art history

July 6, 2021

Seeing myself in a 125-year-old photograph

I'm a computer science major, but it was an art history class that shaped how I understand our complex and broken world, and also allowed me to better know myself as an Asian American.

November 12, 2020

A new face teaches American portraiture

Assistant Professor Juliet Sperling, pictured here, began teaching American art history at the University of Washington this fall. She took us on a tour of U.S. history by looking at 18 portraits over four centuries.

March 1, 2009

Just call her a scholar

Ellen Dissanayake is working in a field she invented: evolutionary aesthetics, the study of art-making as an innate human behavior that helps us survive.

Evolution of art

Ellen Dissanayake came up with a paradigm-changing theory: Art-making evolved as a behavior that contained advantages for human survival-and those advantages went far beyond what Charles Darwin ever imagined.

The healing arts

Last fall, the UW School of Medicine and the Henry Art Gallery teamed up to offer a new course to help medical students develop their diagnostic skills by visiting art museums.

June 1, 2005

Dream weaver

From Lever House to the White House, from Fallingwater to the Louvre, Jack Lenor Larsen’s fabrics have graced the world’s most inspiring spaces.

December 1, 2000

Hermann Pundt, 1927-2000

Hermann Pundt was a professor of architecture and art history at the University of Washington for 32 years.

September 1, 2000

Jacob Lawrence, 1917-2000

Jacob Lawrence rose from a rough childhood to become one of America's most passionate chroniclers of the African-American experience.