Symposia & Conferences

Workshops

Whistler Object Study Workshop

January 15–19, 2018

The Smithsonian’s Freer│Sackler, with the support of the Henry Luce Foundation, invites advanced graduate students and recent PhDs to apply for the 2019 Whistler Object Study Workshop. Scheduled for January 15–19, the workshop provides an immersive, hands-on opportunity for emerging scholars of British and/or American art and visual culture to study the Freer Gallery’s unparalled collection of watercolors by James McNeill Whistler. Following the workshop, participants contribute to a forthcoming exhibition website and are invited to submit essays for possible publication in an online scholarly catalogue.

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Chinese Object Study Workshops

2015–2018

Sophisticated visual analysis is a hallmark of art history and depends on skills acquired through the direct study of objects. These skills must be taught and practiced. Yet as graduate art history curricula have expanded to include training in methodology, historiography, and theory, training in object study has all but disappeared. The problem is exacerbated for students of Chinese art history, whose graduate curricula must also include language courses and related subjects such as religion, literature, and history.

Chinese Object Study Workshops is a program that provides graduate students in Chinese art history an immersive experience in the study of objects. The week-long workshops will help students develop the skills necessary for working with objects, introduce them to conservation issues not readily encountered in typical graduate art history curricula, and familiarize them with important American museum collections.

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