Art History Library
New Book by Henrike Christiane Lange
In this book, Henrike Lange takes the reader on a tour through one of the most beloved and celebrated monuments in the world – Giotto’s Arena Chapel. Paying close attention to previously overlooked details, Lange offers an entirely new reading of the stunning frescoes in their spatial configuration. The author also asks fundamental questions that define the chapel’s place in Western art history. Why did Giotto choose an ancient Roman architectural frame for his vision of Salvation? What is the role of painted reliefs in the representation of personal integrity, passion, and the human struggle between pride and humility familiar from Dante’s Divine Comedy? How can a new interpretation regarding the influence of ancient reliefs and architecture inform the famous “Assisi controversy” and cast new light on the debate around Giotto’s authorship of the Saint Francis cycle?
Illustrated with almost 200 color plates, including individual images of each scene in the narrative cycle, this volume invites scholars and students to rediscover a key monument of art and architecture history and to see it with fresh eyes.
“Henrike Lange’s book on Giotto’s Arena Chapel changes our view of this key work of painting in Italy around 1300.” – Ulrich Pfisterer, Director of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte; LMU, Munich
“Dr. Lange’s discovery is so all-encompassing and so to the point… It is now possible to bridge the Anglo-Saxon and Italian views of Giotto where once they were thought to be irreconcilable: a great step forward for the field.” – Laurence B. Kanter, Chief Curator, Yale University Art Gallery
“Lange shows how the theme of triumph is at once central and inexhaustible in the Arena Chapel – its structure, imagery, physical presence, context. The book is itself a vivid triumphal procession of ways of seeing, scholarship, discovery, and critical thinking.” – Randolph Starn, UC Berkeley History
“Lange’s discovery is completely new and original: an entirely convincing case built on the foundations of history, literature, philosophy, political iconography, and theology.” – Andrew Stewart, UC Berkeley History of Art and Classics
“Lange has the rare ability to build bridges for the reader with her command of European languages that allow her to translate and integrate the vast libraries of research on Giotto written in different linguistic and scholarly traditions. The very elegance and clarity of her writing suggest that Lange’s will be a contribution of real significance and will have quite an impact on medieval and Renaissance studies.” – Giuseppe Mazzotta, Sterling Professor of Italian, Yale University
“At its heart Lange’s impressive book relays an intensely visual argument. It is a scholarly triumph in itself to explicate the intimate relation – architectural, political, theological – between the Arena Chapel and a famous Roman prototype, the Arch of Titus. All scholars and students of the period will need to engage this powerful historical proposition and its implications for Italian Trecento visual culture. But Lange also finds the full measure of Giotto’s triumph as a painter.” – Whitney Davis, UC Berkeley History of Art
[from publisher’s site]
Henrike Christiane Lange is Associate Professor in History of Art and Italian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Lange completed her Magister Artium at Universität Hamburg, Germany, before earning her PhD at Yale University. The present book is the culmination of two decades of research at sites, archives, and collections across Europe.
Giotto’s Arena Chapel and the Triumph of Humility.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
New Alumni Publications
Check out these new publications written and edited by Alumni from the Art History Department:
Mont Allen (PhD 2014), The Death of Myth on Roman Sarcophagi: Allegory and Visual Narrative in the Late Empire
Patricia Fortini Brown (PhD 1983), The Venetian Bride: Bloodlines and Blood Feuds in Venice and its Empire
Sarah Louise Cowan (PhD 2019), Howardena Pindell: Reclaiming Abstraction (Release Date 11/2022)
Todd Cronan (PhD 2005), Red Aesthetics: Rodchenko, Brecht, Eisenstein
Nina Dubin (PhD 2006), MELTDOWN! Picturing the World’s First Bubble Economy
Robin Greeley (PhD 1996), A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latina/o Art
Anthony Gruden (PhD 2008), Like a Little Dog: Andy Warhol’s Queer Ecologies
Aaron M. Hyman (PhD 2017), Rubens in Repeat: The Logic of the Copy in Colonial Latin America
Stephanie Pearson (PhD 2015), The Triumph and Trade of Egyptian Objects in Rome: Collecting Art in the Ancient Mediterranean
Orna Tsultem (PhD 2009), A Monastery on the Move: Art and Politics in Later Buddhist Mongolia
Karl Whittington (PhD 2010), New Horizons in Trecento Italian Art
Barbara Wisch (PhD 1985), A Companion to Early Modern Rome, 1492-1692
Marnin Young (PhD 2005), Felix Feneon: The Anarchist and the Avant-Garde
Arts/Visual Collections Showcase
Join us for an open house and 50th anniversary celebration of the Art History/Classics Library. We will be showcasing arts-related and visual collections from across the UC Berkeley Library in a book-fair-style event featuring collection highlights and outreach materials. Come and learn about our many arts-related library holdings.
Wednesday, November 16th
drop by anytime between 3-5 p.m.
Art History/Classics Library
Room 308 Doe Library
Art for the Asking: The Graphic Arts Loan Collection Returns With An Exhibition At The Worth Ryder Art Gallery
The Graphic Arts Loan Collection (GALC) at the Morrison Library has been checking out art to UC Berkeley students, staff, and faculty since 1958. After two years of being closed due to COVID, the GALC is back this year with an exhibition on campus and a new way to check prints out.
Art for the Asking: The Graphic Arts Loan Collection at the Morrison Library will take place from August 24-September 30 at the Worth Ryder Art Gallery (116 Anthropology and Art Practice Building). This exhibition includes ephemera and prints from throughout the collection’s history, some of which are rarely seen. Francisco Goya, Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso, Jean Arp, Edward Gorey, Fernand Léger, Max Beckman, Elisabeth Frink, Corita, Carrie Mae Weems, Le Corbusier, Faith Ringgold, and Ellsworth Kelly are some of the artists that will be represented by prints in this exhibition. There will also be sections in the exhibition dedicated to the winners of the Art Practice and University Library Printmaking Award. The reception for Art for the Asking: The Graphic Arts Loan Collection at the Morrison Library will take place from 4-6pm on Wednesday, August 31st at the Worth Ryder Art Gallery.
The purpose of the GALC since its inception has been to put art in the hands of UC Berkeley students (and the best way to appreciate art is to live with it!), so from September 26-30, UC Berkeley students can come to the Worth Ryder Art Gallery and check-out up to two pieces of art from the GALC’s circulating collection to take home and hang on their walls for the academic year. The prints will only be available to students on a first come, first served basis. Not everything in the collection will be available at the Worth Ryder Art Gallery to check-out these days, but much of the collection will. Please note that the Graphic Arts Loan Collection will not be available to staff and faculty members during this time, but only available to UC Berkeley students.
Starting October 17th, faculty, staff, and students can reserve prints from the collection through the GALC website, where more information about the collection can be found. Any questions about Art for the Asking: The Graphic Arts Loan Collection at the Morrison Library or the GALC can be directed to graphicarts-library@berkeley.edu.
Ellsworth Kelly, Red-Orange Over Blue Carrie Mae Weems, Untitled: Trees With Mattress Faith Ringgold, Jo Baker’s Birthday
September’s New Books in Art History
Check out these new books in the subject of Art History. Click the links below for their records in UC Library Search.
Bill Cunningham Was Here Captioning the Archives Carrie Mae Weems
Photography The Selfie, Temporality, and Contemporary Photography The Lives of Images
Art History/Classics Library Orientation Sessions for Art Practice and History of Art majors
Welcome back students! If you are interested in learning more about the wonderful arts library resources, please join us at one of our upcoming library orientation sessions. Current sessions offered include:
Friday, August 26th 3-4
Monday, August 29th 2-3
Friday, September 9th 11-12
Please rsvp at: http://ucblib.link/orientationAHC
Registration will be capped at 20 students. New dates/times will be added to the rsvp form if the current offerings reach capacity. We will meet in the Art History/Classics Library (room 308, 3rd floor Doe Library).
2021/22 GALC New Acquisitions
GALC Website
Artist: Breidenthal, Elinor
Title: Bat Kiss
Date: 2020
Medium: Risograph
Artist: Falco, Robert
Title: La Noche
Date: 2019
Medium: 2 Color Screenprint
Artist: Gui, Emily
Title: Remnant
Date: 2022
Medium: Serigraph
Artist: Hernandez, Hector Omar
Title: Manual Labor
Date: 2008
Medium: Mezzotint on Copper
Artist: Hernandez, Hector Omar
Title: Untitled (Skull)
Date: 2008
Medium: Aquatint Mezzotint on Zinc
Artist: Hernandez, Hector Omar
Title: Yin Yang 69
Date: 2011
Medium: Copperplate Mezzotint
Artist: Hussong, Randy
Title: Intaglio (Test Print)
Date: 2012
Medium: Intaglio
Description: Part of Test Print series
Artist: Hussong, Randy
Title: Lithography (Test Print)
Date: 2013
Medium: Lithograph
Description: Part of Test Print series
Artist: Hussong, Randy
Title: Relief (Test Print)
Date: 2017
Medium: Relief
Description: Part of Test Print series
Artist: Hussong, Randy
Title: Screen Print (Test Print)
Date: 2011
Medium: Screen Print
Description: Part of Test Print series
Artist: Jo, Helen
Title: RIP 2020
Date: 2021
Medium: Risograph
Artist: Mubarak, Cinque
Title: 2350 B.C.E
Date: 2021
Medium: 12 Color Screen Print
Artist: Neeley, Kathleen
Title: Downstream
Date: 2021
Medium: Linocut
Description: Part of The Understory Linocut Series
Artist: Neeley, Kathleen
Title: Moss Lord
Date: 2020
Medium: Linocut
Description: Part of The Understory Linocut Series
Artist: Obata, Chiura
Title: Unititled (Jumping Horse)
Date: 1960
Medium: Woodcut
Artist: Okona, Chinwe
Title: Lunar Landing
Date: 2022
Medium: 4 Color Screen Print
Artist: Oparah, Nkiruka
Title: Untitled
Date: 2019
Medium: Screenprint, colored pencil
Artist: Paabus, Kristina
Title: Passage
Date: 2021
Medium: Monotype
Artist: Ryan, David
Title: When I Was Your Age This Was All Orchards
Date: 2020
Medium: Risograph
Artist: Santamaria, Sergio Sanchez
Title: Bajo el Nopal
Date: 2021
Medium: Linocut
Description: Part of the Dioses y Petates Series
Artist: Santamaria, Sergio Sanchez
Title: Dios Encerrado
Date: 2021
Medium: Linocut
Description: Part of the Dioses y Petates Series
Medium: Woodcut
Artist: Santamaria, Sergio Sanchez
Title: Mascara de Guerrero
Date: 2021
Medium: Linocut
Description: Part of the Dioses y Petates Series
Artist: Santamaria, Sergio Sanchez
Title: Quetzalcóatl
Date: 2021
Medium: Linocut
Artist: Sato, Rob
Title: The Mask Collector
Date: 2020
Medium: Risograph
Artist: Schuster, Julien
Title: Boisson D’Avril
Date: 2019
Medium: Hand Colored Linocut
Artist: Sun, Deth P.
Title: Dark Images
Date: 2021
Medium: Risograph
Artist: Takar, Kenny
Title: Back Peace
Date: 2021
Medium: Risograph
Artist: Westerman, Donna
Title: Valley Oaks
Date: 2022
Medium: Woodcut
Artist: Wong, Anita Yan
Title: Pandora
Date: 2020
Medium: Sumi-e Ink Painting
GALC Website
2021/22 Art Practice & University Library Printmaking Award Winner: Vera McBride
Vera McBride is a 2022 graduate of the Art Practice Department at the University of California Berkeley, and as the winner of the 2021/22 Art Practice & University Library Printmaking Award, two of Vera’s prints, Sinking and Trick of the Eye, have been added to the Graphic Arts Loan Collection that students at UC Berkeley can now borrow.
Below are some thoughts on the prints and printmaking from Vera:
My work largely reflects a preference for process and materiality. Even if I’m not patient, the process of printmaking forces me to be, and in turn I spend more time considering the making and fine tuning for the next step and the next piece.
Topically, my body of work has been focused on a blending of daydreams, memories, and experiences. These have been the core generative concepts behind the works, and while some end up as whimsical musings, others are more literal and technique driven with a specific moment referenced. The pieces often have repetition and pattern in some capacity, either within the work itself or reworking a concept across many pieces.
The Art Practice & University Library Printmaking Award is given to the undergraduate student in the Department of Art Practice who has demonstrated an astute understanding of printmaking techniques, as well as an advanced ability to express themselves through the medium of printmaking. This award was established in 2018 by the Department of Art Practice and the University Library, and is given to one or two students each academic year.
New Books from the Photography Endowed Funds for the study of History of Art and Art Practice
The following selections are recent acquisitions purchased with the Photography Endowed Fund for the study of History of Art and Art Practice. The endowment was originally established in 2007 by our generous donor Richard Sun. Last year Richard bestowed us with a generous gift once again, by adding another $25,000 to his original endowment, ensuring our photography collection will continue to be enriched well into the future. Below is just a sampling of the many titles acquired with the Photography Endowed Fund over the past year.
Polaroid Now Helen Levitt Ursula: Hannah Whitaker
Behind the Camera Imaging Culture Hiroshi Sugimoto: Accelerated Buddha
Alive and Destroyed A Bridge from Darkness to Light The Year that Changed our World
July’s New Books in Art History
Check out these new books and e-books in the subject of Art History. Click the links below for their records in UC Library Search.
Celestial Tapestry The Responsive Environment Воры, вандалы и идиоты
The Story of Scottish Art Tropical Aesthetics of Black Modernism Along the Indian Highway
Ethics of Contemporary Art Disordering the Establishment Arte, Literatura, y Feminismos