–1939 John Shapley, 1939–1940 Lester D. Longman, 1940–1941 College Art Journal Myrtilla Avery, 1941 G. Haydn Huntley, 1942–1944 Henry R. Hope, 1944–1949 Laurence Schmeckebier, 1949–1953 Henry R. Hope, 1953–1960 Art Journal Henry R. Hope, 1960–1972 Diane Kelder, 1973–1979 Lenore Malen, 1990–1996 Janet Kaplan, 1996–2002
Editors of CA A Publications ∏ 253
Patricia C. Phillips, 2002–2007 Judith Rodenbeck, 2007–2010 Katy Siegel, 2010–2013
editors of the monographs on the fine arts Anne Coffin Hanson, 1968–1971 Lucy Freeman Sandler, 1971–1974 Isabelle Hyman, 1974–1981 Shirley Blum, 1981–1983 Carol Lewine, 1983–1986 Isabelle Hyman and Lucy Freeman Sandler, 1986–1989 Nicholas Adams, 1989–1993 Robert Nelson, 1993–1996 Debra Pincus, 1995–2000
editors of caa.reviews Robert Nelson, 1998–2001 Larry Silver, 2001–2005 Frederick Asher, 2005–2008 Lucy Oakley, 2008–2011
notes
introduction 1. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 5, 1985. See also chapter 12 in this book on advocacy. 2. The report was presented at the 14th Annual Meeting of the WDMTA. Ankeney, Lake, and Woodward, Final Report of the Committee on the Condition of Art Work in Colleges and Universities, 1. See also chapter 2 in this book. 3. [College Art Association], “Constitution,” Bulletin of the College Art Association 1, no. 1 (1913): 13. 4. Ibid. 5. [College Art Association], “College Art Association of America Constitution, Article III: Membership,” Bulletin of the College Art Association of America 1, no. 2 (Jan. 1917): 31. There is nothing to indicate when the constitution was amended during the four years between publications. This is the only archival record for CAA’s activities during these years. The Membership Committee comprised the three writers—Ankeney, Lake, and Woodward—who wrote the report cited in note 2 that led to the founding of CAA. 6. CAA Constitution and Bylaws, as recorded in the minutes of a “Special Meeting of Members of the College Art Association,” May 17, 1930. Three categories of membership are listed: life, annual, and active. Active remains the same; the definition of associate— “all persons interested in the object of this Association”—has been applied to the categories of life and annual. 7. Walter W. S. Cook, professor at New York University and CAA board member (both starting 1926), was instrumental in securing funding for CAA from the Carnegie Corporation for research grants for scholars—graduate students and senior scholars—including himself ([College Art Association], “Awards from the Carnegie Corporation Grant,” 39, 45). According to the Dictionary of Art Historians, Cook “continued to spend six months each year in Europe as a research fellow for Spanish art of the College Art Association” (Lee Sorensen, ed., “Walter W[illiam] S[pencer] Cook,” Dictionary of Art Historians, http:// www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/cookw.htm, accessed Feb. 28, 2008). According to Mildred Constantine, CAA was able to expand in 1930, when NYU Dean James B. Munn let CAA occupy part of a house it owned at 20 West 58th Street, where “the first floor was
254
Notes ∏ 255 used for [CAA traveling] exhibitions, the second floor for CAA offices, and the third for a research institute, a joint effort begun and run by Walter Cook that played a significant role in helping to bring over, support, and publish German and Spanish refugee-scholars” ([College Art Association], “Mildred Constantine,” 1, 6, in an article based on an interview with Constantine conducted by Martica Sawin, Art Journal reviews editor, on file at CAA). According to the Dictionary of Art Historians, Cook separated his research institute from the undergraduate department of NYU at Washington Square in 1932, confirming Constantine’s recollection that “CAA moved to 137 E. 57th Street and Cook moved his research institute to what became N.Y.U.’s Institute of Fine Arts, although there was still close contact between the Institute and CAA, especially its publication.” CAA journal mastheads indicate the office move took place in mid-1933. In Cook’s obituary, “Walter W. S. Cook,” in Art Journal, Craig Hugh Smyth, Cook’s successor as director of the Institute of Fine Arts, wrote that Cook had been made an honorary director of CAA not only for his extensive service to the association, but also for his contribution to art history: “He stands out above all for having brought the Institute of Fine Arts into being at New York University. There had existed a Department of Fine Arts. But the Institute was founded by Walter Cook. It was unique in that it offered only graduate study in the history of art and archaeology and that its faculty was made up largely of European scholars.” See also [Institute of Fine Arts, New York University], “The Institute of Fine Arts—A Brief History,” and Bober, “The Gothic Tower and the Stork Club.” See also in this book chapter 7 for a discussion of Carnegie Corporation research grants to CAA and chapter 9 for a discussion of Cook’s Research Institute. 8. CAA Constitution and Bylaws, as recorded in the minutes of the CAA Business Meeting of Annual Members, Mar. 31, 1934. 9. Ibid. This category was open to “any institution desiring to secure a membership in the College Art Association which shall be equivalent to the life membership of an individual and shall have force in perpetuity or for the duration of the institution or the Association, may secure this privilege on payment of $1000.” Categories for “foreign” and “student” were also added for the first time. 10. [College Art Association], “The Purposes of CAA,” 71. The majority are nearly identical to the current purposes, specifically those relating to the core programmatic activities of CAA—publications, annual conference, workforce-related activities such as placement assistance and standards and guidelines. Some have been expanded over time, most notably the one related to advocacy, growing from “To be cognizant of activities in the arts of all levels of government,” to the current purpose 11 (see chapter 12 on advocacy). The current second and third purposes, added in the 1990s, are discussed at length in chapter 11, “Governance and Diversity.” The current sixteenth purpose is an elaboration of the current ninth purpose on standards and guidelines, itself a more extensive version of the seventh purpose ratified in 1963. 11. See Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 26, 1962; Apr. 28, 1962; and Oct. 27, 1962. 12. [College Art Association], “By-laws of the College Art Association, Inc.,” Article II: Purposes. See http://www.collegeart.org/about/bylaws.html (accessed Mar. 20, 2007). 13. Purpose 11 was adopted March 2001, replacing the one adopted in 1963, cited above. See [College Art Association], “CAA Advocacy Policy,” http://www.collegeart.org/ advocacy/policy/ (accessed Jan. 30, 2009).
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chapter 1 1. Veblen, The Higher Learning in America, p. 85. 2. Oleson and Brown, eds., The Pursuit of Knowledge in the Early American Republic exhibits the wealth and variety of these antecedents. 3. Bender, Intellect and Public Life. 4. Ibid., 27. 5. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University, 263. 6. Kiger, American Learned Societies, 1. 7. Geiger, To Advance Knowledge, 22. 8. J. Franklin Jameson, “The Influence of Universities upon Historical Writing,” University Record of the University of Chicago 6 (1902): 299, quoted in Rothberg, “ ‘To Set a Standard of Workmanship and Compel Men to Conform to It,’ ” 961. 9. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University, 338. 10. [A Committee of the College Art Association], “A Statement on the Place of the History of Art in the Liberal Arts Curriculum,” College Art Journal 3, no. 3 (Mar. 1944): 82. 11. Ibid., 84. 12. Parker, “Tax Exempt Foundations,” 156. 13. Parker, “Fine Arts Bills in the Last Congress,” 157–158, http://www.jstor.org/stable/ 773026. 14. McCaughey, International Studies and Academic Enterprise, 176. 15. Bloland and Bloland, American Learned Societies in Transition, 11–12. 16. The phrase is taken from Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas. 17. Chiet, A New Depression in Higher Education. 18. Thelin, A History of American Higher Education, 321. 19. Hanson, “Comments on the Conference,” 300. See also Voss and Ward, eds., Confrontation and Learned Societies. 20. See http://www.academicworkforce.org. 21. See Rudder, “Scholarly Societies and Their Members.”
chapter 2 1. John Pickard, “President’s Address” (Jan. 1917), 13–15. Address given on Apr. 21, 1916. 2. Frederic Lynden Burnham writes that the first professional organization formed in the United States was in 1874 by the students of the Massachusetts Normal Art School. Although that association only survived three years, it published a volume of significant papers on topics related to the arts. Burnham, “Art Societies Connected with the Public Schools,” 353. 3. Although the 1851 Great Exhibition is cited as a milestone for American industry, Haney argues that the United States Centennial Exhibition of 1876 had a profound effect “on both lay and teaching public, together with the industrial development of the country now proceeding in great strides to foster the creation of a variety of institutions to provide for teachers schooled in the arts of drawing and design.” Haney, “The Development of Art Education in the Public Schools,” 46. 4. Michael, “The Emergence of the Regionals and the NEA Art Departments,” 1–22. 5. Bennett, History of Manual and Industrial Education up to 1870, 269. 6. The New York Times, September 18, 1900, and June 8, 1902, cited in Pulos, American Design Ethic, 242–243. The rapidly growing automobile industry was also severely criti-
Notes ∏ 257 cized for its developers’ lack of attention to design (New York Times, July 29, 1900), cited in Pulos, 242. The criterion for “fitness to survive” included appealing industrial design. See also Kimes and Ackerson, Chevrolet. 7. See Bennett, History of Manual and Industrial Education 1870 to 1917, for a detailed account of manual training and technical education in Russia, Scandinavia, France, Germany, England, and the United States at all levels of education; Jacobs and Francis, “Ninety Years of the Western Arts Association,” 32–37; and Crawshaw, Manual Arts for Vocational Ends. 8. Michael, “The Emergence of the Regionals and the NEA Art Departments,” 1–22. The precursors of the Western Arts Association, both inspired by the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and founded that year, merged in 1904 to become the Western Drawing and Manual Training Association, from which the college teachers seceded in 1912 to form CAA. The name was changed to Western Arts Association in 1919 (pp. 1–2). The Eastern Arts Teachers’ Association was initiated by the president of the Connecticut Valley Art and Industrial Teacher’s Association, founded by art teachers in 1888. It held its first meeting in 1889 at Pratt Institute and the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences and in 1914 became the Eastern Arts Association (5–8). The association later known as the Southeastern Arts Association was founded in 1898, and the Pacific Arts Association was founded in 1925. See Singerman, Art Subjects, especially chapter 1, “Writing Artists onto Campuses,” 11–39, for an excellent history and analysis of the education of the artist in American higher education. Singerman (16–18) identifies “a typology of the American university and a geographical survey of art on its campuses,” concluding that “the division between history and practice in what was arguably a single discipline . . . embodied the ideological and regional divisions that shaped early-twentieth-century higher education as a whole. In contrast, perhaps, to other disciplines more effectively articulated in the university, the divisions between art history and art practice remained rhetorically inseparable from the division between East and West in the association’s debates into the 1950s.” 9. Ankeney, Lake, and Woodward, Final Report of the Committee on the Condition of Art Work in Colleges and Universities, 1. In 1947, three of the four regional arts associations, Eastern Arts, Southeastern Arts, and Western Arts (formerly WDMTA) joined to form the National Art Education Association, now an affiliate of CAA. For a detailed account, see Michael, “The Emergence of the Regionals and the NEA Art Departments.” See also Burnham, “Art Societies Connected with the Public Schools,” 353–359; Burke, “Early Years of the College Art Association,” 100–104; and Jacobs and Francis, “Ninety Years of the Western Arts Association,” 32–37. Ankeney, chair, Department of Fine Arts, became director of the Dallas Museum of Art in 1929; Woodward became chair, Department of Architecture at Tulane University in 1907. 10. William Woodward, “Art Education in the Colleges,” 295. 11. Ibid., 310–319. 12. Ibid., 321. 13. Ibid. 14. WDMTA, Report of Annual Meeting, 1910, 143. National Art Education Association Records, 1893–2000, MGN 999, Penn State University Archives, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid., 12. In handing over responsibility for the “solution of the problem” to the new
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∏ Notes
organization, the committee members suggested that the individual viewpoints solicited from various universities would be “more valuable than any solution it would be possible to offer at present.” All three stayed involved: Lake was on the three-person Art Bulletin editorial board and chaired the eleven-person membership committee that included not only Ankeney and Woodward, but also a geographically, if not gender-diverse roster from Stanford to Tulane to Dartmouth and points in between. All three served on multiple committees. 17. [College Art Association], “Constitution,” Bulletin of the College Art Association 1, no. 1 (1913): 13. 18. Ibid., 11. 19. Holmes Smith, “Problems of the College Art Association,” 10. 20. Ibid., 9. 21. According to Pickard, during his five years as president he had often worked onequarter to half-time for CAA. Pickard, “The Future of the College Art Association,” 9. 22. Minutes of the CAA Special Meeting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oct. 10, 1930. Dues were recorded in the bylaws of the association until 1987, requiring a vote of the membership to be changed (Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Feb. 11, 1986). See [College Art Association], “Constitution,” Bulletin of the College Art Association 1, no. 1 (1913): 14; Bulletin of the College Art Association of America 2, no. 4 (Sept. 1918): 157. The formula for calculating the current dollar value, provided by Robert Wayne, chief financial officer of CAA, is at www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm. 23. See Art Journal 58, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 2. 24. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Feb. 27, 2000. 25. [College Art Association], “By-laws of The College Art Association, Inc.,” Article II, Purposes, http://www.collegeart.org/about/bylaws.html (accessed Jan. 28, 2009). 26. [College Art Association], “College Art Association of America Constitution, Article III: Membership,” 31. There is nothing to indicate at what point during the four years between publications the constitution was amended. This is the only archival record for CAA activities during these years. The Membership Committee was composed of the three writers of the report that led to the founding of the College Art Association, John Ankeney, Edward Lake, and William Woodward. 27. On the first published list of directors (1912–1913), Abbott was listed as having a two-year term (Bulletin of the College Art Association 1, no. 1 [1913]: 3). In the next published list of directors and committee members (Bulletin of the College Art Association of America 1, no. 2 [Jan. 1917]), Abbott, now affiliated with the Metropolitan Museum, is no longer listed as a director, but is on the reproductions for the college museum and library committee, where she was very active. However, Abbott is back on the list of directors in the next issue (Bulletin of the College Art Association of America 1, no. 3 [Nov. 1917]: 3) serving through 1919. 28. Pickard, “The Future of the College Art Association,” 6. 29. When the CAA board of directors undertook the large task of incorporating “policy and purposes” into the bylaws, the minutes refer to a working paper and extensive discussion. However, only one specific comment is itemized in the minutes: “Julius Held recommended including an additional purpose, acknowledging and developing the fundamental mutual interest between museums and academic institutions,” which is precisely the wording that still exists. That led to an additional discussion introduced by Richard Brown about the name of the association: “[Brown] suggested that since there are more
Notes ∏ 259 and more members of the Association who belong to the Museum field, it might be wise to change the name of the Association from the College Art Association of America to the Art Association of America. The Board was of the opinion that the present name should stand although no vote was taken.” Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 28, 1962. 30. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Académique_Internationale (accessed Jan. 10, 2008). 31. In a letter to the board of directors of Nov. 12, 1953, CAA President S. Lane Faison, Jr., wrote that at the meeting of the executive committee on Nov. 8, 1953, he reported that “Agnes Mongan was appointed our representative to the US National Commission on UNESCO (for 3 years) and has accepted.” 32. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 25, 1950. Most subsequent board meetings contain reports on the national committee and/or CIHA, often going into great detail about the very complicated and cumbersome policy of representation in CIHA itself—not automatically from the national committees. For details on the process, see in particular Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, May 17, 1952. 33. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 31, 1959. 34. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 29, 1960. 35. Minutes of the CAA Members Business Meeting, Jan. 16, 1962. See also Ida E. Rubin, “International Congress of History of Art”; [College Art Association], “Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art, New York, N.Y., Sept. 7 to 12, 1961”; and Meiss, “International Congress.” 36. See Certificate of Incorporation of National Committee for the History of Art, Inc., dated October 16, 1980 (copy on file in the CAA archives). The documents were prepared by Gilbert Edelson, CAA honorary counsel; the three officers of the new organization were Edelson, Horst W. Janson, and Irving J. Lavin, all three current members of the CAA board of directors. 37. See letter to members of the NCHA, Feb. 13, 1996, from Irving Lavin, with draft bylaws attached (in CAA archives). Lavin writes that “the new plan has required a great deal of work and good will from all concerned—legal counsels for both organizations, the respective presidents [Lavin for the NCHA and Judith Brodsky for CAA], the CAA Executive Committee and Board, etc.—and will put the relations between the American art-historical community and the international organization on firm and fruitful ground for the future.” 38. See Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Sept. 1994; “Long Range Plan, 1996– 2006,” 20; “From the Executive Director: International Efforts,” 5–6; and “Implementing the Long Range Plan,” 1–2. 39. Ball, “From the Executive Director: International Efforts,” 5. 40. Federico Mayor and CAA president Leslie King-Hammond, letter of intent, July 8, 1996. This two-page document is on file at CAA. 41. “College Art Association Application for Consultative Statues with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations,” May 28, 1998 (in CAA archives). 42. See “CAA Attends United Nations Conference,” CAA News (Jan. 1999): 7–8; and CAA News (Jan. 2000): 4. 43. See “CAA Strategic Plan, 2000–2006,” on file at CAA. As noted in the “Application of College Art Association to ECOSOC/ 5-28-97,” 13 (in CAA archives), “a distinguished former board member of CAA has represented the US [through ACLS] to the Union Académique Internationale, a sponsored program of UNESCO, for the past 8 years.”
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44. As early as April 1916, in his presidential address, John Pickard noted that to “take important rank and position among the learned societies of our time” the College Art Association had to have “profound discussions” at its annual meetings and publish those “learned papers” as “ ‘original’ work.” Pickard, “Presidential Address” (Jan. 1917), 13 (address given on April 21, 1916). CAA was publishing the “original work” of scholars in Art Bulletin, Parnassus, and College Art Journal from their inceptions in 1913, 1929, and 1941. 45. [College Art Association], “Notes: Thirteenth Annual Meeting”; “Notes: Fourteenth Annual Meeting”; “Notes: Fifteenth Annual Meeting”; “Notes: Sixteenth Annual Meeting.” 46. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, March 15, 1941. 47. See Singerman, Art Subjects, especially chapter 1, “Writing Artists onto Campuses,” 11–39. Singerman highlights “internal tensions and divisions” in the diverse membership, placing more emphasis than I do on the tension between the artists and art historians. 48. Pickard, “President’s Address” (Jan. 1917), 15. Address given on Apr. 21, 1916. 49. Pickard, “President’s Address” (Nov. 1917), 43. Address given on Apr. 6, 1917. 50. Pickard, “The Future of the College Art Association,” 6, 8. Presidential address given on May 12, 1919. 51. Marion Lawrence in minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Mar. 15, 1941.
chapter 3 1. [College Art Association], “Traveling Exhibitions of Contemporary Art.” A short article, “Art for Colleges,” also announced this new exhibition series in Art Digest (Oct. 1, 1929): 31. 2. [College Art Association], “Traveling Exhibitions of Contemporary Art,” 17. 3. These numbers taken from [McMahon], “Travelling [sic] Art Exhibitions,” 7. 4. See [McMahon], “Travelling [sic] Art Exhibitions,” 8. 5. Ibid. 6. Mather, Jr., “The College Art Museum,” 18. 7. Ibid. 8. Keppel and Duffus, The Arts and American Life, 42. 9. Wattenmaker, “Dr. Albert C. Barnes and the Barnes Foundation,” 10. 10. See Munro, “The Educational Functions of an Art Museum,” for more information on Munro’s ideas regarding object-based education. 11. Keppel and Duffus, The Arts and American Life, 70–71. Chapter 6, “Art Education Outside Schools,” provides a fuller discussion of the growth of art museums in the United States in the 1920s. 12. Every effort was made to keep costs to a minimum. In the College Art Association article “Traveling Exhibitions of Contemporary Art,” it was stated that: “By careful planning, dates for exhibitions and routes for shipping the collections have been arranged in such a way that an unusually low figure can be charged the institutions receiving them, to cover the cost of transportation, insurance, packing, and catalogues” (see p. 17). There is no record of a program budget for the program, and rental fees were exceedingly modest, ranging from $10 to $300. The meeting minutes of the CAA Board of Directors from 1929–1937 suggests that the bulk of the administrative costs were subsidized by the Carnegie Corporation. 13. Promotion of the arts, the development of adult education, and support for libraries
Notes ∏ 261 were the cornerstones of Keppel’s program while director of the Carnegie Corporation. The need for such support was detailed in a report issued in 1924 by the corporation titled Office Memorandum . . . The Place of the Arts in American Life. See Lagemann, The Politics of Knowledge, 100–146, for details on the Carnegie Corporation’s programs during Keppel’s tenure. 14. The projects overseen by CAA are not detailed in the Carnegie Corporation reports, and range in description from “support of plan of competitive art examinations in colleges” ($3,000 in 1925–1926), to “Sorbonne Summer scholarships,” ($25,500 in 1930– 1931). 15. A total of $36,000 was provided for the CAA traveling exhibitions program between the years 1934 and 1937. 16. Carnegie Corporation, Report . . . for the Year Ended September 30, 1926, 16–18. These collections included: approximately 1,800 photographic reproductions of painting, sculpture and architecture (one-fourth were reproduced in color), a small collection of prints and a small collection of textiles, approximately four hundred books on the subject of the fine arts, and an annotated catalogue of said items. 17. “Travelling [sic] Art Exhibitions,” 7. 18. Carlyle Burrows, review in New York Herald Tribune, quoted in “Art for Colleges,” 31. 19. Jewell, “Agreeable Surprises,” quoted in “Contrasts,” Art Digest (Oct. 15, 1932): 17. 20. Pach, “Address at the Worcester Opening of International, 1933,” 24. 21. Ralph Flint, “Art Trends Seen in the International 1933 Exhibition,” 3–4. 22. Jewell, “Twenty-Three Nations,” 6. 23. “Germany First to Sell Picture at International,” 6. 24. Jewell, “Art in Review,” 5. 25. Given the tremendous potential of this exhibition program, and the demonstrated interest of the art community (a 1936 CAA membership survey indicated widespread member support) it is somewhat surprising that on February 8, 1937, the executive board of the CAA voted to liquidate the program, requesting a $6,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation in order to do so. This is recorded in the Minutes of the CAA Executive Board, Feb. 8, 1937. Carnegie Corporation of America, The Report of the President & of the Treasurer of the Carnegie Corporation of America for the Year Ending September 30, 1937 records a grant of $6,000 given to the CAA for circulating exhibitions (see p. 58).
chapter 4 1. [College Art Association], “Constitution,” 13. 2. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, June 22, 1990. 3. Stechow, “On College Museums,” 22 and 22–23. 4. Fansler, “Of Education in an Art Museum,” 127. 5. Art Bulletin 2 (Sept. 1919). 6. Minutes of the CAA Annual Meeting, Nov. 30, 1934. 7. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 28, 1956. The committee was actually formed in 1950, according to the foreword by Lloyd Goodrich in Joint Artists-Museums Committee, The Museum and the Artist. See also Ball, “The Artist and the Museum.” The committee was voted out of existence at the executive committee meeting on Oct. 25, 1963. The reason given for such a move was the committee’s “inactivity.”
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8. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, November 6, 1971. See also Lee Sorensen, ed., “Spencer, John,” Dictionary of Art Historians, http://dictionaryofarthistorians.org/ spencerj.htm, and the references cited there. 9. Appendix F, Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, January 26, 1972. 10. See http://www.collegeart.org/committees/museum.html (accessed Mar. 2008). 11. Conversation with Mimi Gaudieri, former executive director of the AAMD. 12. These guidelines currently appear on the CAA Web site at www.collegeart.org/ guidelines/sales.html (accessed Mar. 2008). 13. See www.collegeart.org/guidelines/histethics.html. 14. Information about the Joint Committee may be found in Joint Artists-Museums Committee, The Museum and the Artist. 15. The Artist and the Museum: The Report of the Third Woodstock Art Conference, September 1 and 2, 1950. Edited by John D. Morse. New York: American Artists Group, 1951. 16. Kushner, “Exhibiting Art,” 10. 17. Ibid. 18. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 25, 1963. 19. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 12, 1974. 20. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 22, 1988. 21. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 19, 1997. 22. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 19, 1997.
chapter 5 I would like to thank Paul B. Jaskot for his help in the editing of this article, particularly the conclusion, and Anne H. Hoy, who served as assistant editor and managing editor of The Art Bulletin from 1970 to 1994, and thus offered an impressive history of the publication. 1. [College Art Association], “Art Bulletin Mission Statement.” 2. Holmes Smith, “Problems of the College Art Association,” 9. 3. Keyes, “The College Art Association,” 868. 4. Geiger, To Advance Knowledge, 22–25. 5. Bennett, History of Manual and Industrial Education 1870 to 1917, 491–501; and Singerman, Art Subjects, 11–40. 6. See, e.g., Ackerman, “Western Art History,” 187–90, in Ackerman and Carpenter, Art and Archaeology; and Kantor, “The Beginnings of Art History at Harvard and the ‘Fogg Method,’ ” 169. 7. In volume 1 of the Bulletin of the College Art Association of America, the page counts continuously increased. Issue no. 2 was 32 pages, no. 3 increased to 118 pages, and no. 4 to 157 pages. The trim size for all three measured 9¼ ≈ 6 inches. 8. Pickard, “President’s Address,” (Jan. 1917), 13. 9. Ibid. 10. Geiger, To Advance Knowledge, 9. 11. Wilson, “The Proposed Non-Technical Magazine,” 7. The “non-technical magazine” refers to Art and Archaeology, which was created for the general public, as opposed to the American Journal of Archaeology, which was considered technical because it catered to scholars. 12. Geiger, To Advance Knowledge, 115–118. 13. Pickard, “The Future of the College Art Association,” 8.
Notes ∏ 263 14. Dyson, Ancient Marbles to American Shores, 193. 15. “The Art Bulletin,” 2. The statement also indicated that issues 1, 2, 3, and 4, which had been published previously, made up volume 1 of the journal. 16. Coomaraswamy, “The Significance of Oriental Art,” 21; Morey, “Sources of Romanesque Sculpture,” 10–16; and Rawson, “A Professional Sage.” 17. Blake, “The Necessity of Developing the Scientific and Technical Bases of Art,” 37; Saint-Gaudens, “Camouflage and Art,” 23–30. 18. Gropius, “The Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus,” 339–340. Gropius’s ideas in 1919 were perhaps more advanced than the initial curriculum that he and his colleagues first implemented at the Bauhaus. For a thorough history of the Bauhaus, see Forgacs, The Bauhaus Idea and the Bauhaus Politics. See also Singerman, Art Subjects, passim. 19. The changes in Art Bulletin’s content during its early years seemed to correlate with the journal’s relationship with CAA’s annual conference. Although all the papers from the 1917 and 1918 conferences were published in the Bulletin of the College Art Association of America, only eleven out of the thirty-two papers (34 percent) from the 1919 conference were published in the Art Bulletin, four of twenty-one papers (19 percent) from the 1920 conference, six of nineteen (31 percent) from the 1921 conference, one of fifteen (7 percent) papers from the 1922 conference, and three of fourteen (21 percent) from the 1923 meeting. Although the editors of the Art Bulletin were more selective in what they chose to publish, they were still beholden to CAA’s annual conference for content. In volume 2 of the Art Bulletin, spanning September 1919 to June 1920, twelve of the fifteen articles (80 percent) were published from one or more of the annual conferences; in volume 3, it was nine of ten articles (90 percent); in volume 4, one of thirteen articles (8 percent); in volume 5, two out of eleven articles (18 percent); in volume 6, three of twelve articles (25 percent); and in volume 7, two of ten articles (20 percent). 20. “Shapley, John,” in Dictionary of Art Historians, edited by Lee Sorensen, http:// www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/shapleyj.htm (accessed Apr. 1, 2010). 21. Panofsky, “Three Decades of Art History in the United States,” in Meaning in the Visual Arts, 324. 22. Ibid., 324, 326. Among the Art Bulletin editorial board, Panofsky did not mention Pickard, Robinson, or Shapley, nor Alfred M. Brooks of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania or William B. Dinsmoor—an archaeologist teaching at Columbia University who was added to the board in 1925. In addition to the editorial board members, Panofsky named Howard C. Butler, Allan Marquand, E. Baldwin Smith, Frederick Mortimer Clapp, Albert M. Friend, Chandler Post, and Richard Offner. However, none of them had a strong presence in Art Bulletin. Smith, Post, and Friend each published only one article in Art Bulletin. Among the board members in the 1920s, Pickard was the only one who taught in the Midwest at the University of Missouri–Columbia, until Shapley went to the University of Chicago in 1929. 23. Goldwater, “The Teaching of Art,” 27. 24. Art Bulletin’s concentration on medieval art distinguished the journal from most other scholarly art periodicals published in Europe and the United States during the 1920s. Most journals published in Germany and Austria, including Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, and Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, focused on Renaissance and Baroque art. The same was true for the Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs in the United Kingdom. In contrast, the Gazette des Beaux-Arts
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in France included a broader range of subjects from medieval to modern art, as well as Asian and Middle Eastern art. In the United States Art in America concentrated on Renaissance and Baroque art. The only publication that was similar to Art Bulletin was Art Studies, which was published by Harvard and Princeton and shared the same editors. In 1923, the same year that Art Bulletin changed its content, Mather, Sachs, Morey, and Porter started Art Studies, which was supposed to focus on medieval, Renaissance, and modern art. However, over the course of its eight-year history, medieval subjects reigned supreme. 25. Ackerman, “Western Art History,” in Ackerman and Carpenter, Art and Archaeology, 191; Goldwater, “The Teaching of Art,” 17; Hiss and Fansler, Research in Fine Arts, 26–27; and Meiss, “The Art Bulletin at Fifty,” 3. 26. Meiss, “The Art Bulletin at Fifty.” 27. See Ackerman, “Western Art History,” 190–197, in Ackerman and Carpenter, Art and Archaeology; Carpenter, “Archaeology,” 113–119, in Ackerman and Carpenter, Art and Archaeology; and Eisler, “Kunstgeschichte American Style,” 559. Eisler quoted William M. Calder III, who described the time period as “An American epoch, practical, drawn to the purely objective, above all to archaeological or inscribed date (steine). Those who interested themselves in stones were completely satisfied. Those who interested themselves in facts, possibly; those who were interested in ideas, certainly not.” 28. On German immigrant scholars, see Eisler, “Kunstgeschichte American Style,” 569; for quotation re Hitler, see Panofsky, “Three Decades of Art History,” 332. 29. Lee, “Charles Rufus Morey,” v. Re Weitzmann, see Craig Hugh Smyth, “Concerning Charles Rufus Morey (1877–1955),” in Smyth and Lukehart, eds., The Early Years of Art History in the United States, 120. 30. “Panofsky, Erwin,” Grove Art Online, http://www.groveart.com.libproxy.newschool .edu/shared/views/article.html?from=search&session_search_id=1121701218&hitnum=1 §ion=art.065081 (accessed Mar. 1, 2008). 31. Eisler, “Kunstgeschichte American Style,” 603, 611. 32. Panofsky, “Three Decades of Art History,” 329–330. 33. Morey, “Sources of Medieval Style.” 34. Porter, “Spain or Toulouse? and Other Questions,” 4. 35. Ackerman, “Western Art History,” 191, 201, in Ackerman and Carpenter, Art and Archaeology; and Smyth, “Concerning Charles Rufus Morey (1877–1955),” in Smyth and Lukehart, eds., The Early Years of Art History in the United States, 116–17. 36. Brush, “German Kunstwissenschaft and the Practice of Art History in America,” 7–36; idem, “The Unshaken Tree,” 25–51; Crow, “The Practice of Art History in America,” 70–90; Kaufmann, “American Voices,” 128–150; Michels, “Art History, German Jewish Identity, and the Emigration of Iconology,” 167–179; and Wood, “Art History’s Normative Renaissance.” 37. Kaufmann, “American Voices,” 143–144. 38. See Panofsky, “The Friedsam Annunciation and the Problem of the Ghent Altarpiece”; and Beenken, “The Annunciation of Petrus Christus in the Metropolitan Museum and the Problem of Hubert van Eyck”; and Panofsky, “Once More ‘The Friedsam Annunciation and the Problem of the Ghent Altarpiece.’ ” 39. William Bell Dinsmoor, Meyer Schapiro, et al., letter to the board of directors, College Art Association, April 7, 1936, in minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, April 9, 1936. Other concerns related to finances and editorial production. Regarding the latter, contributors wanted to receive timely acknowledgments regarding their submissions and prompt replies to their correspondence with the editor. They also wanted advance notifi-
Notes ∏ 265 cation of their publication dates, so that they might be able to update their texts if needed; and to examine proofs and make changes in proof to avoid unwanted errors. In addition, contributors wanted the Art Bulletin to publish a formal editorial policy and style guide. 40. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, May 12, 1940. 41. Shapley played many roles within CAA. He had also served as secretary and treasurer of the organization and chaired numerous committees. His obituary in CAA News noted that during the Great Depression, Shapley also helped finance the Art Bulletin with his own money. See [College Art Association], “John Shapley.” Re Shapley’s control, see Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 6, 1940. During what was likely a heated discussion, “Cook read a letter written by Mrs. Shapley in 1935 regarding the publication of two graduate student papers in the Art Bulletin in which she stated that the Art Bulletin was obliged to give preference to the institutions which contributed money for the publication.” At the CAA board of directors’ meeting on May 12, 1940, Meiss stated that authors submitting texts from institutions that give money to the journal were not given preferential treatment. 42. In 1935, Shapley himself had wanted to reconfigure the editorial board because he wanted more active members. Minutes of the CAA Special Officers and Directors Meeting, Dec. 27, 1935. 43. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, May 12, 1940. 44. Meiss, “The Art Bulletin at Fifty,” 3. 45. “Periodical, II, 2(i): Art history, after c 1850, (a) c. 1850–1930s,” Grove Art Online, http://www.groveart.com.libproxy.newschool.edu/shared/views/article.html?from= search&session_search_id=792729509&hitnum=3§ion=art.066393.2.2.1.1 (accessed Mar. 20, 2008). 46. Kaufmann, “American Voices,” 138. 47. For example, between 1925 and 1995, production costs rose from $7,632.83 to $257,725. Unfortunately, CAA’s budgetary records are somewhat piecemeal and inconsistent prior to 1989, before the first manager of publications was hired. It is therefore impossible to provide a clear breakdown of production costs based on print runs, page counts, types and numbers of reproductions, paper stock, binding, distribution, and other factors. Nevertheless, the few numbers that are available show a general increase in the production costs of the journal from its beginning until today. 48. See Art Bulletin 7 (Mar. 1925): front matter. 49. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 21, 1948. 50. See Minutes of the CAA Annual Meeting, June 17, 1933; and Minutes of the CAA Executive Board, May 22, 1935. 51. Meiss, “The Art Bulletin at Fifty,” 1. 52. Sandler, “Words in Memory of H. W. Janson,” 2. 53. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 27, 1956. 54. Susan Ball, interview with author, Sept. 2, 2008. 55. Rossen, “Report on the Publication Program,” 10. Creighton Gilbert recalled the days of Janson as “the old period of the oligarchy, when the benevolent despot H. W. Janson ran everything out of his hat.” See Gilbert, in Brilliant et al., “Editorial Ruminations,” 205. 56. “Periodical II, 2(i): Art history, after c 1850, (a) c. 1850–1930s,” Grove Art Online. 57. I spoke with the following editors-in-chief: Creighton Gilbert, Richard Spear, Walter Cahn, Richard Brilliant, Nancy Troy, and John T. Paoletti. 58. Spear, in Brilliant et al., “Editorial Ruminations,” 206; and Creighton Gilbert, Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, 1985.
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59. Art Bulletin Annual Report 1963, Jan. 10, 1964. 60. Gilbert, in Brilliant et al., “Editorial Ruminations,” 204. 61. Information was tallied using statistics from CAA’s available annual publications reports. 62. See Brilliant et al., “Editorial Ruminations.” 63. Gilbert, “Inside the Art Bulletin,” 12; Spear, in Brilliant et al., “Editorial Ruminations,” 206, note 1; and Cahn, in Brilliant et al., “Editorial Ruminations,” 207. 64. Gilbert, “Inside the Art Bulletin,” 12. 65. Gilbert, in Brilliant et al., “Editorial Ruminations,” 204. 66. Gilbert, “Inside the Art Bulletin,” 12; Spear, in Brilliant et al., “Editorial Ruminations,” 206; Brilliant, “Editorial: The Squeaking Wheel,” 358. 67. “Periodical: Historical survey, 2. After c 1850, (b) 1930s and after,” Grove Art Online. 68. Brilliant, “Editorial: The Squeaking Wheel,” 358. 69. Weil-Garris Brandt, in Brilliant et al., “Editorial Ruminations,” 203. 70. Nancy Troy, interview with author, Mar. 13, 2008. 71. Brilliant, “Editorial: The Squeaking Wheel,” 358. 72. See, as examples, Gilbert, “Inside the Art Bulletin,” 12; and Brilliant, “Editorial: The Squeaking Wheel,” 358. 73. Richard Brilliant, interview with author, Apr. 21, 2008. 74. Howard Hibbard, Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Oct. 21, 1977. 75. Weil-Garris Brandt, in Brilliant et al., “Editorial Ruminations,” 203. 76. Spear, “From the Editor.” 77. Troy, interview with author, Mar. 13, 2008. 78. Minutes of the Art Bulletin Editorial Board, Oct. 20, 2006. 79. Paoletti, “Editorial Note.” 80. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 29, 1972; Apr. 24, 1976; and Apr. 29, 1978. 81. [College Art Association], “Art Journal Wins Utne Independent Press Award.” 82. Parnassus 1 (Jan. 1929): 12. 83. In the first issue only ten contributing editors were listed. C. R. Morey was added in the second issue. The foreigners and their affiliations included: Abraham Efros, Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; Joaquin Folch y Torres, Gaseta de les Arts, Barcelona; Heinrich Gluck, Oesterreichisches Museum, Vienna; Roger Hinks, British Museum, London; August L. Mayer, Alte Pinakothek, Munich; Louis Reau, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris; Theodor Schmidt, Institute of Art History, Leningrad; and A. W. VanBruen [sic; Van Buren], American Academy, Rome. The list of contributing editors disappeared by the October 1929 issue. 84. Although there was no stated editorial intention, it seemed that in the late 1930s the January issues were reserved for Asian art. See the January issues of 1937, 1938, and 1939. 85. The financial terms for Parnassus were not discussed regularly in the meetings of the CAA board of directors in the 1930s. However, the finances of Art Bulletin were discussed at length. 86. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 6, 1940. Although Shapley had named himself editor of Parnassus in the October 1939 issue, the change of title was not made official until January 1940. 87. Lester D. Longman, Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, 1940. 88. Middeldorf, “Statement.”
Notes ∏ 267 89. Longman, “The New Parnassus.” 90. Longman, “Better American Art.” 91. See “Alexander Brook (1898–1980),” New Georgia Encyclopedia, http://georgia encyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3435 (accessed Sept. 25, 2008). 92. Stuart Davis, Letter to the editor. 93. Wolff, “The Politics of American Modernism,” 205–206. 94. Schapiro, Letter to the editor. 95. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Feb. 1, 1941. The decision to discontinue Parnassus is found in Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Mar. 15, 1941. 96. Crosby et al., “C.A.A. Policy Altered—Parnassus Abolished,” 162. 97. Ibid., 163. 98. Crosby, “Editorial Policy.” 99. Avery had previously taught at Wellesley College, retiring in 1937. See Lee Sorensen, ed., “Myrtilla Avery,” Dictionary of Art Historians, http://dictionaryofarthistorians .org/averym.htm (accessed Aug. 1, 2008). 100. Hope, “Editor’s Report.” 101. [College Art Association], “Current Policy and Activities of the College Art Association.” 102. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Jan. 28, 1953. 103. See Hope, “Editor’s Report.” 104. Reinhardt, “The Artist in Search of an Academy.” 105. Hunter, “Ad Reinhardt: Sacred and Profane.” 106. Hope, “Editorial Note”; and Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 27, 1971. 107. Wageman, “Art Journal.” 108. Diane Kelder, interview with author, Mar. 19, 2008. 109. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 29, 1978. 110. [College Art Association], “Statement of Purpose by the Art Journal Editorial Board.” 111. Weisberg, “Art Journal at Fifty.” 112. Lenore Malen, interview with author, Mar. 27, 2008. 113. [College Art Association], “From the Editorial Board.” 114. Quotations from ibid.; Janet Kaplan, interview with author, Jun. 8, 2008. 115. [College Art Association], “Art Journal Subvention Fund.” 116. [College Art Association], “Art Journal wins Utne Independent Press Award.” 117. Patricia C. Phillips, “Art of Attention.” Lum’s project was funded by grant money from the NEA and the Dehner Foundation. 118. Judith Rodenbeck, interview with author, Mar. 13, 2008. 119. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 29, 1944. 120. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 6, 1945; quotation from Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 4, 1952; renaming from Rossen, “Report on the Publication Program,” 44. 121. Nicholas Adams, interview with author, Mar. 28, 2008. 122. Meiss, “The Art Bulletin at Fifty,” 2. 123. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Apr, 23, 1976. 124. Rossen, “Report on the Publication Program,” 44–52. 125. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Feb. 14, 1989; College Art Association, Notes to Financial Statements, Jun. 30, 1991. 126. Rossen, “Report on the Publications Department,” 49–58; Minutes of the CAA
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Board of Directors, Dec. 6, 199; Minutes of the Art Bulletin and Monograph Series Editorial Board, Feb. 11, 1999; Debra Pincus, interview with author, Mar. 20, 2008. 127. See “CAA Governance Handbook,” 2006, College Art Association archives. 128. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Mar. 25, 1989. 129. Larry Silver, interview with author, Apr. 7, 2008. 130. Initially, the editor-in-chief was referred to as an executive editor, and the editorial board was the executive committee. As a result of an initiative called the Publications Task Force, CAA chose to create a sense of parity among the journals, using the same terminology for all publications. 131. Robert Nelson, quoted in Elaine Koss, memorandum to the CAA Board of Directors, Feb. 4, 1998, College Art Association archives. 132. See “caa.reviews Mission Statement,” http://www.caareviews.org/about/mission (accessed Apr. 30, 2008); Elaine Koss, memorandum to the CAA board of directors; “Submission Guidelines,” caa.reviews, http://www.caareviews.org/about/submissions (accessed June 15, 2008); and Larry Silver, interview with author, Apr. 7, 2008. 133. Oceanic/Australian art has no books reviewed as of this writing, and Native American and outsider/folk art have had only one review each, both posted in 1999. 134. Minutes of the caa.reviews Editorial Board, Oct. 18, 2003. 135. Koss, memorandum to the CAA board of directors. 136. Minutes of the caa.reviews Editorial Board, May 9, 2002. 137. Frederick Asher, interview with author, Mar. 28, 200; and Larry Silver, interview with author, Apr. 7, 2008. 138. Minutes of the caa.reviews Editorial Board, May 5, 2006. 139. Minutes of the caa.reviews Editorial Board, Oct. 22, 2005. 140. See “caa.reviews Mission Statement,” http://www.caareviews.org/about/mission (accessed Apr. 30, 2008).
chapter 6 As in any research project, I have incurred numerous debts. Thanks are due to Susan Ball for inviting me to write the chapter and offering patient guidance throughout and to Jonathan Fineberg for recommending me for the task. At the CAA office, Linda Downs kindly gave me free rein of materials, Emmanuel Lemakis shared his extensive knowledge, and Vanessa Jalet ensured me smooth sailing along the way. This project was carried out over a number of years. Portions of the writing and editing were completed during my tenure as an ACLS/Luce Predoctoral Fellow, a McNeil Predoctoral Fellow at the Winterthur Museum and Country Estates, and as the Joshua C. Taylor Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. At a personal level, I owe many thanks to Toni Sienkewicz, for offering me a home-away-from home, and to my parents, Anne and Thomas Sienkewicz, for their editing skills and support. Finally, thanks to my husband, Víctor Martínez, and our hounds Redbone and Artemis, for forgiving all the time spent in travel and writing. 1. CAA dates its inception and first annual meeting to 1912. While this small gathering of scholars may have more closely resembled a committee meeting than a professional conference, it is certainly appropriate to trace the spirit of the annual gathering to this early date. 2. Most of the archival resources for this chapter are drawn from materials maintained in the CAA office. Other sources, such as early issues of the Bulletin of the College
Notes ∏ 269 Art Association and Parnassus, are widely available through online sources. Any references to conference content, data analysis, and claims of increased or decreased frequency of subject matter are based on a database that I compiled from the conference programs. 3. Burke, “Early Years of the College Art Association,” 102, quotation at 101. 4. Holmes Smith, “Problems of the College Art Association,” 10. 5. For histories of the professions of art and architecture in the United States see, respectively, Neil Harris, The Artist in American Society; and Woods, From Craft to Profession. 6. Alice Van Vechten Brown of Wellesley College stated that part of the impetus for the formation of CAA was the desire on the part of artists and art historians to have an effective professional body like the AIA. See Burke, “Early Years of the College Art Association,” 104. 7. Burke’s summary of the reports made by Art and Progress, ibid., 102. 8. Smith, “Problems of the College Art Association,” 7. 9. “The CAA,” Art and Progress 5, no. 1 (Nov. 1913): 70. 10. Pickard, “President’s Address,” (Jan. 1917), 15. 11. See the list of member institutions in Bulletin of the College Art Association 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1913): 12. 12. Minutes of the Annual Members Meeting, Jan. 29, 1944. 13. Nemec, Ivory Towers and Nationalist Minds, 24. 14. Beaux, “What Should the College A. B. Course Offer to the Future Artist?”: 484. 15. Bulletin of the College Art Association of America 1, no. 4 (Sept. 1918): 9. 16. Duncan Phillips, “Art and War,” 26. 17. Pickard, “Art’s Counter Offensive,” 19–24. 18. Nemec, Ivory Towers and Nationalist Minds, 3. 19. Dyson, Ancient Marbles to American Shores, 158. 20. Panofsky, “Three Decades of Art History,” College Art Journal 14, no. 1 (Autumn 1954): 12. 21. See Harlan Phillips, “Oral History Interview with Mildred Constantine.” 22. Shapley was quoted in “Trend to Esthetic Seen Growing,” New York Times, Apr. 10, 1936. 23. “A. S. A. H.,” Parnassus, 13, no. 2 (Feb. 1941): 86. 24. Middeldorf, “The Chicago Meeting of the College Art Association,” 116. 25. Crosby, “Report of the Annual Meeting of the College Art Association at New York, January 30, 1943,” 85–86. 26. Ibid., 86. 27. Crosby et al., “Annual Meeting of the Members of the College Art Association of America,” 114. 28. This claim is based on my analysis of conference content using a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet. It is further substantiated by claims made during the formation of the WCA. 29. Hope, “A Letter from the President to the Membership,” 275. 30. Panofsky, “Three Decades of Art History,” 8. 31. Rexford Newcomb, “A Message from Our New President,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 3, no. 1/2 (1943): 4. 32. Ibid., 5. 33. “September Meeting of CAA,” Art Journal 21, no. 1 (Autumn 1961): 32. 34. “CAA Annual Meeting,” Art Journal 23, no. 3 (Spring 1964): 191. 35. “Annual Meeting,” Art Journal 22, no. 3 (Spring 1963): 139.
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36. “Art Convention Keeps 1,600 Busy,” New York Times, Jan. 28, 1967. 37. “A Statement of CAA Policy,” Art Journal 22, no. 1 (Autumn, 1962): 1, 11. The original conception of the CAA was to serve art educators with any scholarly bent. Only later did the organization become dominated by art historians. 38. H. W. Janson, “Artists and Art Historians,” 334. 39. “Annual Meeting,” Art Journal 22, no. 3 (Spring 1963): 139. 40. “The Annual Meeting of the CAA,” Art Journal 25, no. 4 (Summer 1966): 390. 41. Roding, “From New President of NAA,” 306. 42. See Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, especially those of Oct. 31, 1970; Jan. 28, 1972; Oct. 28, 1972; Jan. 24, 1973; Apr. 24, 1976; and Oct. 16, 1976. Finally, the Executive Committee Minutes of Oct. 21, 1977, commented with regard to the joint meetings of SAH and CAA that “Enthusiasm for this endeavor—particularly in the light of the half-hearted effort in LA in 1977—seems less than overwhelming on both sides. It was the sense of the mtg. that we ‘not do anything about it’ unless and until approached by SAH.” 43. McGarrell, Selz, and Elsen, “Analysis of the Questionnaire Provided to Members in 1969,” 87. 44. Hanson, “Comments on the Conference,” 296. 45. Hope, “Editor’s Observations,” 308. 46. Roding, “From New President of NAA,” 307. 47. Glueck, “College Art Meeting Avoids Fights.” 48. Hanson, “Comments on the Conference,” 300. 49. Glueck, “College Art Meeting Avoids Fights.” 50. Hanson, “Comments on the Conference,” 300. 51. Corn, “More Comments on the Conference,” 302. 52. Ibid. 53. Hanson, “Comments on the Conference,” 300. 54. Corn, “More Comments on the Conference,” 302. 55. Ibid. 56. Quoted in Patt, “Meeting for Women Members of the College Art Association,” 322. 57. Hanson, “Letter from the President,” 271. 58. Quotations from Glueck, “College Art Meeting Avoids Fights.” 59. Hayum, “Notes on Performance and the Arts,” 338. 60. Lubell, “The Artist-Directed Sessions,” 275. 61. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 29, 1978. 62. Grace Glueck, “A Most Zeitgeist-y Affair,” New York Times, Jan. 21, 1973. 63. Rosenblum, “Something Old, Something New,” 276. 64. Ibid., 277. 65. Grace Glueck, “Art Association Meets; Considers Jobs, Royalties,” New York Times, Jan. 25, 1974. 66. See mentions in the Art Journal throughout the 1970s. 67. Hanson, “Letter from the President,” 271. 68. Janson, “Artists and Art Historians,” 336. 69. See Appendix E of the Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 16, 1976. 70. “Revisions of the Annual Meeting Program Guidelines Proposed by the Artists Committee,” Appendix E in the Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Nov. 1, 1980. 71. Lucy Freeman Sandler, Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 29, 1978.
Notes ∏ 271 72. Letter from Lorenz Eitner to Marilyn Stokstad, May 23, 1978, College Art Association archives. 73. Ibid., 2. 74. Letter from Mary D. Garrard to Marilyn Stokstad, June 18, 1978, College Art Association archives. 75. Ibid., 4. 76. “Relations with Affiliated Societies,” Appendix A in Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 31, 1979. 77. The heading for this section is borrowed from a 1983 WCA-sponsored session entitled “The Hierarchy in Art and Art History: Has It Changed after a Decade of Ferment?” 78. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 24, 1982. 79. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 25, 1981. 80. Appendix B in the Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, May 14, 1983. 81. Harvey Stahl, letter to the CAA Board of Directors, Nov. 4, 1983. 82. Stahl quotations from ibid. 83. CAA Newsletter 10, no. 1 (spring 1983): 2, 3, 4. 84. Grace Glueck, “The Art-Minded Have a Field Day,” New York Times, Feb. 17, 1990. 85. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Dec. 7, 1991. 86. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Feb. 3, 1993. 87. Minutes of the CAA Meeting of the Art History Committee, Oct. 15, 1994. 88. See, for example, the exchange of letters between Suzanne E. Schanzer and Carol Herselle Kinsky, College Art Association archives. 89. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 25, 1992. 90. Ibid. 91. The task force was chaired by Susan Huntington, and submitted a draft document for conference planning procedures to the CAA board on January 10, 1995. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Jan. 24, 1995. 92. For the initial board discussion and Elizabeth Boone’s proposal, see minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 29, 1989. 93. CAA News (July/Aug. 1990): 5. 94. See Luna, “I’ve Always Wanted to Be an American Indian.” 95. Lynne A. Munson, “Rogues Gallery: Art Scholars on Display,” Wall Street Journal, Mar. 24, 1993. 96. Letters to the Editor, “Radicals Take Over Campuses! Where?” Wall Street Journal, Apr. 14, 1993. 97. CAA Newsletter, Apr. 1981, 1. 98. 74th Annual Meeting of the CAA Program, 77 (in College Art Association archives). 99. For a discussion of the need for this session, see Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 11, 1987. 100. Grace Glueck, “The Art-Minded Have a Field Day,” New York Times, Feb. 17, 1990. 101. Minutes of the Visual Arts Committee, Apr. 19, 1997. 102. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 24, 1982. 103. CAA News (Mar./Apr. 1996). 104. [College Art Association], “Conference Wrap Up,” CAA News (Mar./Apr. 1998): 12. 105. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 19, 1997. 106. “CAA Strategic Plan, 2000–2005,” Jan. 19, 2000, in the College Art Association archives.
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107. See the “Summary Report: CAA Board of Directors’ Semi-Annual Retreat,” 1997, in the College Art Association archives. 108. Ibid. 109. Minutes of the CAA Planning Committee Retreat, Oct. 16–18, 1998. 110. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Dec. 4, 1998, 3. 111. Blake Gopnik, “Art Historians Talk New Talk,” Globe and Mail (Toronto), Feb. 25, 1998. 112. “CAA Strategic Plan, 2000–2005.” 113. The priorities outlined for the annual conference in the 2000–2005 strategic plan were: “Work to ensure equal, fair, and active participation in the Annual Conference by membership”; “Promote the highest level of intellectual discourse and aesthetic values through program content and structure, including exhibitions”; “Infuse the Annual Conference with a high level of energy and excitement”; “Work to create a sense of intimacy at the Conference that will encourage the development of strong and meaningful social connections among attendees, and make the Conference as user friendly as possible”; and “Stress the importance of professional and pedagogical development at the Conference.” The conference was also listed as a possible venue for supporting “Pedagogy and Mentoring,” by establishing activities at the conference that “elevate the standards of teaching and curricula, improve the materials of teaching, and generally advance the cause of learning in the arts at the undergraduate and graduate levels.” See ibid. 114. For further information about the history and purpose of ARTSpace, see Ball, “ARTSPACE: A Showcase for Innovation.” 115. While newly implemented with the strategic plan, poster sessions had been modeled with success at the 1991 annual conference by the late Joseph Ansell. My thanks to Emmanuel Lemakis for providing his thoughts on ARTSpace and poster sessions. 116. “CAA Strategic Plan, 2000–2005, ” in the College Art Association archives.
chapter 7 Recognition is due to Lauren Stark for her extensive research in the archives of CAA and to Judith K. Brodsky for her work on the first draft of the section on fellowships. 1. Robinson and Bailey, “Value of the Study of Art to the Students in Colleges and Universities.” 2. In the 1930s and 1940s former students of Paul Sachs, Harvard University, occupied many major museum directorships. Some graduates of Williams College of the 1960s and early 1970s are today referred to as the “Williams Art Mafia.” They came under the influence of the late Professors S. Lane Faison, Jr., Whitney S. Stoddard, and William H. Pierson, Jr. These teachers and mentors influenced the studies and career choices of many of their students. Judith H. Dobrzynski, “An Art Lover Who Awakened a Generation,” New York Times, Oct. 28, 1997. 3. On “clearing house,” see Brown, “Standardization in Art Courses,” 110–114; for committee, see A. V. Churchill, “Research Work and Graduate Teaching in Art,” Bulletin of the College Art Association of America 1, no. 4 (Sept. 1918): 118–120. The committee’s first listing among CAA board committees is in 1919. 4. Parnassus 1, no. 6 (Oct. 1929): 124. 5. CAA’s “Report of the Survey of Operations and Staff Functions of the Administrative Office.”
Notes ∏ 273 6. “Art News and Announcements: New Placement Bureau,” Parnassus 12, no. 8 (Dec. 1940): 27. In a subsequent issue of the publication (vol. 13, no. 2, Feb. 1941): 86–87, under the section “General News: Artist-Designers Sought by Federal Government,” the U.S. Civil Service Commission “ad/announcement” is published. 7. [College Art Association], “Membership Privileges in the College Art Association.” 8. A significant increase in both positions and candidates occurs in the early 1950s, and is reported in “Demand for College Teachers,” College Art Journal 15, no. 4 (Summer 1956): 359, quoting from Higher Education, January 1956. 9. Gilbert, “News Reports: Woman’s Placement Bureau,” 193. 10. Chapter 11 herein addresses in greater detail the question of the women of CAA, tracing the efforts to work first within, then outside, the association, with two concerns in mind: to promote the equal treatment of women in all the art professions, and to promote the inclusion of the work of women artists of the past and of the present, into the canon of art history and the exhibition schedules of museums and galleries. An early reference to the association’s interest in women in the profession is found in an article by Ann Sutherland Harris, “Women in College Art Departments and Museums.” The membership overlap among the CAA leadership, the Committee on the Status of Women, and the Women’s Caucus for Art was significant: as an example, members of the CAA board and of the Committee on the Status of Women in 1987 were Judith K. Brodsky, Richard Brettell, Ofelia Garcia, James Marrow, Faith Ringgold, and Linda Seidel; the women were concurrently members and activists in the WCA. 11. Parker, “Statistics on College Art Teachers.” 12. Beverly Z. Welber, a member of the first Ad Hoc Committee on Placement Standards, wrote “How to Survive CAA Placement by Knowing How to Try.” A decade later, the board appointed a second ad hoc committee, as well as a Committee on Placement Ethics, chaired by Garcia, which reported its conclusions to the board at the meeting of October 31, 1987. 13. Baldwin, “Survival Kit,” 3. Arnold, Baldwin, and Sokol provided material for the article “Finding Your Way through the Placement Maze.” Reports on the job market included [College Art Association], “Fewer Job Opportunities for CAA Members”; [College Art Association], “Again, Fewer Job Opportunities for CAA Members”; [College Art Association], “Job Market Still Competitive”; [College Art Association], “Things Are Looking Up: Job Market Stabilizes.” 14. CAA News (Sept./Oct. 1996): 3. 15. “Strategic Plan 2000–2005,” Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, New York Hilton, Feb. 24, 2000. 16. [College Art Association], “Professional Development Workshop at Getty.” 17. [College Art Association], “Professional Development Roundtables.” Additional details, CAA News (May 2006): 8–9, 30. 18. The proposal to the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation is dated March 24, 2005. The Foundation granted $100,000 for a two-year program: five workshops in 2007, five in 2008. The National Endowment for the Arts also provided support for these programs. 19. Ball, “How CAA Became Involved in Career Development.” 20. Aurbach, “CAA’s Career Development Programs.” 21. “Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting,” College Art Journal 12, no. 3 (Spring 1953): 271. 22. Ibid. In addition to a committee of three members chosen to award this citation,
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“The Editorial Board of the Art Bulletin shall serve as consultants to this committee,” and “at least one member of the Committee shall not be a Director of the Association.” 23. “Minutes of the CAA Board Meeting,” College Art Journal 12, no. 4 (Summer 1953): 362–363. 24. College Art Journal 13, no. 3 (Spring 1954): 216–218. Mather had been professor of art history, director of the Princeton University Art Museum, author of books on painting, art critic for the New York Evening Post, and editor of the Burlington Magazine. His obituary, written by S. Lane Faison, Jr. is included in this issue of the College Art Journal, 222–223. At this time minutes and published notices appear to use “award” and “citation” interchangeably. Eventually the terms “award” or “prize” came to be used for the named recognition and “citation” to refer to the text presenting the award. 25. Lee, “Charles Rufus Morey,” iii–vii. Morey was professor emeritus of art and archaeology at Princeton and one of the founders of the CAA; he was director, treasurer, and vice president of the association at different times. The change of the name of the award to the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award was approved at the meeting of the board on January 23, 1957. 26. College Art Journal 16, no. 2 (Winter 1957): front matter, announces the new prize, which was the amount of $400 to be awarded annually. The first Porter Prize winner was Lilian M. C. Randall, announced in Art Bulletin 40, no. 1 (Mar. 1958): front matter. 27. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 27, 1956. 28. Ibid., 7. 29. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 20, 1957; Oct. 25, 1957; Jan. 27, 1960; Apr. 30, 1960; Oct. 29, 1960. Eventually, wording and conditions were modified “for distinction in art criticism” to represent the original intention: Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Feb. 24, 1982, 3. 30. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Nov. 3, 1961; Oct. 26, 1963; Oct. 29, 1966; Apr. 26, 1974. 31. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Apr. 12, 1975. 32. Though monetary awards were dropped, the executive committee indicated the willingness to aid recipients, on an individual basis, with travel funds to the annual meeting. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 26, 1974. 33. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 26, 1972. 34. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, October 26, 1974. 35. The Barr award eligibility details were approved: Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 30, 1980: 4; the first public announcement followed: CAA Newsletter (Mar. 1980): 3. Other details were specified subsequently: Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Feb. 11, 1987. 36. The establishing of committees of peers for each award needed periodic reconsideration. At Judith K. Brodsky’s initiative, the Artist Awards (for “a Distinguished Body of Work” and “for Lifetime Achievement”) would be recommended by committees composed of artists, though curators or critics could participate as long as there was not a conflict of interest. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 25, 1992, under “new business.” 37. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 17, 1999, 4. 38. [College Art Association], “2003 Awards for Distinction.” 39. The Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, June 22, 1990, document approval of giving a special award “occasionally under exceptional circumstances” and agreed in principle not to let awards proliferate.
Notes ∏ 275 40. [College Art Association], “New CAA Award for Distinguished Feminist.” 41. A complete listing of the recipients of each award since its inception to date, and the list of the members of the selection committees that served each year for each award, can be found by searching the CAA’s Web site at http://www.collegeart.org/awards. 42. Pelta, “Phyllis Bober on CAA,” 1–2. 43. [College Art Association], “Notes: Sixteenth Annual Meeting,” 282. 44. [College Art Association], “Notes: Fourteenth Annual Meeting,” 76. 45. [College Art Association], “Notes: Fifteenth Annual Meeting,” 185 46. Parnassus 1, no. 5 (May 1929): 20–21, 43–44. 47. [College Art Association], “Awards from the Carnegie Corporation Grant.” 48. Minutes of the CAA Executive Board, Mar. 2, 1931. 49. Parnassus 2, no. 5 (May 1930): 45–47. 50. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Sept. 9, 1939. 51. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Feb. 1, 1941. The minutes describe the interaction between Rensselaer W. Lee, of the CAA, and Frederick Paul Keppel, of Carnegie. In the board minutes of Sept. 16, 1941, it was reported that the Carnegie Corporation would fund two to three fellowships of $1,200 to distinguished graduate students in art history. In the minutes of the board meeting of April 11, 1942, the scholarship committee noted that there were thirty-three scholarship candidates, of whom two-thirds were women. At the Annual Meeting held on January 30, 1942, it was announced that CAA would again offer scholarships with funds from Carnegie Corporation, and that those funds would last only two to three more years. 52. College Art Journal 1, no. 2 (Jan. 1942): 49. 53. College Art Journal 1, no. 4 (May 1942): 117–118. 54. Gilbert: “New Reports: Scholarship Awards”; Barton: “New Reports: Scholarship Awards.” 55. “News Reports: Scholarships,” College Art Journal 6, no. 3 (Spring 1947): 230–231. At the meeting of the board on February 1, 1947, it was announced that the money from the Carnegie Corporation was exhausted. There was no alternative but to discontinue the scholarships and the scholarship committee. 56. Minutes of the CAA Annual Meeting, Jan. 30, 1943. 57. The amounts proposed originally were $10,000 as a direct grant to the student in his or her terminal year of the degree program, and then $15,000 toward the salary received by the recipient in the second year. Actual amounts varied according to the funds available. The awards were never quite as much as originally proposed. Internal reports attached to CAA board minutes from 1993 to 2008 document the annual amounts. 58. [College Art Association], “CAA Awarded 1993 NEH Challenge Grant”; [College Art Association], “CAA Awarded 1993 NEA Challenge Grant.” 59. “Report, Capital Campaign Committee,” Annual Committee Reports to the Board, 1993, in College Art Association archives. 60. CAA News (Mar./Apr. 1997): 13. 61. CAA News (Jan. 1998): 9. 62. [College Art Association], “CAA Awarded Luce Foundation Grant.” 63. See Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors and CAA News 1993–2007 for documentation of grants as they came in. 64. List of names of fellows, 1993–2007, internal document. 65. See CAA News 1993–2007 for complete listings of fellowship recipients, information about them, and for the members of the selection committees.
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66. List of Fellows, 1993–2004, Professional Development Fellowship Program, September 1, 2004, internal document. This summary listed (1) the names of the fellows by year, (2) graduate degree and institution, (3) field of specialization, (4) professional placement in the second year of the fellowship, and (5) current title and institution. 67. The CAA Web site address is http://www.collegeart.org. Go to “Careers,” then to “Fellowships,” for the history of the program, guidelines, and lists of past recipients from 2002 to 2008. Additional information has not yet been listed.
chapter 8 1. Singerman, Art Subjects. 2. Holmes Smith, “Problems of the College Art Association,” 7, 8. 3. Notes from Marta Teegen, former manager of governance, advocacy, and special projects in research conducted for the Contemporary Art Program (CAP), presented to the CAA board of directors, Feb. 8, 2003; also see O’Connor, “The New Deal Art Projects in New York,” 65; for more background about CAA-sponsored touring exhibitions of American art from the nineteenth century to the present, see Elizabeth Johns, “Histories of American Art.” 4. Notes from Marta Teegen, presented to the CAA board of directors, Feb. 8, 2003. 5. Such exhibitions often involved the United States Information Agency (USIA) and the American Federation of Arts (AFA); see Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 29 and 30, 1955. 6. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 25, 1969. 7. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 31, 1970. 8. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 26, 1972. Edward Wilson proposed a national show of art students that was realized in 1974 when Anne Coffin Hanson was president. 9. See Cotter, “Doing Their Own Thing, Making Art Together,” New York Times, Jan. 19, 2003. 10. CAA adopts standards for MFA degree in 1977, revised 1991. CAA Web site, 2006. 11. Molesworth, “Work Ethic”; see also Singerman, Art Subjects, 6. 12. E-mail correspondence with Dr. Bettelheim in January 2007. 13. [College Art Association], “1999 Annual Conference: Call for Session Proposals,” 7. 14. The full list was Molly Blieden, Natalie Bookchin, Harriet Casdin-Silver, Lisa Costello, E. G. Crichton, Beverly Fishman, Carol Flax, Brad Freeman and Johanna Drucker, Camilla B. Griggers, Claudia Herbst, Tishan Hsu, Jessica Irish, Christopher Janney, Michael Joo, Roshini Kempadoo, Gary Keown, Gregory Lam-Niemeyer, Mark Madel, Mark Maltais, Stephen Marc, Jenny Marketou, Melinda Montgomery, Mary Ann Nilsson, Lorie Novak, Anukam E. Opara, Pepón Osorio, Susan Otto, Mary Patten, Kathleen Ruiz, Duane Slick, Clarissa Sligh, Renée Stout, Do-Ho Suh, Christine Tamblyn, Ira Tattelman, Nell Tenhaaf, Kati Toivanen, Annette Weintraub, Adrianne Wortzel, and Janet Zweig. 15. Cotter, Review of Techno-Seduction, New York Times, Feb. 7, 1997. 16. Board member Ellen K. Levy initiated the study with the support of the Services for Artists Committee. The advisory group for the CAP feasibility study included Teri J. Edelstein of Teri J. Edelstein Associates, a member of CAA’s Museum Committee, and
Notes ∏ 277 CAA board members Virginia M. Mecklenburg of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Gregory G. Sholette of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 17. The full list was Nikki Anderson, Caroline Bagenal, Sarah Bapst, Jennifer Blazina, Pamela Blum, Randy Bolton, Susan G. Campbell, Fei Cui, Rob Evans, Grady Gerbracht, Ryan M. Higa, Craig Hill, Solveig Kjøk, Kevin Klein, Michael Lasater, Robert Mathews, Eric McDade, Cecilia Méndez, Chris Pearce, Jennifer Pepper, Darice Polo, Gregory G. Sholette, Jenny Snider, and Rebecca Strzelec. 18. Anne Ellegood and Rachel Gugelberger, exhibition brochure for Crossings: Artistic and Curatorial Practice. The full list was Jonathan Allen, Maria Alos, Cory Arcangel/ BEIGE, Bob Axel, Rozalinda Borcila, Michele Brody, Lynn Cazabon, Andrea Cohen, John Freeman, Charley Friedman, Joy Garnett, Betsey Geffen, Joanne Greenbaum, Susan Hamburger, Nancy Hathaway, Edgar Heap of Birds, Allison Hunter, Carolyn Kay, Joonhyung [sic] Kim, George Kimmerling, Jeff Konigsberg, Thomas Lail, Joan Linder, Carole Loeffler, Diane Meyer, Christian Nguyen, Anna Pedersen, Kyle Riedel, Richard Roth, Gail Simpson, Karina A. Skvirsky, Jessica Smith, Julianne Swartz, Austin Thomas, Micki Watanabe, and Jody Zellen. 19. The full list was Ted Apel, Deborah Aschheim, Jeremy Boyle, Ashley Hope Carlisle, Joe Diebes, Philip Galanter, Raymond Ghirardo, Derek Hoffend, Perri Lynch, Baggs McKelvey, Jennifer Parker, Jane Philbrick, Megan Roberts, Yumi J. Roth, Stephen Vitiello, and Rosemary Williams. 20. The full list was Michael Aurbach, Alex Bag, Andrea Fraser, Jason Irwin, Lucy Kimbell, Gunilla Klingberg, Irene Moon, Christian P. Müller, Adrian Piper, John Salvest, and Carey Young. 21. The full list was Jake Bloomer, Anna B. Bresnick, Gary Duehr, Cynthia Greig and Richard H. Smith, Andrew Johnson, Julie Levesque, Mary Magsamen and Stephan Hillerbrand, David Politzer, Emily Puthoff, Julie Roberts, Misa Saburi, Kimi Weart, and Jonathan Whitehall. 22. Members of the Exhibitions Committee (as of 2008) were: Joan Marter (chair), Jeffrey Grove (curator, Atlanta Museum), Sharon Matt Atkins (curator, Currier Museum of Art), Romi Crawford (Art Institute of Chicago), and Andrea Kirsh (University of Delaware). 23. The CAA Board approved the formation of a Exhibitions Committee in 2005, and this was reported in the minutes for the February, 2005 meeting. According to the 2005 charge, “The VP for Committees, in consultation with the Services to Artists Committee and the Museum Committee, should propose nominees for membership on the Exhibitions Committee to the President; and, furthermore, the Executive Director should serve as a non-voting member on the Exhibitions Committee. The Exhibitions Committee should consist of 5 voting members serving for three-year terms. In addition, the Exhibitions Committee will have Regional Contacts whose only vote will relate to business directly related to the location she or he represents. Given the lead times involved, there may be up to three Regional Contacts on the Exhibitions Committee at any one time.” 24. Yúdice, “The Privatization of Culture,” 29; see also the results of Rand Corporation art surveys from Measuring the Muse, a symposium presented by Columbia’s School of Journalism (May 5, 2005). 25. BFA Exhibitions are a recent addition, and it is not yet clear whether they will become a routine event, because they have occurred only twice, in Boston in 2006 and in NYC in 2007. The BFA exhibition took place in 2006 at Boston University School of
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the Fine Arts (Lynne Cooney, organizer) and at the New York Center for Art and Media Studies the following year. The exhibition’s curators were John Silvis, program director and assistant professor of art at NYCAMS, and James Romaine, assistant professor of art history at the New York Center for Art and Media Studies.
chapter 9 1. Erwin Panofsky, Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, March 15, 1941. For more information regarding publications, see Houser’s essay in chapter 5. 2. [A Committee of the College Art Association], “A Statement on the Practice of Art Courses.” 3. See chapter 2, text preceding note 14, for Holmes Smith quotation. See also Burke, “Early Years of the College Art Association,” 100–104. 4. Holmes Smith, “Problems of the College Art Association,” 6–10. 5. Burke, “Early Years of the College Art Association,” 102. 6. Ibid. 7. Pickard, “President’s Address,” (Jan. 1917), 13. 8. See Pickard, “The Future of the College Art Association,” 5–9. 9. One notable exception was the CAA Annual Conference of 1991, chaired by Joseph P. Ansell and Marianna Shreve Simpson. Ansell and Simpson were encouraged by Susan Ball, then the executive director and also the book reviews editor of Art Journal, to make the teaching of art history one of their major themes and the concern of a significant number of sessions. 10. Longman, “The New Parnassus,” 4. 11. For Panofsky’s introduction of “a new type of magazine,” which is incredibly similar to the published policy summary featured in Parnassus, see Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Mar. 15, 1941. 12. [College Art Association], “C.A.A. Policy Altered. Parnassus Abolished.” 13. Bradford R. Collins, “Rethinking the Introductory Art History Survey,” 23. 14. See Goldwater, “The Teaching of Art.” For an interesting follow-up to Goldwater’s study, see Manzella, “The Teaching of Art in the Colleges of the United States.” 15. Goldwater, “The Teaching of Art,” 10. According to Goldwater, the greatest increase in the number of art survey courses was between 1910 and 1914. 16. Goldwater, “The Teaching of Art,” 7. Regarding this state of affairs, Goldwater refers the reader to the recently published Hayes, “Art Before College.” 17. Goldwater, “The Teaching of Art,” 7, 9. 18. Ibid., 26–28 passim. 19. Ibid., 15. 20. Ibid., 28. 21. Ibid., 23. 22. See Barr, “The Study of American Art in Colleges.” For subsequent research, see the further discussion in this chapter, as well as the following: Peragallo, “Trend Analysis of Selected Art Course Offerings”; Manzella, “The Teaching of Art in the Colleges of the United States”; Prezisosi, “The Question of Art History”; Munro, “School Instruction in Art”; and Joan Shelly Rubin, “A Convergence of Vision.” 23. Meiss et al. “A Statement on the Place of the History of Art in the Liberal Arts Curriculum.” 24. Ibid.
Notes ∏ 279 25. Ibid., 83. 26. Ibid., 84. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., 86. 29. [A Committee of the College Art Association], “A Statement on the Practice of Art Courses.” 30. Ibid., 33, 34. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid., 35. 33. Ibid., 36. 34. Ibid., 35. Such training in art, according to the committee, should also not begin in college. In contrast, they argue, it should start in middle school, when “the intellectual and imaginative faculties are nascent and receptive” and the “thinker and doer are inseparable in the practitioner.” And from this period on, such integration should be sustained, they argue, as it is done in languages, math, and the sciences, “thus filling the void which has been the cause for much of the dilemma in college art education,” which has made sharp distinctions between these “complementary elements”; ibid., 36. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38. Mangravite, “Art from Primary School Through College.” 39. Young, “Art in the Liberal Arts College.” Also related to Mangravite’s study and worthy of attention is the statement of a Committee of the College Art Association on “The Practice of Art in a Liberal Education.” 40. To track this progress, see the Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 23, 1957; Jan. 29, 1958; Apr. 25 and 26, 1958; Oct. 21 and 25, 1958; and Oct. 23, 1959. 41. See Ritchie, ed., The Visual Arts in Higher Education, i. The university art museum was also a major subject of this report. However, unfortunately, such a topic lies outside the confines of this chapter. 42. Ibid., 6, 7. 43. According to the report, there were several problems with making such a count, the most significant one being the large amount of combined departments of art history and art, which made it “impossible” to separate out the art history from studio art students. 44. Ritchie, ed., Visual Arts in Higher Education, 21–24 passim. 45. Ibid., 36. 46. Interview by the author with Jules Prown, Feb. 22, 2008. 47. Ritchie, ed., Visual Arts in Higher Education, 36. 48. Ibid., 38. 49. Ibid., 40. 50. See Ballon and Westermann, Art History and Its Publications in the Electronic Age. 51. Ritchie, ed., Visual Arts in Higher Education, 47. Italics my own. 52. See Slive, Watrous, and Wittman, A List of the Needs of the Visual Arts in Higher Education, 10–11. 53. Ritchie, ed., Visual Arts in Higher Education, 55. 54. Ibid., 57–58. For example, VAHE explains through its “Table 6” that the average “percentage of Ph.D. students graduating within the five years previous to 1961–1962 who became college or university professors” is 88.5 percent.
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55. Ibid., 69, 70. 56. Ibid., 66. Accordingly, respondents criticized the current certification practices for art teachers. For example, they criticized their lack of insistence on adequate studio experience; their willingness to accept theory as a substitute for content; and their lack of stipulation that a teacher will teach art (and not another subject). 57. Ibid., 68. 58. Ibid., 70. 59. Slive, Watrous, and Wittman, A List of the Needs, 18. 60. Ritchie, ed., Visual Arts in Higher Education, 84. 61. Ibid., 86. 62. Ibid., 89. 63. Ibid., 91–92. 64. Interview by the author with Jules Prown, Feb. 22, 2008. 65. Doolittle, “Review of The Visual Arts in Higher Education,” 139. 66. Manzella, “A Depressing Unanimity of Opinion,” 19. 67. Doolittle, “Review of The Visual Arts in Higher Education,” 138–139. 68. Ibid., 139. 69. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Oct. 25, 1969. 70. “MFA Standards,” Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 16, 1977. 71. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Jan. 25, 1978. 72. For a complete list of CAA’s guidelines, visit http://www.collegeart.org/guidelines/.
chapter 10 1. See, for example, Pope and Kallen, “The Teaching of Drawing and Design in Secondary Schools.” 2. David M. Robinson, “On Reproductions,” 15–16. 3. Robinson, “On Reproductions,” 15. Besides David M. Robinson of Johns Hopkins, John Shapley (Brown University) and Edith R. Abbot (Metropolitan Museum) served on this committee. 4. John Shapley, “Report of Reproductions of Early Christian Monuments,” 14. Mentioned for their outstanding color reproductions were Wilpert, Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms, and Wilpert, Die römischen Mosaiken und Malereien der Kirchlichen Bauten vom IV–XII Jahrhundert. 5. See Stites, “Introduction,” in The Carnegie Art Reference Set for Colleges, n.p., where the process for assembling the set was described: “Mr. Rudolf Lesch was commissioned to purchase the finest reproductions available in the principal art centers of this country and Europe. Where conditions warranted, special negatives were made to insure the clarity and completeness of the set. The color prints were selected with especial care to insure accurate reproduction of the originals. . . . The labels on the photographs, prepared under the direction of Professor Shapley, were designed to be as informative and reliable as possible.” 6. Roos, Jr., “Art Department University of Chicago,” 21. 7. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 10, 1931. 8. During this time, the Carnegie Corporation funded a study of teaching practices in the arts. See Goldwater, “The Teaching of Art,” for a report on the study. See also chapter 9. 9. Minutes of Annual Members Meeting of the College Art Association Held on Feb. 1, 1941, in Room 10, Classics Hall, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
Notes ∏ 281 10. See Middeldorf, “The Chicago Meeting of the College Art Association,” at 112–113. The panel included E. Louis Lucas and Bertha H. Wiles, co-chairs, with Eleanor Mitchell (“The Photograph Collection and Its Problems”), Esther Seaver (“The Art Library and the Small College”), Etheldred Abbot (“Some Problems of the Art Museum Library”), and Ruth Schoneman (“The Union Catalogue in the Art Field”). 11. Visual resources curators and art librarians have been active members and participants within CAA for many years. However, it was only in 1974 that CAA approved the Visual Resources Committee as a formal entity within its committee structure (Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 27, 1974). The committee organized meetings and sessions, occasionally as part of the regular conference program but often in tandem with the conference, until members of the committee, led by Christine L. Sundt, formed their own professional organization, the Visual Resources Association (VRA) in 1982 (see http:// www.vraweb.org/about/index.html). Art librarians active in CAA had already established the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) in 1972. Both organizations are currently affiliated societies of CAA. 12. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, May 26, 1945. 13. Sunderland, “Microfilm Slide Project.” 14. Ibid., 18–19. 15. Ibid. The poor quality of slides in the art history classroom, especially those shot from illustrations in books, continues to this day to be the lament of students, teachers, and visual resources curators and librarians. The problem often starts with the poor quality of illustrations in textbooks. For an early assessment of this problem, see Meyer-Baer, “Art Illustrations in Text-Books.” 16. Perhaps in response to complaints from members who would have preferred 3¼ ≈ 4-inch lantern slides instead of the smaller 2 ≈ 2-inch (35 mm) format, CAA published “Where to Find Lantern Slides.” During this period art educators were also using other technologies, such as motion picture film. See Berkowitz, “The Information Film in Art.” 17. Two booklets were supplied: College Art Association Slide Series: Instructions for Mounting and College Art Association Slide Series: Classification and Cataloguing of Slides (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1947). The classification system was adapted from the Fogg Art Museum System. 18. Loomis, “News Reports.” 19. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Oct. 10, 1954. 20. “Agreement between the College Art Association and University Microfilms, 1 January 1956” (in CAA archives). 21. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Oct. 10, 1954. 22. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 25, 1967. 23. Ibid. 24. Ritchie, ed., The Visual Arts in Higher Education. 25. “College Art Association—University Microfilms Slide Project.” Undated, ca. 1969 (on letterhead naming Marvin Eisenberg as president of the board of directors; in CAA archives). 26. CAA’s decision to produce black-and-white instead of color slides reflected longstanding concerns about color film. See, for example, Beam, “The Color Slide Controversy”; and Carpenter, “The Limitations of Color Slides.” 27. Letter to H. W. Janson from Kenneth Donahue, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Jun. 11, 1968 (in CAA archives).
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28. “University Microfilms Slide Project” (undated, ca. 1969), 3 (in CAA archives). 29. By 1972 the project was simply titled College Art Association of America Educational Lantern Slide Project (“Report: College Art Association Lantern Slide Project, January 1st to December 31, 1972” [in CAA archives]). 30. Letter to Mrs. Marcia Thompson, Program Officer, Division of Humanities and the Arts, The Ford Foundation, from H. W. Janson, dated Apr. 15, 1971 (in CAA archives). 31. S. A. Callisen, “Report: College Art Association Lantern Slide Project, June 2 to December 31, 1971,” 3 (in CAA archives). 32. Letter to Mrs. Marcia Thompson, from H. W. Janson, Apr. 15, 1971, 2 (in CAA archives). 33. Ibid., 4. 34. Ibid., 5. 35. Ibid., 6. 36. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Jan. 21, 1975. 37. For the Society of Architectural Historians’ “Image Exchange,” see http://www .sah.org/clientuploads/TextFiles/3History.pdf; for its successor, the SAHARA project (Society of Architectural Historians Architecture Resources Archive), see http://www.sah .org/index.php?src=gendocs&ref=AVRN%20Press%20Release&category=AVRN; for Art Images for College Teaching, see http://www.arthist.umn.edu/aict/html/; for the Image Directory, see Bentley, “The Image Directory, Electronic Publishing, and the Changing Socio-Economic Position of Art Museums”; and “Editorial: The Image Directory,” vii–viii, in the same issue. 38. “Acadmic [sic] Image Cooperative. Reports on Initial Meetings Held in January and May 1999,” http://www.diglib.org/collections/aic/artxresults.htm. The report includes valuable information about developing the prototype database with assistance from information technology scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and a full description of the roles played by many individuals who participated in the planning and implementation process. In February 2000, CAA hosted a demonstration of the AIC in the Trade and Book Fair during its annual conference at the New York Hilton. 39. The CONFU process as well as many of the original documents are available at Christine L. Sundt’s “Copyright and Art Images” Web site at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/ ~csundt/copyweb. 40. Sundt, “Copyright and Art Images.” 41. Ibid. 42. CAA’s legal counsel, Jeffrey P. Cunard, along with Eve Sinaiko, director of CAA Publications, led CAA’s involvement with the orphan works initiative. Cunard represented CAA at the Washington, D.C., roundtable meeting and provided additional testimony during subsequent meetings; Christine Sundt represented CAA at the Berkeley meeting.
chapter 11 1. Stocking, Jr., “Guardians of the Sacred Bundle.” 2. See charts of membership in newsletters issued in conjunction with annual elections and reports on the status of women. 3. Judith K. Brodsky assumes an objective tone in writing about governance and diversity up to the late 1960s because her CAA involvement came at a later date. Mary D. Garrard’s account, written in the first person, describes the feminist battles of the 1970s
Notes ∏ 283 concerning women within the association and in the disciplines from the viewpoint of a direct participant. Ferris Olin played a role in broadening CAA’s constituencies and growing diversity from 1980 to the present; she has chosen to present that history in the third person. 4. Kiger, American Learned Societies. See Appendix C for a list of administrators. 5. Kiger, American Learned Societies. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Bulletin of the College Art Association of America 1, no. 2 (Jan. 1917). 9. Ibid. 10. Bulletin of the College Art Association 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1913), and Bulletin of the College Art Association of America 1, no. 2 (Jan. 1917) include reports and essays on this issue. 11. Bulletin of the College Art Association 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1913). 12. Bulletin of the College Art Association of America 1, no. 2 (Jan. 1917). This issue covers the annual meeting, which was devoted to consideration of what the art curriculum in higher education should be. In the “Round Table Discussion,” John Shapley of Brown University refers to the need for secondary school art history as preparation for further art education at the higher education level (p. 11). 13. See [College Art Association], “Traveling Exhibitions of Contemporary Art,” for a full description of the traveling exhibition program that was inaugurated in 1929. 14. See Parnassus 13, no. 5 (May 1941): 162–163 for the new policy statement, which abolished Parnassus and narrowed CAA’s focus to art historical research. 15. This statement is supported by my research. I read board meeting minutes, conference programs, the Art Bulletin, and the College Art Journal for lists of board members, conference presenters, and authors of Art Bulletin essays, year by year from 1941 through 1965. The pattern is consistent. 16. The conference led to a publication that addressed the difficult relationship between scholarship and activism within the academy: Voss and Ward, eds., Confrontation and the Learned Societies. 17. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 29, 1964. The members were Paul Arnold, Oberlin College; Juergen Schulz, University of California, Berkeley; Gulnar K. Bosch, Florida State University; Curtis Shell, Wellesley College; and Bernard Arnest, Colorado College and the Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs. 18. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 24, 1964. 19. See note 14. 20. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 25, 1964. 21. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 24, 1965. 22. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 29, 1965. 23. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 29, 1966. 24. In 1966, members of the board were George Heard Hamilton, Harry Bober, Jean Boggs, Richard F. Brown, Gilbert S. Edelson (honorary counsel), Marvin Eisenberg, Lorenz E. A. Eitner, S. Lane Faison, Jr., Bates Lowry, Joseph W. McCullough, A. Hyatt Mayor, Laurence Sickman, Seymour Slive, Joseph C. Sloane, John R. Spencer, John W. Straus (honorary treasurer), Gene J. Lessard. 25. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 23, 1966. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid.
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28. Please see the pages on the “Anatomy of a Board Meeting,” in the next section of this chapter by Mary D. Garrard, where she describes Elsen’s opposition to proposals brought by the Women’s Caucus for Art, in which the WCA requested that CAA take action to end discrimination against women in the field. 29. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 26, 1968. 30. Minutes of the CAA 57th Annual Business Meeting, Jan. 31, 1969. 31. Minutes of the CAA 50th Annual Business Meeting, Jan. 26, 1965. 32. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 29, 1969. 33. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 26, 1968, and Apr. 27, 1968; and minutes of the CAA 57th Annual Business Meeting, Jan. 31, 1969. 34. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 29, 1969. 35. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, 1970. 36. For changes in the AAA and MLA, see Bloland and Bloland, American Learned Societies in Transition. 37. Minutes of the CAA 58th Annual Business Meeting, Jan. 30, 1970. 38. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Apr. 24, 1970. 39. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 31, 1970. 40. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, May 1, 1971. 41. Ibid. 42. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 26, 1972. 43. Letters, Mar. 31 and Apr. 14, 1776, in Rossi, The Feminist Papers. Quoted by Roberta W. Francis, http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/era.htm. 44. Ann Sutherland Harris, “College Art Association Women’s Caucus.” 45. Some important sources for this early history are: Baker, “Sexual Art-Politics”; Nemser, “The Women Artists’ Movement”; Broude and Garrard, eds., The Power of Feminist Art, especially Garrard, “Feminist Politics,” 88–101; and Brodsky, “Exhibitions, Galleries, and Alternative Spaces,” 104–119. 46. These figures are based on a sample from 1963 to 1971. See Ann Sutherland Harris, “The Second Sex in Academe (Fine Arts Division).” 47. From The Rip-Off File, which was created by Joyce Kozloff and Nancy Spero for a committee of the Ad Hoc Committee of Women Artists in 1973, and circulated by the committee and by the Caucus. 48. Sheila McNally, Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Nov. 1, 1975. 49. Garrard, “Survey of the Status of Women in Ph.D.-Granting Departments.” 50. Och, “Women in the Arts,” 17. 51. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 24 and Apr. 28, 1973; Women’s Caucus for Art Newsletter (June 1973). 52. Harris’s reply of May 25, 1974, to a letter from the new CAA President Albert Elsen (May 4, 1974), in the WCA presidential files. 53. For a fuller discussion of this phase of WCA’s history, see Garrard, “Feminist Politics.” 54. These notes include Broude’s report and proposals to the board as WCA affirmative action officer, included in the Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, April 12, 1975, as Appendix D (“Report on the Organization and Activities of Committees on the Status of Women in Other Disciplines and Recommendations for the Re-Organization of the CAA Committee on the Status of Women”); and a letter she wrote to me as WCA president on April 12, 1975, in which she described the board meeting in detail.
Notes ∏ 285 55. From an American Sociological Association pamphlet, quoted by Broude in her presentation to the board. See Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 12, 1975, Appendix D. 56. Information from Broude statement, Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 12, 1975, Appendix D. 57. As reported in the Oct. 1973 Women’s Caucus for Art Newsletter. 58. From Broude’s letter to me of Apr. 12, 1975. 59. These remarks were reported by Broude in her letter of April 12, 1975. The Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors of April 12, 1975, record the WCA proposals, but give rationales only for the board’s dismissal of them. 60. In a letter to me (Mar. 15, 1975), Broude reported this information given her by Linda Nochlin. 61. Letter of Sept. 3, 1975, from Mary Garrard to Rose Weil. The Caucus placement service responded to institutional requests by sending curriculum vitae of women registered with it who appeared to be qualified for the positions described, leaving institutions to contact candidates in whom they were interested. 62. Letter of Apr. 1, 1974, from Anne Coffin Hanson to Ann Sutherland Harris, from the WCA presidential files (emphasis added). 63. Board members who worked fearlessly to support the WCA included Miriam Schapiro, Linda Nochlin, Marilyn Stokstad, Athena Tacha Spear, Sheila McNally, Judith Hoffberg, Bernice Davidson, and Philip Pearlstein. 64. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 16, 1977. 65. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 29, 1978. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid., where the two positions are effectively summarized. 68. See Zerner, “The Crisis in the Discipline,” 279, and other essays on that topic that follow. 69. Letter of Jun. 18, 1978, from Mary Garrard to Marilyn Stokstad. 70. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 31, 1979. 71. Letter of Jan. 30, 1979, from the WCA advisory board to the CAA board. 72. Today, male candidates for art history positions enjoy a market-driven affirmative action in reverse, as increasingly female-dominated art history departments seek to hire males to provide balance (somehow, this is rarely a worry within male-dominated studio departments). On the perception of art as feminized, see Wayne, “The Male Artist as Stereotypical Female”; and Garrard, “ ‘Of Men, Women, and Art.’ ” 73. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 24, 1976; see also Garrard, “Feminist Politics,” 94. 74. Count presented by Sheila McNally at the Oct. 16, 1976 board meeting. 75. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 16, 1976. Letters to me from WCA president Judith Brodsky in 1976 show WCA’s continuing struggle to get CAA to form an ad hoc grievance committee. 76. The resolution was adopted at the Oct. 27, 1977, WCA meeting in Minneapolis. 77. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 25, 1978. 78. For a fuller discussion of this split in the WCA and the two conferences, see Garrard, “Feminist Politics,” 98–99. 79. The term “outsider within” has been utilized in a number of disciplinary fields. See, for example, Forisha and Goldman. Outsiders on the Inside; Merton, “Insiders and
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Outsiders”; Natalie Zemon Davis, Women on the Margins; and Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought. 80. Pelta, “Phyllis Bober on CAA,” 2. 81. The number of artists in the U.S. labor force increased by 162 percent between 1970 and 1980; women constituted 37.9 percent of the total artist population; and participation by minority artists rose by 26 percent. National Endowment for the Arts, “Women and Minorities in Artistic Occupations.” 82. Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas, 5–6. Menand also reported that of the more than 45,000 doctorates awarded in 1997, close to 50 percent of the recipients in the arts and humanities were women. 83. Garrard, “Survey of the Status of Women in Ph.D.-Granting Departments,” 7. 84. [College Art Association], “CAA Statement re NEH Reauthorization,” 10. 85. Weisberg, “From the President—A Fond Farewell.” 86. Judith K. Brodsky chaired the Development Committee. Her proposal of the establishment of the Fellowship Program at a board meeting became part of the association’s long-term plan. One undated draft of the CAA Strategic Plan: 1989–1994 was entitled “Preparing for the Millennium: The Continuation of Excellence, The Inclusion of Diversity” (in CAA archives). 87. [College Art Association], “NEH 93 Challenge Grant Awarded to CAA.” 88. The 1993 NEA Challenge Grant provided an additional $140,000 that required a match of $421,500. At the board’s Feb. 9, 1999, meeting, Michi Itami, chair of the development committee, proposed a motion, later approved, that each board member be required to donate (“give or get”) $500 annually to CAA, in part to underwrite the Professional Development Fellowship. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Feb. 9, 1999. 89. Brodsky, “Farewell Address.” 90. [College Art Association], “CAA Long-Range Plan 1990–2000.” 91. Undated note of a phone conversation from François-Auguste de Montêquin, chair, Department of Art History, Virginia Commonwealth University; Aug. 17, 1989, letter from Rosemary Wright, assistant dean, School of Art, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art; and Nov. 23, 1993, letter from A. Richard Turner, acting chairman, Department of Fine Arts, New York University to Larry Silver (in CAA archives). 92. Ringgold, “Why a Directory of People of Color in the Visual Arts?” In 2002, the Committee on Cultural Diversity announced plans, once more, to compile a Cultural Diversity Directory to “list artists, art scholars, and scholarship by or about cultures, ethnicities, or other groups whose art and scholarship is generally underrepresented in mainstream studies of art.” See [College Art Association], “CAA Committee on Cultural Diversity Directory.” However, when the committee membership changed, this project never came to fruition. 93. DePillars (chair, CAA Committee on Cultural Diversity), “Foreword.” The committee was previously known as the Committee on Minority Concerns. 94. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, Feb. 14, 1989. 95. “Recommendation for CAA General Policy,” undated (in CAA archives). This document also included an attached list of women artists of color. 96. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Feb. 20, 1991. Ramirez-Garcia later chaired the art history sessions at the 1995 San Antonio annual conference with John R. Clarke. 97. Silver, “From the President—On Your Behalf.” 98. College Art Association Committee for Women in the Arts [sic], “1998 Survey Summary on the Status of Women and People of Color in the Arts.”
Notes ∏ 287 99. [College Art Association], “Committee on Placement Ethics: An Update.” 100. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Feb. 20, 1991. 101. An ad hoc committee composed of Karen Kurczynski and Ferris Olin prepared a report to the board on the then recent trend to fill teaching positions with part-time and contingent faculty. As a result, CAA’s board established a 2002 task force to revise the “Guidelines for Contingency Faculty.” The new guidelines were approved by the board in 2004. 102. [College Art Association], “Implementing the Long Range Plan.” 103. College Art Association, “Strategic Plan, 2000–2005,” Jan. 19, 2000, 3. 104. Many of these changes occurred under the presidency of John R. Clarke and then were further refined under the successive presidencies of Leslie King-Hammond, Ellen Baird, Michael Aurbach, and Ellen Levy. 105. Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, June 22, 1990. 106. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 24, 1992; Feb. 21, 1996; Apr. 20, 1996; and May 2, 2004. See also Brodsky, “From the President,” 8: “I want to discuss an issue that is disturbing for a number of art historians. Their perception is that artists have taken over CAA. This is simply not true as can be seen by board statistics.” 107. Ball, “From the Executive Director: Votes Fail to Correct Imbalance on CAA Board.” This led to a public attack by Richard Brilliant at the annual conference business meeting, followed by a letter from Brilliant to CAA News and replies from Judith K. Brodsky and Ken Silver. “Letters to the Editor: Richard Brilliant, Reply to Susan Ball; Kenneth E. Silver, Members Urged to Vote; and Judith K. Brodsky, In Support of Ball,” CAA News (May/June 1993): 9. See also Ball, “From the Executive Director: CAA Election Draws Record Turnout.” 108. Strategic Planning Working Group report to the Board, Oct. 15, 2003. Greg Kandel, management consultant and senior CAA staff, prepared a “Situational Analysis” for board consideration (in CAA archives). 109. College Art Association Strategic Plan 2005–2010: 6 (approved Feb. 20, 2005; in CAA archives). 110. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 13, 1990. 111. [College Art Association], “CAA Leaders in Conversation.” 112. See Jacobson, “Scaling the Ivory Tower.” The article reports on statistics from the Chronicle of Higher Education and the U.S. Census Bureau: “approximately 5 percent of faculty are black, 3 percent are Hispanic, and 0.04 percent are Native American—even though they represent 12 percent, 14 percent and 0.8 percent of the total U.S. population, respectively. . . . Like their minority peers, women have not reached parity in the professorate, either. Although women now earn about half the Ph.D.s awarded, they comprise only 31 percent of full-time faculty” (10). 113. Lanman, “Rutgers Enrolls Largest, Most Diverse Class,” http://news.rutgers.edu/ focus/issue.2008-09-04.6607858852/article; Quiñones, “Freshman Class Ranks as Most Diverse,” 3. 114. See Stimpson, “Meno’s Boys.” Stimpson notes that those categorized as “minority” in the United States are, in fact, “the majority of the world’s citizens” (123). In “National Study of Art-History Career Paths: Was the Ph.D. Worth the Effort?,” CAA News, 27, no. 5 (Sept. 2002): 1, the results of a national survey of individuals who completed their art history doctorates found that “About 90 percent of the respondents were white and more than two-thirds were women, reflecting the low participation of nonwhites and the high participation of women in the field.”
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chapter 12 1. Retyped transcription of minutes of annual meeting, June 17, 1933. 2. Harlan Phillips, “Oral History Interview with Mildred Constantine.” I am grateful to Julia Sienkewicz for calling my attention to this oral history, which fills some gaps left by CAA’s lack of minutes. 3. “The Study of Art in War Time.” Résumé of a report prepared by a CAA committee at the request of the United States Office of Education, Wartime Commission and published in the College Art Journal. 4. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa; Cohen, The Rape of Europa (film). 5. See Hamlin, “German Paintings in the National Gallery: Official Statement”; Kuhn, “German Paintings in the National Gallery: A Protest”; Lee and Riddleberger, “Letter to the Secretary of State”; all published in the College Art Journal 5, no. 2 (Jan. 1946). The journal reports that all thirty-two of the specialists agreed with the letter. See also Edsel, The Monuments Men; Robert Edsel is also co-producer of the film The Rape of Europa. 6. Hammond, “The War and Art Treasures in Germany.” 7. This account has been compiled from CAA files, reports printed in the College Art Journal as cited, and from Nicholas, chapter 12, “Mixed Motives,” in The Rape of Europa, 369–405. 8. See http://www.collegeart.org/guidelines/cultpropres.html. 9. Quoted in Kushner, “Exhibiting Art at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, 1959.” 10. “Statement by Lloyd Goodrich before the Advisory Committee on Cultural Information, United States Information Agency, Washington D.C., Nov. 3, 1959.” Statement appended to the Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, January 27, 1960. 11. “Art in U.S. International Programs.” 12. For an account of the history of federal funding for the arts in the United States, see Marquis, Art Lessons. 13. For a history of the founding and first fifteen years of the NEA, see Binkiewicz, Federalizing the Muse. 14. For a broader view of the fundamental changes that learned societies underwent during this period, see Bloland and Bloland, American Learned Societies in Transition. 15. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Jan. 30, 1970. 16. Janson et al., “A Letter to President Nixon.” 17. Mitchell Smith, “On the Letter to President Nixon.” 18. Susan Ball, conversation, Nov. 2, 2007, followed by e-mail exchange begun Feb. 9, 2008. 19. Gregory Sholette, e-mail, Mar. 30, 2008, in response to questions submitted by the author. 20. Michael Aurbach, e-mail, Mar. 16, 2008, followed by phone interview conducted Mar. 18, 2008. 21. Jeffrey Cunard, e-mail, Mar. 30, 2008, in response to questions submitted by the author. 22. See http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/caa-news-03-03.pdf. 23. Jeffrey Cunard, e-mail, Mar. 30, 2008, in response to questions submitted by the author. 24. Susan Ball, e-mail, Feb. 11, 2008. 25. See http://www.collegeart.org/advocacy/000129.
Notes ∏ 289 26. “A Request for Formal Support of United States Re-Entry into the United Nations Educational, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) by the College Art Association” (Mar. 2003). 27. Michael Fahlund, CAA Deputy Director, “U.S. National Commission for UNESCO,” CAA News, September 2005, 27–28; and phone interview with Fahlund, Mar. 31, 2008. 28. See Bloland and Bloland, “The Caucus Movement,” 27–39, and “The Radical Challenge in the MLA,” 67–86, in American Learned Societies in Transition. 29. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Apr. 29, 1978. 30. See Bloland and Bloland, American Learned Societies in Transition. 31. Lynne A. Munson, “Rogues’ Gallery: Art Scholars on Display,” Wall Street Journal, Mar. 24, 1993; Letters to the Editor, “Radicals Take Over Campuses! Where?” Wall Street Journal, Apr. 14, 1993. 32. See http://www.collegeart.org/guidelines/. See also Merryman and Elsen, Law, Ethics, and the Visual Arts. 33. From the Office of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Concerning Obscenity, the Arts, and the Missing Mencken,” reprint of statement on the Senate Floor, Department of the Interior, Appropriations, 1990, July 26, 1989 (in CAA archives). 34. For a concise accounting of the political, economic, social and religious underpinnings, see Jensen, “The Culture Wars.” 35. Panel on “The Impact of Government on the Arts: Money, Legislation, Censorship,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Oct. 2, 1989. 36. “Censorship I,” Art Journal 50, no. 3 (Fall 1991); “Censorship II,” Art Journal 50, no. 4 (Winter 1991). 37. U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler, “Statement Regarding NEA/American Canvas,” Miami, Florida, Oct. 18, 1996 (in CAA archives). 38. See, for instance, Sinaiko, “Copyright Reform Legislation.” 39. Jeffrey Cunard, e-mail, Mar. 30, 2008, in response to questions submitted by the author. 40. See http://www.collegeart.org/advocacy/policy. 41. Paul Jaskot, conversation, Mar. 13, 2008; e-mail, Mar. 20, 2008. 42. The roots of this deeply political story involve what relationship, if any, existed between arguments in a book on Palestinian art by Ankori, an Israeli, and the ideas of Palestinian artist and art historian Kamal Boullata. For specific details on the suit, see Howard, “Scholarly Society Settles ‘Libel Tourism’ Suit.” A follow-up article clarified some of the issues: Howard, “ ‘Libel Tourism’ Puts British and American Defamation Standards in the Spotlight.” More background on the ongoing dispute between Ankori and Boullata is outlined by Tahel Frosh, “Palestinian Artist Accuses Israeli Professor of ‘Colonizing’ His Ideas,” Haaretz.com, Aug. 18, 2008, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1010965.html. 43. These laws, historically crafted to protect the peerage, are under scrutiny today. See The Authors Guild, “Rules, Britannia! The Growing, Chilling Reach of Commonwealth Libel Laws,” panel discussion, New York, Sept. 26, 2006, http://authorsguild.org/ publications/seminar_transcripts/rules.html. 44. [College Art Association], “Letter of Apology on Behalf of CAA and Art Journal” and “Erratum.” 45. Paul Jaskot, phone interview, Mar. 12, 2009. 46. Jaskot and Massad quoted in Howard, “Scholarly Society Settles ‘Libel Tourism’ Suit.”
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47. Frosh, “Palestinian Artist.” 48. Some of the debate can be found in Frosh, “Palestinian Artist.” 49. Jaskot quoted in Howard, “Scholarly Society Settles ‘Libel Tourism’ Suit.” 50. Jaskot, e-mail, July 15, 2008, in response to questions submitted by the author. 51. Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Oct. 5, 1985. 52. Ibid. 53. Susan Ball, e-mail, Oct. 30, 2008. 54. John Hyland, e-mail, Dec. 8, 2008, in response to question submitted by the author. 55. Ball, “The Active Member.”
conclusion 1. Pickard, “President’s Address,” (Nov. 1917), 43. 2. Crosby, “College Art Journal.” 3. Meiss, “The Art Bulletin at Fifty,” 2–3; Panofsky, “Three Decades of Art History in the United States.” 4. [A Committee of the College Art Association], “The Practice of Art in a Liberal Education,” 91–92.
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archival material Archival materials cited in the Notes include the Minutes of the CAA Board of Directors, Minutes of the CAA Executive Committee, and minutes of other committeees, editorial boards, and annual meetings, and also general business correspondence. Individual documents found in the archives are indicated as such in the notes. The Archives of the College Art Association are stored either at the CAA office or at an off-site commercial storage location. For the most part, the earlier materials are stored off site, but there is no set date up to which all the different files and publications are in storage, and beyond which all are in the CAA offices.
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contributors
susan ball is director of the CAA Centennial Book Project and executive director emerita of the College Art Association, where she served as executive director from 1986 to 2006. Ball, who received a PhD in the history of art and architecture from Yale University and a BA from Scripps College, taught at the University of Delaware and worked as director of government and foundation affairs at the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently interim director of programs at the New York Foundation for the Arts and has an adjunct faculty appointment at New York University in the graduate program in arts administration. Ball has served on the boards of directors of the American Council of Learned Societies, ArtTable, the National Humanities Alliance, the National Cultural Alliance, New York Foundation for the Arts, Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and the Sylvia Center. Her publications include Ozenfant and Purism: The Evolution of a Style, 1915–1930 (1981), “The Early Figural Paintings of André Derain, 1905–1910” in Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte (1980), “ ‘Allegorizing on One’s Own Hook’ ” in Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Double Work of Art (1976), and “The Impressionists and the Salon” in The Impressionists and the Salon (1974), as well as numerous “From the Executive Director” columns and occasional articles in CAA News (1986–2006). judith k. brodsky is distinguished professor emerita of visual arts at Rutgers University and founding director of the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, renamed the Brodsky Center in 2006. Brodsky is a founder and director of the Rutgers Institute for Women and Art. She is also a facilitator of the Feminist Art Project. Brodsky is chair of the international print festival Philagrafika (Philadelphia 2010). She is a past national president of ArtTable, College Art Association, and the Women’s Caucus for Art. She is a former dean and former associate provost at Rutgers University as well as former chair, art department, the Rutgers campus at Newark. She was a contributor to the first comprehen306
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sive history of the American women’s movement in art, The Power of Feminist Art. Brodsky’s work is in the permanent collections of more than one hundred museums and corporations. She has an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and a BA from Harvard University. ofelia garcia is professor of art at William Paterson University, where she was dean for a decade. She received her BA from Manhattanville College, her MFA from Tufts University, and was a Kent Fellow at Duke University. She has been an art faculty member at Boston College, critic at the Pennsylvania Academy, director of the Print Center in Philadelphia, and president of the Atlanta College of Art and Rosemont College. She was president of the Women’s Caucus for Art and has served on the boards of CAA, the American Council on Education, Haverford College, and others. She is board chair emerita of the Jersey City Museum, current vice chair of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, on the Hudson County Art Commission, and on the board of Catholics for Choice. mary d. garrard is professor emerita of art history at American University in Washington, D.C. Garrard and Norma Broude, both pioneering feminist scholars, have co-edited four anthologies, including Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany, The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History, and The Power of Feminist Art. Garrard is also the author of Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art, of feminist studies on Leonardo da Vinci and Sofonisba Anguissola, and of Brunelleschi’s Egg: Nature, Art, and Gender in Renaissance Art (2010). She served as the second president of the Women’s Caucus for Art. craig houser teaches art history in the Art Department of the City College of New York. He is completing his dissertation for a PhD in art history at the City University of New York, and his topic covers the College Art Association and its publications program. He also contributes to several art publications, including Flash Art, Art Nexus, and Museo. Previously Houser was the editor of the Publications Department of the College Art Association. In addition, he was an assistant curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for five years, during which time he organized numerous exhibitions, among them Rachel Whiteread: Transient Spaces and Jeff Koons: Easyfun—Ethereal. Houser also completed the Helena Rubenstein Curatorial Fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, where he co-curated Abject Art: Repulsion and Desire in American Art. matthew israel is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, where he is completing a dissertation on American art during the Vietnam War. He is also currently the director of operations at the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation. Israel has taught art history at New York Univer-
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sity; Parsons, The New School for Design; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has contributed to Art in America, Artforum, and ARTnews. He has also worked as the administrator for the Peter Hujar Archive; as a research fellow at the New Museum; as a project assistant at the Art Spaces Archives Project (AS-AP.org); and as a consultant to Matthew Marks Gallery, New York. paul b. jaskot was president of the College Art Association (2008–2010) and is a professor of art history at DePaul University. He is the co-founder of the Radical Art Caucus. His research focuses on the intersection of art and politics in National Socialist Germany and its postwar impact. His most recent book (co-edited with Gavriel Rosenfeld) is entitled Beyond Berlin: Twelve German Cities Confront the Nazi Past. Jaskot is currently working on a book on postwar German art, the Nazi past, and contemporary conservative political debates. In addition, he is the director of the Holocaust Education Foundation’s Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization at Northwestern University. karen j. leader is assistant professor of art history at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton. She received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley and her PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Her dissertation, under the advisement of Linda Nochlin, analyzes caricatures of the Paris art world in the nineteenth century. Her publications include “Harlot, Housewife, or Heroine? A Recovered Identity for the ‘Worker’s Wife’ in Courbet’s Studio,” Rutgers Art Review (2007); and “Issues in Gender in Courbet’s Studio” in ‘Courbet à neuf!’: Actes du colloque international (2010). ellen k. levy, a New York–based artist and teacher, was president of the College Art Association (2004–2006) and is a visiting scholar at New York University. Levy received an arts commission from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1985) and was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of Arts and Sciences at Skidmore College (1999). She focuses on complex systems in her art, publications, and lectures. Recent solo exhibitions include Rider University, New Jersey, and Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York (2009) and participation in the Moscow Biennale (2007). She has contributed to Art et Biotechnologies (2005), Art and Ethics (2006), and Art Journal’s “Forum: The Shape of Time, Then and Now” (2010), and to its special issue, “Contemporary Art and the Genetic Code” (1996), which she guest-edited. ferris olin is a full professor at Rutgers University and a founder and director of the Institute for Women and Art, curator of the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series, and founding head of the Margery Somers Foster Center. She also administers the national Feminist Art Project and the Women Artists Archives National Directory: WAAND. Olin served as board member and vice president of committees of the College Art Association, as well as chair of its Committee for Women in the Arts, and was a recipient of the committee’s 2007 Annual
Contributors ∏ 309
Recognition Award. She is the former associate director of the Rutgers Institute for Research on Women and the Laurie New Jersey Chair in Women’s Studies, and previously directed the university’s Art Library. Olin has curated more than fifty exhibitions focused on women artists and women’s material culture; she is also the author of numerous articles on a wide range of topics from women art collectors to curriculum transformation, and has headed many innovative Webbased projects focused on documentation and women’s history. barry pritzker has written and edited numerous books and articles, including the Encyclopedia of American Indian History (4 volumes, 2007) and Native America Today (1999). He occasionally teaches Topics in Contemporary Native America at Skidmore College. He received his MA in history from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He currently works at Skidmore College as the director of Foundation and Corporate Relations, where he spends a good deal of his time collaboratively developing ideas for, and writing, institutional grant proposals. julia a. sienkewicz is assistant professor of art history at Auburn University at Montgomery. She holds a PhD and an MA in the history of art from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BA from Mount Holyoke College. Her research has been supported by the Smithsonian American Art Museum with the National Portrait Gallery, the Winterthur Museum and Country Estates, the American Council of Learned Societies with the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. christine l. sundt is an educator and consultant on visual resources and editor of Visual Resources: An International Journal of Documentation. She was the founding president of the Visual Resources Association (1982–1987). She served on the CAA board of directors (2004–2007) and as secretary (2005–2007). Her “Copyright & Art Images” Web site, http://www.uoregon.edu/~csundt/ copyweb/, documents the Conference on Fair Use (CONFU) and more. Sundt earned a BA from the University of Illinois, Chicago and an MA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 2006 she was named professor emerita by the University of Oregon in recognition of her service and achievements as visual resources curator of the Architecture and Allied Arts Library. cristin tierney is an advisor to a number of private collectors and institutions in the United States and is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Prior to founding Cristin Tierney Fine Art Advisory Services, she was a consultant for many years at Christie’s auction house. She has taught graduate-level seminars on the history of the art market at Christie’s Education and undergraduate art history at New York University. Tierney also serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, including the Lower East Side Printshop.
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steven c. wheatley is the vice president of the American Council of Learned Societies. Before joining ACLS in 1986, he taught history at the University of Chicago, where he was also dean of students in the Public Policy Committee and, before that, assistant to the dean of the Social Sciences Division. He holds a BA from Columbia University and MA and PhD degrees in history from Chicago. He is the author of, among other works, The Politics of Philanthropy: Abraham Flexner and Medical Education. He has served as an adjunct professor at New York University. In 2005, the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences awarded him the Medal for Social Science Career.
index
Abbot, Edith R., 26, 182, 258n27 abstract art, 72, 100, 197, 199 Academic Image Cooperative (AIC), 189–190 Acconci, Vito, 234 Ackerman, James, 63 Adams, Abigail, 202 Adams, John, 202 Adams, Nicholas, 82 Ad Hoc Committee of Women Artists, 202, 203, 284n47 Adler, Tracy L., 147 advertising, in CAA publications, 70, 73, 76 advocacy, at CAA, 7, 215, 225–238 affiliated societies, 3, 30, 90–91, 92, 96, 107, 108, 115–117, 118, 124, 127, 209–211, 281n11 affirmative action, 212, 221, 285n72 African-American art, 112 African-Americans, in CAA, 197, 212, 214 African Studies Association, 217 After exhibition, 150 AIDS Communities: Arts Communities exhibition, 148, 219 Albers, Josef, 136 Alford, John, 73 Ali, Laylah, 143 Alinari company, 187 Allen, Jonathan, 277n18 Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, 42 Alos, Maria, 277n18 American Academy in Rome, 97, 99, 214
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 12, 13 American Anthropological Association, 43, 200, 206 American art, history of: at CAA annual conference, 99–100, 102, 104, 107; fellowships in, 142 The American Art Journal, 63 American Association of Museums (AAM), 34, 41–45, 228 American Association of University Professors, 198 American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), 15, 27, 48, 82, 99, 166, 184, 229 American Economic Association, 13 American Enterprise Institute, 232 American Federation of Arts (AFA), 34, 43, 226, 228 American Historical Association, 13–14, 16 American Historical Review, 14 American Journal of Archaeology, 55, 241, 262n11 American Magazine of Art, 74–75 American Philological Association (APA), 29, 96 American Philosophical Association, 194 American Philosophical Society, 12, 13 American Political Science Association, 206 American Psychological Association, 212 American Scene art, 72 American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 97
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312
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Anderson, Nikki, 149, 277n17 Andrews, Benny, 197, 214 Angelis, Sabatino de, 182 Ankeney, John S., 21, 22, 91, 254n5, 258n16 Ankori, Gannit, 236–237, 289n42 annual conference, CAA, pl. 35, pl. 63; academic institutions represented at, 94; and academic specialization, 90, 95–96, 98, 100, 103, 126; affiliated societies at, 90–91, 92, 96, 107, 108, 115–117, 118, 124, 127, 211; and American art, 99–100, 102, 104, 107; and archaeology, 50, 92, 96, 104; and architectural history, 92, 98, 101–102; and Art Bulletin, 49, 50, 263n19; and art education, 90, 91, 92, 93–95, 100, 102, 110, 123–124, 125, 158–159, 160, 240, 272n113, 278n9; art exhibitions at, 113, 123, 146–147, 150–152; and art history, 50, 90, 92–93, 103–105, 111, 112, 113–114, 118–120, 126, 128; Artist Interviews at, 126–127; artists’ participation in, 90, 92–93, 105–106, 112–113, 122–124, 126–127, 133, 134; and Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS), 117, 124; ARTSpace at, 127; and Asian art, 104, 114; and Classical art, 96, 97, 104; and contemporary art, 97–98, 100, 102, 118, 123, 125; copyright meetings at, 191; Distinguished Scholars Sessions at, 89, 119, 126–127, pl. 43; diversity of programs at, 120–122, 126, 128; European scholars at, 97, 99; films shown at, 123, 127; founding of, 89, 91–92, 127–128; guidelines for, 115, 120, 121; innovative formats at, 118, 119–120, 126–127; media coverage of, 122; and medieval art, 102, 104; MFA exhibitions at, 113, 123, 146–147, pl. 42; minorities represented at, 112, 113, 116, 117, 217, 218; and New Art Association (NAA), 108–112; number of attendees at, 103, 107; open discussion at, 118; and Parnassus, 69; and performance art, 112–113, 118, 122; placement bureau at, 94, 114, 121; and political activism, 107, 111; as
professional venue, 89–90, 91–92, 103, 128; and reform groups, 107–114, 124, 200; relations between artists and art historians at, 92–93, 97, 102, 105, 106, 108, 110, 115, 118, 121–122, 124; and Renaissance art, 97, 102, 104; research vs. education at, 100; senior scholars at, 89, 119, 126–127; and Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), 90, 92, 100–102, 103, 104, 107, 108, 124, 270n42; strategic plan for, 124–127, 272n113; thematic structure at, 124; and visual resources, 107, 282n38; and War on Terror, 91, 127; and Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA), 111–112, 117, 202; women scholars at, 91, 99, 102, 112; and women’s rights, 112, 209; and World War I, 94, 95, 98; and World War II, 98–99 Anreus, Alejandro, 143 Ansell, Joseph P., 278n9 Antoni, Janine, 152 Apel, Ted, 150, 277n19 Aranda-Alvarado, Rocio, 143, pl. 45 Arcangel, Cory, 149, 277n18 Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), 29, 43, 51, 81–82, 92, 96, 140 archaeology, 50, 55–56, 92, 96, 104, 160 architectural history, 92, 98, 101–102 Arnest, Bernard, 199 Arnheim, Rudolf, 127 Arnold, Paul, 215 Ars Orientalis, 173 Art and Archaeology (periodical), 51, 262n11 Art and Technology exhibition, 202 Art Book (periodical), 237 The Art Bulletin, 1, 3, 6, 23, 24, 25, 47, 48–70, 72, 80, 81–82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 95, 97, 135, 138, 151, 155, 156, 159–160, 172, 195–196, 211, 239–240, 241, 242, 258n16, 262, 263nn19,22, 263–264n24, 265n41, 274n26, pl. 55 art conservation, 54, 132, 137, 142 Art Digest, 39, 161 art education: and CAA annual conference, 90, 91, 92, 93–95, 100, 102,
Index ∏ 313 110, 123–124, 125, 158–159, 160, 240, 272n113, 278n9; CAA awards in, 136, 201; and CAA committees, 14–15, 130, 156, 158, 159, 162, 164–169, 172, 195–196, 240, 279n34; CAA guidelines and standards for, 157, 174–175, 178–179; as CAA priority, 3, 30, 73, 157–159, 196, 226, 240, 270n37; and CAA publications, 71, 72, 73, 74, 155, 156, 157, 159–161, 240; and CAA traveling exhibition program, 30, 33–36; and Goldwater report, 156, 157, 162–164, 166, 167, 169, 170, 177, 178–179; and industrial arts, 20–21, 49; museums’ role in, 42, 43; and relations between CAA and National Art Education Association (NAEA), 196; research given priority over, 100; in secondary schools, 196, 279n34, 283n12; and studio art, 49–50, 156, 160, 162, 163–164, 167, 169, 171, 174, 176, 196; and The Visual Arts in Higher Education study, 156–157, 169–177; and visual resources, 181–192; and vocational training, 15, 20, 42, 165. See also art history, teaching of; curriculum Art Education (periodical), 177 Artforum (periodical), 80 art history: in Art Bulletin, 48, 52–59, 62, 63–66, 156, 241; and CAA annual conference, 50, 90, 92–93, 103–105, 111, 112, 113–114, 118–120, 126, 128; and CAA Research Institute of Fine Arts, 160–161, pl. 9; demographics of scholars in, 170, 172, 203–204, 211, 214, 218–219, 285n72, 287n114; and departmental relations with studio art, 175–176; European émigré scholars in, 48, 53, 56–58, 59; and feminism, 63, 65, 209; German scholarship in, 50, 56–58, 59; job market in, 103–104, 106, 114, 285n72; organizational predominance of, 30, 161, 270n37; PhD in, 50, 64, 170, 204; and political activism, 110, 222; research methods in, 50, 56, 173–174, 210; and scholarly publishing, 172–173; and social change, 214; specialization in, 63–64,
90, 95–96, 98, 100, 103, 126; teaching of, 110, 156, 160, 162–164, 165–167, 169, 171, 176, 179, 196, 241, 278n9, 283n12; and The Visual Arts in Higher Education study, 170–172, 173–174. See also balance between art history and studio art, in CAA Art History (periodical), 63 Artibus Asiae (periodical), 63 Art Image Exchange (AIE), 190 Art Institute of Chicago, 102, 146 artists, in CAA: and annual conference, 90, 92–93, 105–106, 112–113, 122–124, 126–127, 133, 134; and Art Journal, 78, 79, 80, 241; and awards, 136–137, 201, 274n36; on board of directors, 197–198, 201; and career development, 133, 134, 215; job market for, 106; on nominating committee, 198–199; and relations with art historians, 92–93, 97, 102, 105, 106, 108, 193; women as, 112, 201, 202. See also balance between art history and studio art, in CAA Artists Equity Association (AEA), 43 Art Journal, 6, 17, 47, 48, 68, 75–81, 84, 85, 86, 102, 103, 108, 117, 137, 151, 156, 162, 230, 234, 236, 240, 255n7, pl. 53, pl. 56 art libraries, 117, 171, 172, 183, 281n11 Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS), 117, 281n11 ARTnews, 38, 137, 161 Art of Walt Disney exhibition, 37 Art Quarterly, 172 Arts Advocacy Day, 152, 215, 235 Art Studies (periodical), 264n24 Aschheim, Deborah, 150, 277n19 Ascott, Roy, 148 Asher, Frederick, 86 Asian art, 52, 54, 63, 69, 70, 104, 114, 171 Asselin, Maurice, pl. 12 Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 187, 188, 228 Atkins, Sharon Matt, 151, 277n22 Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, 150 At the Concert (Renoir), pl. 20
314
∏ Index
Aurbach, Michael, 25, 125, 150, 221, 230, 277n20, 287n104 Avery, Myrtilla, 30, 53, 74, 160, 196, pl. 8 Avery Foundation, 143 awards, CAA, 135–138, 201, 222, 274n36 Axel, Bob, 277n18 Bag, Alex, 150, 277n20 Bagenal, Caroline, 277n17 Bailey, William, 214 Baird, Ellen, 287n104 balance between art history and studio art, in CAA, 5, 30–31, 92–93, 97, 102, 105, 106, 108, 110, 115, 118, 121–122, 124, 193, 197–198, 241 Ball, Susan, 1–2, 8–9, 22, 29, 49, 73, 77, pl. 27, pl. 30, pl. 47; and advocacy, 215, 232, 235, 238; and annual conference, 118, 122, 124; and art education, 278n9; and career development programs, 134, 141, 215; and database of digital images, 190; and fundraising campaigns, 141; and MFA exhibitions, 147; and opposition to Iraq War, 230–231; and organizational diversity, 213, 215, 216, 221, 287n107; and placement ethics, 219; and relations between CAA and museums, 44; and strategic planning, 215; and UNESCO, 28, 220, pl. 52 Ballon, Hilary, 173 Baltimore Museum of Art, 37 Bannister, Turpin, 184 Bapst, Sarah, 277n17 Barnes, Albert, 35 Barnes Foundation, 35 Baroque art, 54, 55, 63, 65, 84, 85, 104, 263–264n24 Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 59, 136, 164, 165, 185 Barr Award, 136 Barthé, Richmond, 70 Barton, Elizabeth, 140 Bates, David, 152 Bauhaus art, 52, 74, 263n18 Bay Area MFA Exhibition, 147 Beaux, Cecilia, 94–95, 97, 195 Beenken, Hermann, 58 Behrens, Paula, 190
Bender, Thomas, 13 Benton, Thomas Hart, 71, 72 Berenson, Bernard, 50, 56 Bettelheim, Judith, 147 BFA degree, 178 BFA exhibitions, 277–278n25 Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA), 48 Blackburn, Robert, 136 Blake, Edwin M., 52 Blazina, Jennifer, 277n17 Bleckner, Ross, 152 Blieden, Molly, 276n14 Block, Holly, 148 Bloom, Barbara, 80 Bloomer, Jake, 150, 277n21 Blum, Pamela, 277n17 board of directors, CAA, pl. 30, pl. 32; art historians on, 198; and assistance to black colleges, 194, 199; diverse composition of, 22, 213–214, 220–221; financial contributions by, 25, 286n88; gender ratio of, 22, 196, 197, 198, 200– 201, 204, 208, 220–221; graduate students on, 200, 201; junior faculty on, 200; nomination and election process for, 197, 198, 200, 201, 208–209, 218, 220, 221, pl. 32; organizational diversity promoted by, 217–218; and publications, 73, 74, 75, 77, 81, 84, 87, 266n85; racial and ethnic composition of, 197, 198, 214; and reform movements, 197–201, 215; studio artists on, 197–199, 201; and women’s rights, 200–201, 204–205, 206–207, 208–209 Bober, Harry, 283n24 Bober, Phyllis Pray, 138, 140, 213, 215, pl. 24 Boggs, Jean, 197, 198, 199, 201, 283n24 Bohrod, Aaron, 70, 72 Bolotowsky, Ilya, 197–198 Bolton, Randy, 277n17 Bongiorno, Laurine Mack, 184 Bookchin, Natalie, 276n14 book jackets, exhibition of, 37 Borcila, Rozalinda, 277n18 Boston Center for the Arts, 148, 150, 219 Boston University, 277–278n25
Index ∏ 315 Boullata, Kamal, 237, 289n42 Bourgeois, Louise, 136 Boyd, Dorothy, 140 Boyle, Jeremy, 277n19 Brach, Paul, 198, 199 Bradley, Lisa, 143 Branet, Will, 136 Branham, Eugene, 140 Bravo, Manuel Alvarez, 136 Bresnick, Anna B., 150, 277n21 Brettell, Richard R., 214, 273n10 Bright, Deborah, 124, 148 Brilliant, Richard, 63, 64, 66, 287n107, pl. 37 Brodsky, Judith K., 7, 28, 31, 138, 141, 142, 148, 205, 213, 215, 216, 219, 220, 259n37, 273n10, 282n3, 286n86, 287n107, pl. 30, pl. 31, pl. 47 Brodsky Center for Innovative Editions, pl. 44 Brody, Michelle, 149, 277n18 Brook, Alexander, 72 Brooklyn Museum, 37 Brooks, Alfred M., 95, 159, 263n22 Broude, Norma, 206–207, 209, pl. 46 Brown, Alice V. V., 139, 159 Brown, Joan, pl. 38 Brown, Richard F., 258n29, 283n24 Brucciani, Domenico, 182 Bulletin of the Archaeological Institute of America, 51 Burke, W.L.M., 158–159 Burko, Diane, 137, pl. 30 Burnham, Frederic Lynden, 256n2 Burrows, Carlyle, 37 Bush, George W., 231 Butler, Howard C., 263n22 bylaws, CAA, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 73, 199, 214, 220, 230, 245–246 CAA News, 2, 29, 47, 76, 133, 143, 151, 216, 233, 287n107 CAA Newsletter, 76, 120, 123, 132 caa.reviews (online journal), 6, 47, 48, 84–86, 242 Cahill, James, 214 Cahn, Walter, 63, 65
Calder, William M., 264n27 California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 39 California State University, Los Angeles, 143 Callisen, Sterling A., 187, 188 Campbell, Mary Schmidt, 214 Campbell, Susan G., 277n17 Caproni, Pietro Paulo, 182 career development, 6, 103–104, 106, 129–134, 141, 144, 179, 215–216 Carlisle, Ashley Hope, 150, 277n19 Carlson, Cynthia, 77, 214 The Carnegie Art Reference Set for Colleges, 182–183, 280n5 Carnegie Corporation, 25, 36, 60, 138, 140, 160, 182, 183, 254n7, 261, 275nn51,55 Carnegie Foundation, 215 Carnegie Institute, 22, 91 Carnegie International, 39, 72 Carnegie Mellon University, 282n38 Carter, Jimmy, 205 Casdin-Silver, Harriet, 276n14 Cazabon, Lynn, 149, 277n18 censorship, 78, 123, 146, 215, 228, 229, 233, 234, 236, 237 “Censorship I” (Art Journal), pl. 53 “Censorship II” (Art Journal), pl. 56 Centennial Book Project, CAA, 2 Cézanne, Paul, pl. 21 C5Corporation, pl. 60 Chagoya, Enrique, 152 Chapman, H. Perry, 65–66 Charles, Michael Ray, 152 Chase, George, 159 Chavera, Eric, 152 Cheney, Lynne, 232 Chesney, Lee, 198 Chicago, Judy, 203 Chomsky, Noam, 200 Christo, pl. 38 Cini Foundation, 187 City College of New York, 36 Civil Rights movement, 16, 197, 199, 213, 229 Claflin, Agnes Rindge, 196 Clapp, Frederick Mortimer, 263n22
316
∏ Index
Clark Art Institute, pl. 20 Clarke, John R., 29, 287n104, pl. 30, pl. 31 Classical art, 54, 55, 96, 97, 104, 166 Cleaver, Dale G., 188 Cleveland Museum of Art, 36, 39 Coalition of Women’s Arts Organizations (CWAO), 205 Coalition on the Academic Workforce, 17 Cohen, Andrea, 149, 277n18 Cohen, Bonnie, 227 Cohen, Jeffrey A., 190 Cole, Willie, 142, 216 Coleman, Laurence, 42 College and University Museums (periodical), 42 College Art Journal, 15, 42, 68, 73–75, 76, 81, 99, 131, 140, 156, 161, 162, 166, 167, 169, 196, 227, 241 Collins, Bradford R., 161, pl. 30 Columbia College, Chicago, 148 Columbia University, 36, 139, 169, 204 Comité international d’histoire de l’art (CIHA), 27–28, 220, 259n32 committees, CAA: and annual conference, 22–23, 121, 124, 125, 126, 127, 220; and art education, 130, 156, 158, 159, 162, 164–169, 172, 195–196, 240; Art Historians, 115, 218; Artists, 115, 136, 178, 218; and awards, 135, 274n36; Committee on Women Awards, pl. 46; Cultural Diversity, 218, 219, 222, 286n92; and disabled members, 219; Electronic Information, 84; executive, 1, 4, 24, 120, 136, 186, 189, 197, 198, 199, 200, 205, 209, 210, 220, 230, 236; Intellectual Property, 192; International, 220, 231–232; and museums, 6, 42, 43, 44, 149, 228; nominating, 197, 198, 200, 201, 208, 218, 220, 221; and placement, 132, 219, 273n12; Professional Interests, Practices, and Standards, 125, 220; and publications, 61, 62, 65, 68, 87, 135; Scholarship, 140; Standards, 138, 139; Visual Arts, 148, 170; and visual resources, 184–187, 189, 281n11; and women, 131, 137, 201–205, 218–219, 222, 273n10
Comparisons and Contrasts exhibition, 37 Conference on Fair Use (CONFU), Washington, D.C., 191 Congress, U.S., 13, 15, 152, 212, 215, 233–234, 235 Conrad, Louisa, 152, pl. 61 conservation. See art conservation Consey, Kevin E., 142, pl. 32 Constantine, Mildred, 97, 226, 254–255n7, pl. 11 constitution, CAA, 1, 3, 4, 22, 23, 26, 27, 49, 157, 254n5, 258n26 contemporary art: at CAA annual conference, 86, 97–98, 100, 102, 118, 123, 125; and CAA exhibitions, 33–39, 145–153, 196 (see also specific exhibitions); and CAA publications, 63, 70–80, 86. See also artists, in CAA Contemporary French Art exhibition, pl. 12 contingent faculty, 17, 214, 236, 287n101. See also part-time faculty Conwill, Kinshasha, 218 Cook, Walter W. S., 5–6, 28, 30, 53, 55, 56, 58, 71, 140, 161, 254–255n7, pl. 5 Coomaraswamy, Ananda, 52 Cooney, Lynne, 278n25 Cooper Union School of Art, 148, pl. 58 copyright, 181, 183, 187, 190–192, 235 Corcoran Conference of Women in the Visual Arts, 203 Corn, Wanda, 110, 111, 118 Costello, Lisa, 276n14 Cotter, Holland, 148 Cotton, Paul, pl. 38 Crawford, Romi, 151, 277n22 Creamer, George, 147 Crichton, E. G., 276n14 Crosby, Sumner, 28, 30, 73–74 Cross, Herbert R., 93 Crossings: Artistic and Curatorial Practice exhibition, 149, pl. 59 Cui, Fei, 277n17 Cummings Foundation, 25, 141, 142, 216 Cunard, Jeffrey P., 230, 231, 235, 282n42 Cuno, James, 120, 142 curriculum, 13, 14–15, 22, 195, 196,
Index ∏ 317 283n12; CAA committee on, 14, 156, 165; CAA conference sessions on, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 100, 104, 106, 158 Dadgar, Ali, 152 D’Amato, Al, office of, pl. 48 Damon, T. J., 72 Dana, Robin, 147 Dartmouth College, 60 Davidson, Bernice, 285n63 Davis, Stuart, 72 Dayton Art Institute, 39 Deitcher, David, 148 de Kiewiet, C. W., 15 Deknatel, Frederick, 28 de Kooning, Willem, 77 democratic principles, in learned societies, 194–195, 200 Dendy, J. Brooks, 112 Depression, Great, 60, 97, 145, 226 Desai, Vishaka, 143 de Tolnay, Charles, 56 Detroit Institute of Arts, 37 Dewan, Deepali, 143 Dewey, John, 35, 36 Diebes, Joe, 277n19 Digital Library Federation (DLF), 190 digital media, 17, 84–87, 189–190, 242 Dinsmoor, William B., 263n22 Directory of People of Color in the Visual Arts, 217 discrimination, sexual, 112, 199, 202, 203–204, 206, 207, 211, 219 Disney, Walt, 37 diversity, organizational, in CAA, 213–223, 286n92; and age of members, 193–194; and geographic distribution of members, 22, 59, 62, 78, 136, 144, 170, 172, 193–194, 195, 196, 200, 225, 258n16; and racial and ethnic composition of members, 193, 194, 217, 222–223; and underrepresented groups, 113, 134, 141, 144, 197, 215, 217, 232, 286n92. See also women, in CAA Dodd, Lamar, pl. 19 Dodge Foundation, 142 Donahue, Kenneth, 187
Donaldson, Laura, 150 Doolittle, Warren, 177 Downs, Linda, 8, 9, 236–237, pl. 51 Drawings by MFA Candidates from American Colleges and Universities exhibition, 146 Drawings from the Collection of Dan Fellows Platt exhibition, 37 Driskell, David, 197, 214 Drucker, Johanna, 276n14 Druick, Douglas, 201 Duchamp, Marcel, 97 Duehr, Gary, 150, 277n21 dues, CAA membership, 24 Duke University, 185 Dyson, Stephen, 96 Eastern Art: A Quarterly (periodical), 47–48 Eastern Art and Manual Training Teachers’ Association (EAMTTA), 3, 21, 50 e-books, 48, 84 Edelson, Gilbert, 2, 198, 199, 233, 237, 259n36, 283n24 Edelson, Jane, 77 Edgell, G. H., 158 Edgerton, Samuel, pl. 43 education. See art education Edwards, Susan, 147 Eisenberg, Marvin, 283n24 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 228 Eisler, Colin, 57, pl. 21 Eitner, Lorenz E. A., 116, 170, 283n24 Eliot, Charles W., 13 Ellegood, Anne, 149, pl. 59 Elsen, Albert, 188, 198, 199, 201, 206, 207, 233, pl. 23 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), 206, 219 Equal Pay Act, 204 Equal Rights Amendment, 212–213 Esterow, Milton, 104, 137 Ettinghausen, Richard, 59 Evans, Rob, 277n17 Everything in the World (Zweig), pl. 58 examinations, for CAA scholarships, 138–139 Examining Art’s Economics exhibition, 201 exhibitions, CAA, 145–153, 277nn22–23;
318
∏ Index
and BFA exhibitions, 277–278n25; and Exhibitions Committee, 42, 149, 150– 152, 277nn22–23; and MFA exhibitions, 113, 146–147, 152, 153, 219; and Regional Conference Exhibitions, 148–150, 152, 153, 277n23; and traveling exhibition program, 30, 33–39, 146, 260n12, 261n25. See also specific exhibitions Exposition of Indian Tribal Arts exhibition, 37 Fairbrother, Trevor, 147 Faison, S. Lane, Jr., 259n31, 272n2, 274n24, 283n24 Fansler, Roberta M., 42, 164 Faulkner, Ray, 73 Federal Art Project, 226 fellowship programs, CAA, 3, 134, 138, 140–144, 215, 274n51, 286n86 feminism: and art history, 63, 65, 209; and artists’ groups, 146, 202–203; and awards, 137; and organizational reform, 199, 202, 203, 205, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 221, 222 Fern, Alan M., 214 Fineberg, Jonathan, 220, pl. 30, pl. 38, pl. 40 Finkelstein, Louis, 178, 199 Fishman, Beverly, 148, 276n14, pl. 58 5 Night Stand exhibition, pl. 62 Flax, Carol, 276n14 Fleming, William, 188 Flint, Ralph, 38 Fogg Art Museum, 142, 185, 187 Ford Foundation, 25, 157, 169, 186, 187 Foti, Eileen, pl. 57 Foucault, Michel, 2 founding: of CAA, 3, 21–23, 30, 145, 268n1; of CAA annual conference, 22–23, 89, 91–92, 127–128, 268n1 Foxy Production, pl. 60 Franc, Helen M., 58 Frankenthaler, Helen, 136–137 Frankl, Paul, 56 Franklin, Benjamin, 13 Fraser, Andrea, 150, 277n20 Frazer, Margaret English, 136
Frazier, LaToya Ruby, 143 Freedberg, Sydney, 186 Freeman, Brad, 276n14 Freeman, John, 277n18 Frelin, Adam, pl. 33 Frick Art Reference Library, 60 Friedländer, Walter, 56, 59 Friedman, Charley, 277n18 Friend, Albert M., 263n22 Frueh, Joanna, pl. 46 funding, of CAA, 23–26, 254n7; and fund-raising campaigns, 141–142, 216, 286n88 Future Farmers, pl. 60 Galanter, Philip, 150, 277n19 Garcia, Ofelia, 6, 138, 141, 215, 273nn10–11 Garcia, Rupert, 137 Gardner, Helen, 188 Garnett, Joy, 277n18 Garrard, Mary D., 7, 31, 116–117, 214, 282n3, pl. 46 Garrison, S. J., 188 Geffen, Betsey, 277n18 Geiger, Roger, 14, 49 gender ratios: of artists in labor force, 286n81; in arts departments, 203–204, 211, 214, 218–219, 285n72, 287n114; in CAA, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200–201, 207–208, 213, 220, 221–222; in higher education, 214, 286n82, 287n112; in learned societies, 206 geographic diversity of CAA, 22, 59, 62, 78, 136, 144, 170, 172, 193–194, 195, 196, 200, 225, 258n16 Gerber, August, 182 Gerbracht, Grady, 277n17 German scholarship, 11–12, 13, 50, 56–58, 59 Gesta (periodical), 63 Getty Foundation, 216 Getty Research Institute, 133 Getty Trust, 25 Ghirardo, Raymond, 277n19 G.I. Bill, 16, 62, 131 Gilbert, Creighton E., 61, 62, 135, 140 Gilliam, Sam, 142, 214, 216, pl. 44
Index ∏ 319 Gilliéron, Émile, 182 Glueck, Grace, 113 Goldwater, Robert, 156, 162, 185 Goldwater report on art education, 156, 157, 162–164, 166, 167, 169, 170, 177 Gombrich, Ernst H., 188 Goodrich, Lloyd, 44, 99, 228 Gopnik, Blake, 126 Gotlieb, Marc, 66 governance, CAA: democratic principles of, 194–195; reform of, 197–202. See also board of directors, CAA Grabar, Oleg, 213 Graduate Records Examination (GRE), 139 Graves, Nancy, 214, pl. 29 Green, David, 191 Greenbaum, Joanne, 277n18, pl. 59 Greenberg, Janet, 121 Greene, Balcomb, 198 Greig, Cynthia, 277n21 grievance procedures, in CAA, 212, 285n75 Griggers, Camilla B., 276n14 Gropius, Walter, 52, 263n18 Gross, Alex, 109, 111 Grove, Jeffrey, 151, 277n22 Guerrilla Girls, 137, 146 Gugelberger, Rachel, 149, pl. 59 Guggenheim Foundation, 140 Guirguis, Sherin, pl. 62 Haas, Richard, pl. 38 Hackney, Sheldon, pl. 49 Hall, Marcia, 118–119 Hamburger, Susan, 149, 277n18 Hamilton, Ann, 152, pl. 61 Hamilton, George Heard, 184, 283, pl. 20 Hammond, Mason, 227 Haney, James Parton, 256n3 Hanson, Anne Coffin, 17, 77, 108, 109, 110, 146, 198, 199, 205, 207, pl. 22 Hanson, Bernard, 199 Harper, Paula, 202 Harris, Ann Sutherland, 112, 203 Harris, Jean C., 201, 205 Hartigan, Grace, 199, pl. 18 Harvard University, 13, 60, 139, 185, 195
Hathaway, Nancy, 277n18 Hautecoeur, Louis, pl. 12 Haynes, Deborah J., 148 Heap of Birds, Edgar, 149, 277n18 Hedera (bbb) (Vitiello), pl. 60 Heinrich, G., pl. 2 Held, Julius S., 56, 59, 99, 258n29 Herbert, Robert L., 219 Herbst, Claudia, 276n14 Herman, Robert, 198 Hersey, Celia H., 139 Hibbard, Howard, 64 Higa, Ryan M., 277n17 Hill, Craig, 277n17 Hill, Tom, 218 Hillerbrand, Stephan, 277n21 Hills, Patricia, 143 Hilton, Alison, 143 Hispanic Society of America, 60 Hiss, Priscilla, 164 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, 59, 98 Ho, Christopher, 149 Hofer, Karl, 39 Hoffberg, Judith, 285n63 Hoffend, Derek, 277n19 Hoffman, Barbara, 78, 234, pl. 53, pl. 56 Hope, Henry R., 28, 74, 75–76, 100, 108, 184, pl. 34 Hopper, Edward, 77 Hopscotch: Associative Leaps in the Construction of Narrative exhibition, 149 Houser, Craig, 6 Howard University, 39 Howe, Florence, 200 Howland, Richard H., 101–102 Hoy, Anne H., 262 Hsu, Tishan, 148, 276n14 Huang, Shih Chieh, 150, pl. 60 Huerta, Benito, 151, pl. 61 Humanities Advocacy Day, 215, 235 Hunt, Richard, 197, 214 Hunter, Allison, 277n18 Hunter, Sam, 75 Hunter College, 147 Huntley, G. Haydn, 74 Hyland, John W., 237, pl. 30 Hyman, Isabelle, pl. 36
320
∏ Index
iconology, 56–57 identity politics, 213, 215 Index of Twentieth-Century Artists, 47 industrial arts, 20–21, 49 Instress (Conrad), pl. 61 insurance plan, CAA, 211 intellectual property, 190–192, 235 International Council of Museums, 43 International 1933 exhibition, 38–39 international relations, at CAA, 27, 28–29, 43, 220, 228–229, 231–232 International Repertory of the Literature of Art (RILA), 48 Iraq War, 228, 230–231 Irish, Jessica, 276n14 Irwin, Jason, 277n20 Israel, Matthew, 7, 94 Itami, Michi, 143, 286n88, pl. 30, pl. 40 Ivins, William, 53 Jackson, Phyllis, 143 Jameson, J. Franklin, 13–14 Janney, Christopher, 276n14 Janson, H. W., 25, 56, 60–61, 71, 105, 109, 135, 186, 187, 188, 201, 259n36, pl. 21 Jaskot, Paul B., 9, 122, 222, 232, 236, pl. 51 Jayne, Horace H. F., 69 Jewell, Edward Alden, 37, 38–39 job market, 8, 103–104, 106, 114–115, 128, 130, 131, 285n72, 287n101. See also placement services Johns Hopkins University, 13 Johnson, Andrew, 277n21 Johnson, Philip, 107 Johnson, Poppy, 202 Joint Artists-Museum Committee, 42, 43, 44 Jones, John Paul, 199 Jones, Kellie, 123 Joo, Michael, 276n14 Joost-Gaugier, Christiane, 206, 214 Journal of Aesthetic Education, 177 Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 63, 87, 173 Jules, Mervin, 199
Kahn, Melissa, pl. 30 Kampf, Louis, 200 Kaplan, Janet, 79 Katzenellenbogen, Adolf, 56, 198 Kaufman, Ned, 142 Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta, 57 Kay, Carolyn, 277n18 Kelder, Diane, 76 Kempadoo, Roshini, 276n14 Kennedy, Edward M., 137 Keown, Gary, 276n14 Keppel, Frederick Paul, 36, 182, 275n51 Kerner, Gertrude, 140 Kim, Joon-hyung, 277n18 Kimball, Fiske, 53, 59, 102 Kimbell, Lucy, 150, 277n20 Kimmerling, George, 277n18 King, Georgiana Goddard, 53, 55 King-Hammond, Leslie, 143, 144, 148, 218, 220, 287n104, pl. 30, pl. 31 Kinney, Dale, pl. 32 Kirsh, Andrea, 277n22 Klein, Cecilia, 120 Klein, Henry, 120 Klein, Kevin, 149, 277n17 Klingberg, Gunilla, 277n20 Knobler, Nathan, 188 Kohl, Allan, 190 Konigsberg, Jeff, 277n18 Koss, Elaine, 79 Kozloff, Joyce, 123, 203, 214, 217, 284n47 Krakow, Barbara, 147 Krautheimer, Richard, 28, 56, 59, pl. 16 Kress Foundation, 25, 60, 61, 82, 83 Krøk, Solveig, 277n17 Kubler, George, 165 Kuniyoshi, Yasuo, 70 Kurczynski, Karen, 287n101 Kutner, Jane, 152 Kwon, Miwon, 137 Lail, Thomas, 277n18, pl. 59 Lake, Edward J., 21, 22, 91, 254n5, 258n16 Lam-Niemeyer, Gregory, 276n14 Lang, Mindy, 148 Lanyon, Ellen, 77 Larris, Jeffrey, pl. 30
Index ∏ 321 Lasater, Michael, 277n17 Laufman, Sidney, 43 Lavin, Irving J., 28, 220, 259nn36–37, pl. 30 Lawrence, Jacob, 136 Lawrence, Marion, 30, 196 Lawrie, Lee, pl. 13 Leader, Karen J., 7, 29 learned societies, 11–17; democratic governance of, 194–195, 200; gender ratio in, 206; and reform groups, 196–197, 200. See also American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Lee, Rensselaer W., 28, 59, 165, 184, 227, 275n51 Lee, Sherman, 42 legal proceedings, 75, 206, 236–237 Lehmann, Karl, 56 Lehmann, Phyllis Williams, 140 Lelli, Giuseppi, 182 Lemakis, Emmanuel, 6, 125, 149, 151 Lesch, Rudolf, 280n5 Lessard, Gene J., 283n24 Lessons in New Economies (Lail), pl. 59 Levesque, Julie, 277n21 Levey, Michael, 188 Levi, Julian, 70 Levy, Ellen K., 6, 219, 287n104, pl. 64 Lewis, Joe, pl. 40 Lewis, Samella, pl. 46 liaison groups, CAA’s relations with, 209–210. See also affiliated societies libel tourism, 236–237, 289n42 libraries. See art libraries Linder, Joan, 277n18 Linguistic Society of America, 29 Lippard, Lucy, 202 Lipski, Donald, 152, pl. 61 Loeffler, Carole, 277n18 Longman, Lester D., 70–72, 73, 74, pl. 6 Lord, Catherine, 219 Los Angeles Council of Women Artists, 202 Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), 202 Lowry, Bates, 188, 283n24 Lubell, Ellen, 113
Luce Foundation, 25, 142, 216 Lum, Mary, 80 Luna, James, 118, 122 Luxembourg Museum, pl. 12 Lynch, Perri, 277n19 Lyons, Beauvais, 150 Macko, Nancy, pl. 30 MA degree, 142, 204 Madel, Mark, 276n14 Magsamen, Mary, 277n21 Mahler, Jane Gaston, 188 Mainardi, Patricia, 120, pl. 30 Mâle, Emile, 57 Malen, Lenore, 78, 79 Maltais, Mark, 276n14 Manet, Edouard, 77 Mangravite, Peppino, 166, 169, 175 Manzella, David B., 169, 177 Mapplethorpe, Robert, 78, 234 Marc, Stephen, 276n14 Marketou, Jenny, 276n14 Marmor, Max, 190 Marquand, Allan, 263n22 Marrow, James, 273n10 Marshall, Kerry James, 142, 218 Marter, Joan, 150, 151, 277n22, pl. 32 Maryland Institute College of Art, 143, 147 Massachusetts College of Art and Design, 147 Massad, Joseph, 236–237 Masson, André, 74 Mather, Frank Jewett, Jr., 35, 53, 135, 136, 182, 264n24, 274n24 Mather Award, 135, 136 Mathews, Robert, 277n17 Mayall, J.J.E., pl. 1 Mayor, A. Hyatt, 283n24 McCarthyism, 228 McCullough, Joseph W., 283n24 McDade, Eric, 149, 277n17 McGarrell, James, 198, 199 McInnes, Mary Drach, 147 McKelvey, Baggs, 277n19 McMahon, A. Philip, 69, 70 McMahon, Audrey, 34, 36–37, 38, 39, 69, 70, 145–146, 226, pl. 12
322
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McNally, Sheila, 204, 209, 285n63 McPherson, Heather Leigh, 152 Meador, Clifton, 80 Mecklenburg, Virginia M., 151 Medieval Academy of America, 29 medieval art, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 63, 69, 102, 104, 263–264n24 Meiss, Millard, 25, 28, 30, 55, 56, 58, 59, 82, 165, 168, 241, 265n41, pl. 15 Meiss Publication Fund, 25, 47, 83 Mellon Foundation, 25, 85, 86, 190 Members’ Exhibition. See Regional Conference Exhibitions membership, CAA, 3–4, 27, 193–194, 254nn5–6, 255n9; gender ratio of, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200–201, 207–208, 213, 220, 221–222; geographic distribution of, 22, 59, 62, 78, 136, 144, 170, 172, 193–194, 195, 196, 200, 225, 258n16; racial and ethnic composition of, 193, 194, 217, 222–223 Méndez, Cecilia, 277n17 Merryman, John, 233 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 26, 36, 143, 160, 182, 185, 188 Meyer, Diane, 277n18 MFA degree, 146–147, 152, 175, 178, 201 MFA exhibitions, 113, 141, 146–147, 152, 153, 219 Middeldorf, Ulrich, 56, 71, 73, 99, 183 Miller, Brenda, 202 Millon, Henry A., 214 Min, Yong Soon, 143 Miner, Dorothy, 59 minorities, programs for, 112, 113, 116, 117, 138, 141, 144, 219. See also underrepresented groups Mitchell, Joan, 136 Modern Language Association (MLA), 29, 103, 200, 232 Molesworth, Helen, 146 Mongan, Agnes, 259n31, pl. 7 Monographs on the Fine Arts, 47, 48, 81–84 Montgomery, Melinda, 276n14 Moon, Irene, 277n20 Moor, Arthur, 184
Morey, Charles Rufus, 34, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 69, 84, 135, 136, 140, 165, 264n24, 274n25, pl. 10 Morey Award, 135, 136 Morley, Grace McCann, 196 Morrill Act, 13 Morris, Kyle, 198 Motherwell, Robert, 198, 199, pl. 17 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 233–234 Müller, Christian P., 277n20 Munn, James B., 183, 254n7 Munro, Thomas, 36 Munson, Lynne, 122, 232 Murray, Elizabeth, 137 Museum Committee (CAA), 42–43 Museum of Modern Art, New York, 185 museums, relations between CAA and, 27, 41–45, 196, 227–228; and CAA traveling exhibitions, 34–39 Nadler, Jerrold, 234–235, pl. 49 Nagasawa, Nobuho, 151 National Art Education Association (NAEA), 196, 257n9 National Committee for the History of Art (NCHA), 28, 259n37 National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Excellence, 175 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), 26, 78, 80, 134, 141, 142, 186, 215, 216, 229, 234, 235, 286n88, pl. 47, pl. 48 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), 26, 141, 142, 186, 215, 216, 229, pl. 47 National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 143, 187 National Humanities Council, 215 National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH), 191 National Science Foundation, 15 The Nave of the Great Exhibition, Looking West, Held in London in 1851 (Sherratt), pl. 1 Nelson, Robert, 84 Nemec, Marc, 94, 96 Nersessian, Sirarpie Der, 59 Networked Nature exhibition, 150, pl. 60
Index ∏ 323 New Art Association (NAA), 75, 108–112, 200, 201, 229 Newcomb, Rexford, 101 New Deal, 226 Newman, Barnett, 75 New Space, New Audience exhibition, 148 New University Conference, 200 New York Center for Art and Media Studies, 278n25 New York Foundation for the Arts, 216 New York Public Library, 190 New York Times, 148, 150 New York University, 36, 56, 60, 187, 204, 254–255n7 New York University Press, 82 Nguyen, Christian, 149, 277n18 Nicholas, Lynne H., 227 Nilsen, Micheline, 190 Nilsson, Mary Ann, 276n14 Nirdlinger, Virginia, 69 Nixon, Richard, 230 Nochlin, Linda, 146, 200–201, 203, 204, 229, 233, 285n63, pl. 46 Northwestern University, 195 Norton, Charles Eliot, 50, 56 Novak, Barbara, 77 Novak, Lorie, 276n14 Oberlin College, 39, 42 October (periodical), 63, 80 Odom, Betsy, 152 Offner, Richard, 263n22 Olejarz, Harold, pl. 41 Olin, Ferris, 7, 31, 283n3, 287n101, pl. 46 Olson, Marisa, 150, pl. 60 One Hundred Years of Impressionism: A Tribute to Durand-Ruel exhibition, pl. 21 online resources, 84–87, 133, 189–190, 233, 242 Ono, Yoko, pl. 63 Opara, Anukam E., 276n14 orphan works, 191–192, 282n42 Osorio, Pepón, 148, 276n14 Otto, Susan, 276n14 Oxendine, Lloyd E., 143
Pach, Walter, 38 Painted Bride Arts Center, Philadelphia, 149 Panofsky, Erwin, 30, 53, 56–58, 59, 97, 99, 156, 165, 173, 263n22, pl. 9 Paoletti, John, 67 Parker, Jennifer, 277n19 Parker, Shalon, pl. 33 Parnassus (periodical), 1, 3, 6, 33, 34–35, 59, 61, 68–73, 74, 80–81, 98, 130, 156, 161, 196, 240, pl. 12, pl. 13, pl. 54 part-time faculty, 17, 134, 152, 153, 201, 219, 287n101 Pasztory, Esther, 120 Patten, Mary, 276n14 Pattison, Abbott, 199 Pearce, Chris, 277n17 Pearlstein, Philip, 234, 285n63 pedagogy. See art education Pedersen, Anna, 277n18 Pei, I. M., 102 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 147 Pennsylvania State University Press, 82 pension plan, TIAA-CREF, 211 Pepper, Jennifer, 277n17 performance art, 112–113, 118, 122 Pharr, Mrs. Walter Nelson, pl. 21 PhD in art or art history, 50, 64, 170, 204, 214 Phi Beta Kappa, 229 Philbrick, Jane, 150, 277n19 Phillips, Duncan, 34, 95 Phillips, Patricia C., 80 photographs, as visual resources in the arts, 171, 172, 182–183, 280n5 Pickard, John, 24, 26–27, 31, 50, 51, 53, 93–94, 95, 98, 158, 159, 165, 240, 260n44, 263n22, pl. 2 Pierotti, Pietro, 182 Pierson, William H., Jr., 186, 272n2 Pincus, Debra, 83, 120 Pindell, Howardena, 214 Pinkowski, Hank, 150 Piper, Adrian, 150, 277n20 placement services, 94, 114, 121, 130–134, 207, 285n61
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Plagens, Peter, pl. 38 Platt, Dan Fellows, 37 Points of Convergence: Masters of Fine Arts exhibition, 151–152, pl. 61 Politzer, David, 277n21 Polo, Darice, 149, 277n17 Pope.L, William, 80 Porter, Arthur Kingsley, 53, 55, 57, 135, 136, 264n24, 274n26, pl. 4 Porter Prize, 135, 211, 274n26 Portrait of John Pickard (Heinrich), pl. 2 Portraits of Young People exhibition, 37 Post, Chandler, 55, 263n22 Powell, Richard J., 66 President’s Research Committee on Social Trends, 35 Pressly, Nancy, 124 Princeton University, 56, 60, 222 Pritzker, Barry, 6 Professional Development Fellowship Program, 26, 134, 138, 141, 143, 215, 216, 276n66, 286n86, pl. 33, pl. 44 Project Space, Artists Alliance, Inc., pl. 59 Prown, Jules, 170, 171, 177 publications program, CAA, 6, 25, 47–48, 61–62, 68, 78, 79–80, 86–87, 268n130; and Monographs on the Fine Arts, 25, 47, 48, 81–84. See also specific journals Puthoff, Emily, 277n21 Queer Caucus, 222, 230 Quiroz, Alfred J., pl. 32 racial and ethnic composition: of CAA board, 197, 198, 214; of CAA members, 193, 194, 217, 222–223; of highereducation faculty, 287n112 Radical Art Caucus (RAC), 222, 230 Rainer, Yvonne, 112–113 Ramirez-Garcia, M., 218 Randall, Lilian M. C., 274n26 Rando, Flavia, pl. 46 Ravenscroft, Richard, 237 RCA building, pl. 13 Reagan, Ronald, 231 Réau, Louis, pl. 12
Reckitt, Helena, 150 reflection (Hamilton), pl. 61 reform, organizational, of CAA: and affiliated societies, 209–211; and affirmative action, 212; and annual conference, 107–114, 200; and board of directors, 197–201, 204–205, 217–218; and diversity, 213–223; and feminism, 199, 202, 203, 205, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 221, 222; and grievance procedures, 212, 285n75; and New Art Association (NAA), 75, 108–112, 200, 201, 229; and publications, 200; and Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA), 75, 111–112, 202, 204–213; and women’s rights, 200–201, 202–213 Regional Conference Exhibitions, CAA, 148–150, 152, 153, 277n23 Regionalist art, 71–72 Reinhardt, Ad, 75 Reisman, Sara, 149 Renaissance art, 54, 55, 56, 59, 63, 97, 102, 104, 166, 170, 263–264n24 Renoir, Pierre-Auguste, pl. 20 Research Institute of Fine Arts, CAA, 160–161, pl. 9 Reynolds, Jock, pl. 30 Rhode Island School of Design, 20, 166 Rice, Norman L., 170 Rickey, George, 198, 199 Riedel, Kyle, 277n18 Riefstahl, Rudolf Meyer, 161 Rindler, Robert, 148, pl. 58 Ringgold, Faith, 123, 142, 202, 214, 216, 217, 234, 273n10, pl. 57 The Rip-Off File (Kozloff and Spero), 203, 284n47 Ritchie, Andrew C., 157, 170, 228 Robb, David M., 184, 188 Roberts, Julie, 150, 277n21 Roberts, Megan, 277n19 Robertson, Bruce, 125 Robillard, Rita, pl. 30 Robinson, David M., 51, 59, 263n22 Rodenbeck, Judith, 80 Roding, Lawrence, 109 Romaine, James, 278n25
Index ∏ 325 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 226 Roots, Garrison, pl. 32 Rosenblum, Robert, 113, 114 Rosenholtz, Ellen M., 149 Rosing, Larry, 201 Ross, Mrs. Daniel G., pl. 21 Ross, Edward, 13 Ross, Philip, 150 Rossen, Susan F., 61, 82–83 Rossen Report, 61, 78, 82–83 Roth, Richard, 277n18 Roth, Yumi J., 277n19 Rowlett, Samuel, 152 Rubenstein, Erica Beckh, 140 Rubin, James, 231 Ruiz, Kathleen, 148, 276n14 Rusk, William, 184 Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, 142, 216 Rutgers University, 222 Saburi, Misa, 277n21 Sachs, Paul J., 24, 34, 53, 165, 182, 264n24, 272n2 Sadek, George, 77, 201–202, 207, 209 Saff, Donald, 77 Saff Tech Arts, pl. 29 Saint-Gaudens, Homer, 52 Salvest, John, 150, 277n20 Sanchez, Juan, 218 Sandler, Irving, 77 Sandler, Lucy Freeman, 29, pl. 36 San Francisco State University, 147 Sargent, Irene, 93 Sato, Nori, pl. 40 Schachter, Kenny, 149 Schapiro, Meyer, 58, 72, 81, 85, 165, 216, pl. 14 Schapiro, Miriam, 112, 137, 142, 202, 203, 285n63 Schlegel, Amy, 143, pl. 39 Schmeckebier, Laurence E., 74 Schneemann, Carolee, pl. 46 scholarship programs, CAA, 138–140, 275n51 Schulze, Franz, 199 Schutkowski, John, 199
Scott, Louise, 170 Sedgwick, John P., Jr., 188 Seidel, Linda, 273n10 Self-Portraits exhibition, 37 Serrano, Andres, 234 Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings exhibition, 37 Shapley, Fern Rusk, 58, 265n41 Shapley, John, 24, 53, 58–59, 69, 70, 71, 98, 182, 263n22, 265nn41–42, 283n12, pl. 3 Sherratt, Thomas, pl. 1 Shimomura, Roger, 218 Sholette, Gregory C., 149, 230, 277n17 Sichel, Berta M., 148 Sickman, Laurence, 283n24 Sienkewicz, Julia A., 4, 6, 30 Silver, Larry, 84, 86, 215, 218, 219, 287n107, pl. 27, pl. 30 Silvis, John, 278n25 Simpson, Gail, 277n18 Simpson, Marianna Shreve, 278n9 Sims, Lowery, 218 Sinaiko, Eve, 282 Singerman, Howard, 145, 257n8 Skiff, Paul, 125, 151 Skvirsky, Karina A., 277n18 Sleigh, Sylvia, 137 Slick, Duane, 276n14 slides, 171, 172, 184–189, 281nn15–16 Sligh, Clarissa, 276n14 Slive, Seymour, 169, 283n24 Sloane, Joseph C., 30, 283n24 Smith, E. Baldwin, 140, 183, 263n22 Smith, Henry Holmes, 22, 23, 24, 49, 91, 93, 157–158, 199 Smith, Jessica, 277n18 Smith, Kiki, 142, 216 Smith, Myron, 184 Smith, Richard H., 277n21 Smith, Tony, 136 Smith, Walter, 20 Smith College, 139 Smyth, Craig Hugh, 255n7 Snider, Jenny, 149, 277n17 Snow, Leida, 235 Society of Architectural Historians (SAH),
326
∏ Index
87, 90, 92, 98, 100–102, 103, 104, 107, 108, 270n42 Society of the History of French Art, pl. 12 Sokol, David, 125 Soria, Martin, 185 Soros Foundation, 142 South Africa, CAA’s divestment from, 2, 237–238 Spear, Athena Tacha, 285n63 Spear, Richard, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67 Spector, Buzz, 78, 142, 216 Spencer, John R., 42, 283n24 Spero, Nancy, 137, 203, 284n47 Stafford, Barbara Maria, 214 Stahl, Harvey, 115, 119, 128 standards, educational and professional, 12, 14, 16, 21, 50, 91, 134, 138, 157, 174– 175, 178–179, 194–195, 233, 239, 240 Stechow, Wolfgang, 56, 59 Stein, Judith, pl. 30 Steinberg, Leo, 200–201, pl. 43 Sterne, Katherine Grant, 69 Stieglitz, Alfred, 97 Stocking, George, 194 Stoddard, Whitney S., 272n2 Stokstad, Marilyn, 210, 285nn63, pl. 25 Storr, Robert, 77, 78, 123, 234, pl. 53, pl. 56 Stout, Renée, 276n14 strategic planning, at CAA, 9, 124–127, 133, 215, 220, 221, 236, 272nn113,115, 286n86 Straus, John W., 283n24 Strzelec, Rebecca, 277n17 Stubbe, Wolf, 173 studio artists. See artists, in CAA Studio Museum in Harlem, 143 Sturges, Jock, 234 Suh, Do-Ho, 148, 276n14 Sullivan, Louis, 102 Sunderland, Alice, 185 Sunderland, Elizabeth, 184, 185 Sundt, Christine L., 7, 190, 281n11, 282n42, pl. 32 The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles (Ringgold), pl. 57 Suspension: Sonic Absorption exhibition, 149–150
Swarthmore College, 60 Swartz, Julianne, 277n18 Swarzenski, Hanns, 56 Takemoto, Tina, 143 Tamblyn, Christine, 276n14 “Tarred and Feathered in Washington D.C., at CAA” (Olejarz), pl. 41 Tattelman, Ira, 276n14 Tavshanjian, Artemis, pl. 8 Taylor, Francis Henry, 69 Taylor, Joshua C., 188 teaching. See art education Techno-Seduction exhibition, 148, pl. 58 Teegen, Marta, 149 Temple University, 147 Tenhaaf, Nell, 148, 276n14 Terra Foundation, 142 terrorism, 91, 127 Thiebaud, Wayne, 137 Thomas, Austin, 149, 277n18 Thompson, Robert Farris, 137 Thrift Store Piñatas | Westin Bonaventure Hotels and Suites, pl. 62 Tierney, Cristin, 5, 6, 30 Times Mirror Foundation, 60 Toivanen, Kati, 276n14 traveling exhibition program (CAA), 30, 33–39, 146, 260n12, 261n25; educational purpose of, 33–36; funding of, 36, 39, 261n15; reception of, 37–39 Tremaine Foundation, 134 Troy, Nancy J., 63, 64, 66, pl. 35 Truman, Harry S., 227 Tselos, Dimitris, 101, 184 Tucker, Marcia, 218 Tufts University, 206 underrepresented groups, 113, 134, 141, 144, 197, 215, 217, 232, 286n92 UNESCO, 27, 28–29, 43, 220, 231–232, 259n31, pl. 52 University Microfilms, Inc., 185–186, 187 University of Buffalo, 183 University of California at Berkeley, 112, 144, 192 University of Chicago, 183
Index ∏ 327 University of Delaware, 147 University of Georgia, 147 University of Illinois, 22, 128, 139, 147 University of Iowa, 105 University of Kansas, 195 University of Michigan, 185 University of North Texas, 152 University of Oregon, 144, 195 University of Pennsylvania, 147 University of Rochester, 143 University of Texas, 151 University of the Arts, Philadelphia, 147 University of Vermont, 144 University of Washington Press, 82 “Untitled” (Gilliam), pl. 44 Upjohn, Everard M., 188 U.S. Information Agency (USIA), 44, 228 Utne (periodical), 68, 80 Vance, Kelli, 152 Veblen, Thorsten, 11 Venice Biennial, 39 Veysey, Laurence, 14 Vietnam War, 16, 107, 192, 200, 229–230 Village Voice, 150 The Visual Arts in Higher Education, 156–157, 169–177 visual resources, 171, 172, 181–192; and Academic Image Cooperative (AIC), 189–190; and CAA annual conference, 107, 282n38; and copyright, 181, 183, 187, 190–192; and digital media, 189–190; and Educational Lantern Slide Project, 186–189; and Microfilm Slide Project, 184–186; and photographs, 171, 172, 182–183, 280n5; and threedimensional reproductions, 181 Visual Resources Association (VRA), 281n11 Vitiello, Stephen, 150, 277n19, pl. 60 vocational training, 15, 20, 42, 165 Vogt, Erika, pl. 33 von Erffa, Helmut, 184 Wageman, Virginia, 61, pl. 35 Wallace, Brian, 148 Wallach, Alan, 143
Wall Street Journal, 122, 232 Walsh, John, 136, pl. 50 Warburg, Aby, 57 Ward, Clarence, 184 Warhol Foundation, 143 Watanabe, Micki, 277n18, pl. 59 Waters, Donald, 190 Watrous, James S., 105 Wayne, June, 215 Wayne State University, 146 Weart, Kimi, 277n21 Web site, CAA, 42, 85 Weems, Jason, pl. 33 Weil, Rose, 1–2, 76, 77, 118, 123, 189, 207, pl. 26 Weil-Garris Brandt, Kathleen, 64, 65 Weinberger, Martin, 56 Weintraub, Annette, 148, 276n14 Weisberg, Ruth, 78, 136, 212, 215, 217, pl. 28, pl. 30 Weismann, Donald E., 188 Weitzmann, Kurt, 56, 136 Wellesley College, 60, 139, 167 Welsh, Isabel, 112 Westermann, Mariët, 173 Western Drawing and Manual Training Association (WDMTA), 3, 21–22, 50, 91, 145, 157, 257nn8–9 Western Reserve University, 36 What Business Are You In? exhibition, 150 Wheatley, Steven C., 4, 5 White, Barbara Ehrlich, 206 Whitehall, Jonathan, 150, 277n21 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 43, 44, 202 Whitney Studio Club, 72 Wight, Gail, 150 Wildenstein Gallery, pl. 21 Wilder, Elizabeth, 140 Wiley, William, pl. 38 Wilkinson, Jeanne C., 147 Williams, Mary F., 140 Williams, Rosemary, 277n19 Williams, William T., 112 Williams College, 143, 272n2 Williams Foundation, 143 Willis, Deborah, 148, pl. 58
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Wilson, Fred, 143 Wilson, Martha, 143 Wilson, Risë, pl. 33 Wind, Edgar, 56 Wingert, Paul S., 188 Winter, Irene, 214 Witt, Robert, 183 Womanhouse project at Cal Arts, 203 Woman’s Art Journal, 63 women, in CAA: and annual conference, 111–112, 117, 209; and awards, 137, 222; and board of directors, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200–201, 204–205; and committees, 131, 137, 198, 200–201, 201–205, 218–219, 222, 273n10, 284n47; and exhibitions, 201; number of, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200–201, 207–208; and organizational reform, 200–201, 202–213, 221–222; and placement services, 131, 207; and publications, 64, 196, 211; and Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA), 31, 64, 111–112, 117, 202, 203, 204–213, 230 Women Artists: 1550–1950 exhibition, 203 Women Artists in Revolution (WAR), 202 Women in the Arts, 202, 203
Women’s Caucus for Art (WCA), 31, 64, 75, 111–112, 117, 131, 202, 204–213, 230 Woodstock Art Conference, 43 Woodward, William, 21–22, 91, 254n5, 258n16 Worcester Art Museum, 38, 39 workforce, academic, 16, 17 Works Progress Administration (WPA), 39, 97, 145–146 World War I, 52, 94, 95, 99 World War II, 62, 98–99, 131, 137, 226–227 Wortzel, Adrianne, 148, 276n14 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 101 Wyeth Foundation, 25, 47, 143 Yale University, 139, 219 Yenawine, Philip, 148 Yoshimoto, Midori, 137 Young, Carey, 277n20 Young, Donald J., 169 Young Girl Sewing (Asselin), pl. 12 Zellen, Jody, 277n18 Zweig, Janet, 148, 276n14, pl. 58
credits
The College Art Association and Rutgers University Press thank the following individuals and institutions for permission to reproduce the illustrations in this volume. Plate 1. Courtesy of the Science, Industry & Business Library, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundation. Plate 2. Courtesy of the Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Missouri. Plate 3. From CAA News, 1978. Plate 4. After Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Record of the Class of 1904, Yale College, edited by H. Stebbins, Jr. (Brattleboro, Vt.: Hildredth, 1930). Fig. 34 in The Early Years of Art History in the United States: Notes and Essays on Departments, Teaching, and Scholars, edited by Craig Hugh Smyth and Peter M. Lukehart ([Princeton, N.J.]: Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, 1993). Plate 5. Fig. 96 in The Early Years of Art History in the United States (see Plate 4). Plate 6. Courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries. Plate 7. Photograph by Paul Cordes. Courtesy of the Harvard Art Museum Archives. Plate 8. Courtesy of the Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College. Plate 9. Courtesy of the New York University Archives, Photographic Collection. Plate 10. Fig. 5 in The Early Years of Art History in the United States (see Plate 4). Plate 11. Photograph by Ned Harris. Plate 12. Cover of Parnassus 2, no. 4 (Oct. 1930). Plate 13. Cover of Parnassus 4, no. 5 (Oct. 1932). Plate 14. Courtesy of John Bigelow Taylor. Plate 15. Fig. 99 in The Early Years of Art History in the United States (see Plate 4). Plate 16. Courtesy of the New York University Archives, Photographic Collection. Plate 17. Photograph by Renate Ponsold. Plate 18. Photograph by Tom Jimison. Plate 19. Courtesy of the Lamar Dodd School of Art. Plate 20. Courtesy of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Plate 21. Courtesy of the New York University Archives, Photographic Collection. Plate 22. Photograph by Bob Bernard. Plate 23. Courtesy of Linda A. Cicero/Stanford University News Service. Plate 24. Courtesy of the Bryn Mawr College Library.
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∏ Credits
Plate 25. Photograph by Doug Koch. Courtesy of The University of Kansas. Plate 26. Photograph by Minerva Navarrete. From CAA News (Spring 1986). Plate 27. Photograph by Ann P. Meredith. Plate 28. Photograph by Cindy Tsukamoto. Courtesy of Cindy Tsukamoto and Ruth Weisberg. Plate 29. Photograph by George Holzer. Courtesy of the Nancy Graves Foundation. Plate 30. From CAA News (Nov./Dec. 1994). Plate 31. From CAA News (Mar./Apr. 1998). Plate 32. From CAA News (Jan. 2003). Courtesy of Luis Valdovino, Paola Nogueras, Joan Marter, Mary Lou Duff, James Prinz, and Christine L. Sundt. Plate 33. From CAA News (Jan. 2004). Courtesy of Michael Foster, Ron Warner, and Shannon Ebner. Plate 34. © Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington. Plate 36. Photograph by Jen Lehe. Courtesy of Lucy Freeman Sandler. Plate 37. Photograph by Rob Amory. Plate 38. Photograph by Marianne Fineberg. Courtesy of the collection of Jonathan Fineberg. Plate 39. Photograph by Jeff Beers for Tufts University. © 2007 Trustees of Tufts College. Plate 40. Photograph by Jacqueline Vavrick Crockett. Plate 41. Photograph by Blaise Tobia in collaboration with Harold Olejarz. Plate 42. Photograph by Kirk Tuck. Plate 43. Photograph by John Kopp. Plate 44. Photograph by Alfonso Merlini. Plate 45. Photograph by Rita Salpietro. Plate 46. Photograph by Maria Politarhos. Plate 48. Photograph by Molly Blieden. Plate 49. Photograph by Karen Robbins. From CAA News (Mar./Apr. 1994). Plate 50. © J. Paul Getty Trust. Plate 51. Photograph by Teresa Rafidi. Plate 52. © UNESCO / Michel Claude. Plate 57. © Faith Ringgold. Plate 58. Courtesy of Robert Rindler and the Cooper Union School of Art. Plate 59. Photograph by Reynard Loki. Courtesy of Rachel Gugelberger. Plate 60. Photograph by Mark Woods. Courtesy of John Thomson, Director Foxy Productions, New York, and Rhizome, an affiliate of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Plate 61. Photograph by Robert Lee Crosby for the University of Texas at Arlington. Plate 62. Artwork © Bari Ziperstein. Photograph by Brad Marks. Plate 63. Photograph by Teresa Rafidi. Plate 64. Photograph by Jon Naar.
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