Willamette University Department of Art History

Students with Professor Ricardo at the first annual summer program for Art History in Arezzo, Italy!

After the art history presentations at student scholarship recognition day with six art history majors presenting 18 minute papers each

Congratulations to all of our graduating students! Here are some pictures with some of our senior majors.
We are so proud!

proud to announce that minor Ellie Ossana-Galen has been admitted to American University in Washington, DC for a Master's in Art History, working with Dr. Kim Butler (Renaissance period!)

We are thrilled to announce that the Department of Art History at Willamette University is collaborating with KEMKI Art History Institute in Budapest, a research center for the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, that nation's premier art museum, to offer an annually funded 6-week internship for one of our Oregon majors.

Dept. Chair Dr. Abigail Susik worked with KEMKI and Willamette Faculty and Staff to set up this opportunity, which is generously supported by the WU Art History department and its faculty.

Our first intern is headed to Budapest soon! She will stay for six weeks, researching with KEMKI scholars. All travel and living expenses are covered.

We are thrilled about this incredible new annual opportunity for our students.

It's been a busy year with many many new Art History major and minor declarations!
Welcome to our new community members.

Proud to announce that art history seniors Lilly Thies and Annika Christiansen were nominated for Phi Beta Kappa this year!

Photo from the senior dinner last night, organized by this year's thesis coordinator, Prof. Susik. Great to have everyone together!

Here is the last of our 2026 senior thesis topics!

Lilly Thies
“‘Exist Otherwise’: The Ephemeral Transgender Body in the Self-Portraits of Claude Cahun”

Since the rediscovery of Claude Cahun’s (1894-1954) self-portraits in the 1980s, critics and scholars have remarked upon the striking modernity of Cahun’s gender expression– they wore their hair shaved, sometimes dyed it green or pink, and despite being active in the le***an scenes of Paris in the 1920s, did not clothe themself in the popular uniform of suits and slicked-back hairstyles. Instead, I will argue, throughout their oeuvre, Cahun uses fluid gender expression as a tool to question structures of womanhood, embody ever-shifting theatrical personas, or to escape persecution amidst anti-Nazi political revolt.

Claude Cahun, Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1928. Gelatin silver print, 3 ⅝ x 2 ⅝ in. San Francisco, SFMOMA.

Another 2026 senior thesis topic for you:

Hailey Nelson, “Devouring the Colonial and Digesting the Brazilian: Tarsila do Amaral and the Creation of Brasilidade”

In the early 1920s, Brazilian artists such as Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973) began exploring how Brazil contributed to both international Modernism and national cultural production. In this thesis, I argue that Tarsila do Amaral crafts a new Brazilian national identity, Brasilidade, by culturally cannibalizing European-inspired avant-garde techniques as well as Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian representations in an attempt to portray a diverse racial, religious, and decolonial identity of Brazil, particularly in A Negra (1923), Abaporu (1928), and Anthropofagia (1928). My thesis uses a decolonial approach to examine how Tarsila and other Brazilian artists reconciled with their colonial history.

https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/48/736
Tarsila do Amaral. Anthropophagia, 1929. Oil on canvas, 49 5/8 x 55 15/16 in. Jose and Paulina Nemirovsky Foundation, São Paulo.

Tarsila do Amaral. Anthropophagy. 1929 | MoMA Audio from Tarsila do Amaral: Inventing Modern Art in Brazil. Explore Tarsila's work from the 1920s, when she navigated the art worlds of both São Paulo and Paris, and her critical role in the emergence of modernism in Brazil.