News

Over the weekend, nine of us MA students took a day trip across the Berkshires to Catskill, New
York. We began the day at the Thomas Cole House, where we learned about Cole’s artistic
process and saw his work displayed alongside botanical illustrations made by his daughter,
Emily Cole. After a delicious lunch in town, we crossed the Hudson to Olana State Historic Site,
the estate of Frederic Edwin Church. Our guided tour led us through the artist’s eclectic hilltop
home. The Catskill Mountains were obscured by rain and fog, but the natural beauty that
inspired Church, Cole, and other Hudson River

On April 30, 2026, Sarah Zhang, M.A. student in the History of Art and Architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Sophie Combs, Assistant Curator of Art at Springfield Museums, will present a lecture at the George Walter Vincent Smith Museum in Springfield.

Titled A Global Art Form, A Local Collector: Chinese Cloisonné and Asian Export Art, the lecture traces the development and circulation of cloisonné, an enamel technique that moved from the Byzantine world to China, where it was transformed and refined over centuries. Focusing on the nineteenth century, Zhang examines how

The Department of the History of Art and Architecture is pleased to welcome Walid Akef as a new faculty member who will teach Islamic Art and Architecture starting fall 2026. Akef is currently completing his PhD in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University, where his research focuses on the architectural history of the pre-modern Mediterranean world, with particular attention to North Africa, southern Italy, and Iberia.

His work examines landscapes of power in the western Islamic world, especially villa-like estates and their broader cultural and political contexts

Art History Conference In Honor of the Retirement of Prof. Laetitia La Follette, Organized by the Department of the History of Art & Architecture, UMass Amherst

At the March 27 opening of Crossing Narratives at the Augusta Savage Gallery, art and art history student Mirranda Longo posed with works she created in Angel Abreu’s workshop on Percival Everett’s James. The opening also featured a conversation moderated by Augusta Savage Gallery Associate Director Elana Casey.

Professor Margaret Vickery contributed to Reflections on Collisions: The Science and Architectural Solutions to Bird-Window Strikes at UMass, now on view at the UMass Design Building Gallery. The exhibition presents research on bird collisions and campus architecture, inviting viewers to consider both the causes of and responses to these incidents.

Undergraduate Anna Bailey will present at the 2026 SUNY New Paltz Undergraduate Art History Symposium on her paper, “Controlled or Controlling? Interpreting Venus in Paolo Veronese’s Venus Disarming Cupid,” from Professor Monika Schmitter’s Fall 2025 course, High Renaissance and Mannerist Art in Italy.

Caelen Trujillo (HAA ’26) Receives UMCA Curatorial Fellowship and Co-Curates Déjà Vu

Professor Sonja Drimmer is featured in Inside Higher Ed’s article, “Writing Faculty Push for the Right to Refuse AI”, which looks at current efforts by faculty to push back against the use of generative AI in writing instruction and pedagogy. hese ideas are explored further in her 2025 essay, co-authored with Christopher J, Nygren, “Four Frictions: Or, How to Resist AI in Education”, published in Public Books.