Throughout the 1950s and '60s Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall collaborated on eight books devoted to photography. Two of these publications stand apart as books which were distinctly commercial in character. The Pageant of History in Northern California (1954), created for the American Trust Company of San Francisco, and Fiat Lux (1967), commissioned by the University of California, are linked by a number of interesting similarities. The ultimate function was identical--to create a work that would reflect the institution's commitment to the State of California. This essay will examine the character of Adams's photographs, Newhall's text, and their collaboration itself. It will explore the decisions and compromises Adams and Newhall were compelled to make between the requirements of the commercial commission and the preservation of their personal agenda of promoting photography as a tool of visual communication.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the bronze sculpture known as the Piraeus Apollo and to establish its date of manufacture. It may be the first known monumental bronze sculpture in Greece, dating to the late sixth or early fifth century, or it could be a second century Archaistic bronze. For this investigation several different methods are employed. First, the archaeological context is discussed by reexamining the excavation history. Then Apollo's place in the canon of Greek sculpture is established using an art historical approach with a focus on connoisseurship to find Apollo's place in the canon of Greek sculpture through comparisons with other Greek sculpture. Previous scholarship is key to this section of the thesis. It is then placed chronologically using the current understanding of ancient bronze casting technologies and scientific analysis. Through this analysis, the Piraeus Apollo arises as an example of the Lingering Archaic style from the beginning of the fifth century.

This research project examines the photographs of mujercitos and hombrecitas in the exemplary Mexican nota roja periodical Alarma!, from 1963 to 1986. The photographs of mujercitos, "effeminate men" and hombrecitas, "masculine type women" (as defined by Alarma!) are not what one expects from a nota roja periodical. Nota roja is a particular news genre for the narration of violence characterized by its gruesome and cruel photographic content. Within these photographs, mujercitos and hombrecitas are shown posing and taking the center stage of the camera for 23 consecutive years. Through an analysis of how the photographs of mujercitos and hombrecitas featured in the nota roja periodical Alarma! inform and participate in the larger national imaginary in relation to peripheral sexualities in Mexico, my dissertation contends that these photographs work as a site of resistance to and a subversion of many different forms of violence in Mexico. Moreover, this analysis reveals a process of subjectivation and subject identification informed as much by class/skin tonalities as by gender/sex. As such, my dissertation maps some of the zones of tension between the main Anglo North American theories of performative gender/sex within the pigmentocratic sociocultural system of Mexico. / Ce projet de recherche s'intéresse aux photographies de mujercitos et de hombrecitas dans le fameux périodique nota roja mexicain, Alarma!, de 1963 à 1986. Les photographies de mujercitos, « hommes efféminées » et hombrecitas « femmes masculines » (définis comme tel dans Alarma!) sont quelque peu inattendu dans un magazine nota roja. La presse nota roja est spécialisé dans une narration sensationnaliste de la violence et se caractérise par un contenu photographique tape-à-l'œil, très cru et souvent morbide. Pourtant ces sexualités périphériques vont s'y mettre en scène et prendre la pose devant l'objectif et pendant 23 années consécutives. A partir d'une analyse sur la manière dont les photographies de mujercitos et hombrecitas publiées dans le périodique de nota roja, Alarma! rendent comptent et participent du large imaginaire des sexualité périphérique au Mexique, ma dissertation soutient que ces photographies fonctionnent comme lieu de résistance et de subversion face à différentes formes de violence au Mexique. En outre, cette analyse révèle un processus de subjectivation et d´identification du sujet, défini aussi bien à partir de la classe social /tonalité de peau que du genre /sexe. De la sorte, ma dissertation cartographie les zones de tensions entre les principales théories nord-américaines et anglophones de genre /sexe performatif avec le système socio-culture de pigmentocratie au Mexique.

Histories of North American feminist, queer, and queer feminist art can be traced in relation to a history of the institutions, organizations, and structures that have helped to secure and legitimize feminist and queer art practices. My dissertation provides a queer feminist historiographical analysis of key feminist and queer alternative art spaces in three North American cities, in an effort to both affirm their enduring historical significance and to delineate the ways by which the present day histories of past queer and feminist practices support or challenge the dominant narrative lens through which the histories have come to be read. With focus on the 1970s feminist art movement in Los Angeles, the underground queer art communities formed in New York City in the 1980s and continuing into the mid-2000s, and the burgeoning queer feminist cultural communities working in the present day in Montreal, I show how the socio-political conditions of each place have resulted in divergent paths among the institutions. Putting each history into dialogue with contemporary queer feminist initiatives and interventions, I demonstrate how queer feminism can work, in the present day, both to secure the historical significance of these spaces and to critically engage histories of exclusion as integral to their continued relevance. / On peut retracer l'histoire de l'art féministe, de l'art queer ainsi que de l'art queer et féministe en Amérique du Nord à travers une histoire des institutions, des organisations et des structures qui ont contribué à garantir et légitimer les pratiques d'art queer et féministe. Ma thèse offre une analyse historiographique queer et féministe des espaces d'art alternatifs, féministes et queer clés dans trois villes nord-américaines, de manière à affirmer leur portée historique tout en délimitant les façons par lesquelles l'histoire actuelle des pratiques queer et féministes du passé soutient ou remet en question l'optique du discours dominant à travers laquelle cette histoire en est venue à être lue. En me concentrant sur le mouvement artistique féministe des années 1970 à Los Angeles, sur les communautés underground d'art queer formées à New York dans les années 1980 jusqu'à la première moitié des années 2000 et sur les communautés culturelles queer et féministes émergeantes aujourd'hui à Montréal, je démontre comment les conditions socio-politiques présentes dans chaque ville ont mené les institutions dans des trajectoires divergentes. En engageant chaque histoire dans un dialogue avec des initiatives et interventions féministes et queer contemporaines, je démontre comment le féminisme queer peut présentement participer tant à assurer l'importance historique de ces espaces qu'à aborder, de façon critique, les histoires d'exclusion comme étant une partie intégrante de leur pertinence continue.

Marie al-Khazen was a Lebanese photographer who lived between 1899 and 1983. Her photographs were mostly taken between the 1920s and 1930s in the North of Lebanon. They were compiled by Mohsen Yammine, a Lebanese collector who later donated the photographs to the Arab Image Foundation. Her work includes a collection of intriguing photographs portraying her family and friends living their everyday life in Zgharta. Al-Khazen seized every opportunity to use her camera to capture stories of her surroundings. She not only documented her travels around tourist sites in Lebanon but also sought creative experimentation with her device by staging scenes, manipulating shadows and superimposing negatives to produce different effects in her prints. Within the borders of her photographs, bedouins and European friends, peasants and landlords, men and women, comfortably share the same space. Most of Marie al-Khazen's photographs, which are circulated online through the Arab Image Foundation's website, suggest a narrative of independent and determined Lebanese women. These photographs are charged with symbols that can be understood, today, as representative of women's emancipation through their presence as individuals, separate from family restrictions of that time. Images in which women are depicted smoking a cigarette, driving a car, riding horses and accompanying men on their hunting trips counter the usual way in which women were portrayed in 1920s Lebanon. The photographs can be read as a space for al-Khazen to articulate her vision of the New Woman or the Modern Girl as described by Tani Barlow in The Modern Girl Around the World. In this anthology, authors like Barlow point to the ways in which the modern girl "disregards the roles of dutiful daughter, wife and mother," in seeking sexual, economic and political emancipation. Al-Khazen's photographs lead me to pose a series of questions pertaining to the representation of femininity and masculinity through the poses, reasoning, and activities adopted by women and men in the photographs. The questions which frame this study have to do with the ways in which notions of gender, class and race are inscribed within Marie al-Khazen's photographs. / Marie al-Khazen est une photographe libanaise qui vécut entre 1899 et 1983. La plupart de ses photos furent prises dans les années vingt et trente dans la région de Zgharta au Nord du Liban. Ces photos font partie de la collection de Mohsen Yammine, un collectionneur libanais. Elles sont actuellement conservées dans les archives de la Fondation de l'image Arabe à Beyrouth et sont disponibles en ligne sur le site internet de la Fondation. Le corpus d'al-Khazen est constitué d'un ensemble de photographies captivantes qui représentent le quotidien de sa famille et de ses amis à Zgharta. Al-Khazen saisissait son milieu social grâce à son appareil photo. Néanmoins, elle ne se contentait pas de documenter ses excursions touristiques au Liban; elle explorait également les capacités techniques de son appareil photo en inventant des scènes photographiques et en manipulant les ombres dans l'espace photographique. Au travers de ses photos on retrouve les effets surréalistes qu'elle créait – peut-être intentionnellement – en faisant des tirages de deux négatifs superposés. Dans le cadre de ces images, on retrouve des bédouins et des Européens, des paysans et des bourgeois, des femmes et des hommes se partageant le même espace. La plupart des photos de Marie al-Khazen évoquent les destins de femmes indépendantes et engagées. Ces photos sont chargées de symboles qui suggèrent une représentation de la femme émancipée. A travers le corpus d'al-Khazen, des femmes apparaissent en train de fumer des cigarettes et de conduire des automobiles. On retrouve également des femmes qui accompagnaient les hommes dans leurs excursions de chasse. Ces photos semblent incompatibles avec la façon dont les femmes étaient représentées dans la presse des années vingt au Moyen Orient où les femmes, en général, évitaient de se montrer dans des endroits publiques. Je propose une lecture qui articule la façon dont al-Khazen a utilisé l'espace photographique pour manifester sa vision de la nouvelle femme: la femme moderne comme celle décrite par Tani Barlow et ses collègues dans The Modern Girl Around the World. Cette anthologie représente la "modern girl" qui, selon Barlow et ses collègues, "disregards the roles of dutiful daughter, wife and mother," en recherchant une émancipation sexuelle, économique et politique.Les photos d'al-Khazen m'incitent à interroger de façons multiples la représentation de la femininité et la masculinité à travers le comportement, le raisonnement, et les activités des femmes et des hommes dans ces photographies. Ces questions s'adressent à la sociologie de l'identité sexuelle et se proposent d'analyser la façon dont cette identité est évoquée dans les photos de Marie al-Khazen.

Ben Shahn's 1940 solo exhibition of his so-called "Sunday Paintings" at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York manifested a transformation that had occurred in his art during the 1930s. Both the formal language and the subject matter of his art had changed. I explore in depth the wide variety of contextual influences (political, professional, and personal) that informed this metamorphosis. Specifically addressed is the federal government's political realignment at the end of the New Deal, a paradigm shift in the emphasis of art criticism and artistic practice, and the influence of a "photographic-aesthetic" on Shahn's paintings. In spite of the easy answers offered by critics, historians, and the artist himself, the actual reason for Shahn's new visual language was a complex set of internal and exterior factors, not always directly related, but, nevertheless, all contributors to a condition in which Shahn felt compelled to change his course.

<p> The Late Neolithic (defined here as the LN I of Sampson1993 and Coleman 1992) is both the culmination and the turning point of Greek Neolithic culture from the preceding phases. It lasts some 1,000 years, from approximately 5,300 to 4,300 B.C. The ceramic repertoire of the Late Neolithic period in Greece is a tremendously diverse body of material. Alongside this diversity, other aspects of the ceramic assemblage, such as Matt-painted and Black-burnished pottery, share broad similarities throughout regions, constituting a "<i> koine.</i>" The commanlities, however, are most apparent during the earlier part of the Late Neolithic (LN Ia); in the later phase (LN Ib) phase, more regional variations proliferate than before. </p><p> In the Late Neolithic, all categories of pottery&mdash;monochrome, decorated, and undecorated&mdash;are at their technological and stylistic acme in comparison with earlier periods. While some of the pottery types demonstrate unbroken continuity and development from the preceding Early and Middle Neolithic phases, new specialized shapes and painting techniques are embraced. </p><p> For the first time in the Neolithic, shapes appear that are typically thought of by archaeologists as being for food processing (strainers and "cheese-pots"), cooking (tripod cooking pots and baking pans), and storing (<i>pithoi </i>). More recent research, however, has demonstrated that these "utilitarian" vessels were more often than not used for purposes other than their hypothesized function. These new "utilitarian" vessels were to dominate the next and last phase of the Neolithic, the Final Neolithic (also called the Chalcolithic, Eneolithic, or LN II) when painted pottery disappears from most Greek assemblages just before the beginning of the Bronze Age. </p><p> During the past two decades, there has been much research into Late Neolithic Greece, particularly in Northern Greece (Macedonia). This dissertation incorporates the most up-to-date information from these recent excavations with the older material from sites in Thessaly, Central Greece, and Southern Greece. Since this study draws solely upon published material, both old and new, there are certain limitations to the type of analysis that can be performed. The approach, then, is more of an art-historical and historiographical overview than a rigorous archaeological analysis. It provides an overview of the major classes of pottery (decorated, monochrome, and undecorated) and their primary shapes, motifs, and technological aspects. While it emphasizes commonalities, regional and chronological variations are also highlighted. The technological means of production of vessels, their use, circulation, and deposition are also considered. </p><p> The structure of this paper is that each pottery chapter is devoted to a broad class (such as Matt-painted), which is broadly defined and then more closely examined at the regional level for chronological and stylistic variations. Likewise, a sub-section then discusses the technology of a particular class and its regional and or chronological similarities and differences. When necessary, outdated scholarship is addressed and rectified.</p>

<p> In 2008, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's collection of pre-Columbian artifacts was re-installed in a gallery designed by contemporary artist, Jorge Pardo. The history of these ancient objects dates back over three thousand years, but new meanings emerged and critical issues unfolded when these culturally displaced objects were staged within Pardo's flamboyant design. This collision of indigenous and contemporary cultural narratives is examined on three levels: the problems inherent in the constructed knowledge of ancient objects; the changes that have taken place in systems of ethnographic display; and the critical reception of Pardo's design and its implications in terms of a politics of display. This thesis argues for the need to respect cultural patrimony, but the value of critical awareness raised by Pardo's design intervention is also acknowledged.</p>

<p> "Subtle Resistance: How Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Martha Jackson Resisted Post-World War II Gender Constructions" explores the careers of three women in postwar New York City&mdash;artists commonly referred to as "second generation" Abstract Expressionist painters, Grace Hartigan and Joan Mitchell, and gallerist Martha Jackson. Following the Second World War, the distinctions between men and women, and masculinity and femininity grew. It is in this polarized social field that Hartigan and Mitchell were able to carve out success, claim agency over the formation of their artistic identities, and overall resist the gender constructions that were so pervasive to postwar American culture. Martha Jackson, a Buffalo native who opened the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York City in 1953, played an important role in the careers of Hartigan and Mitchell and ensured continued progress in their careers during the tumultuous 1960s. </p><p> Chapter 1 examines the gendered construction of postwar American culture and the exemplary career of Martha Jackson, an independent woman who challenged traditional notions of a woman's role in society. Chapter 2 explores how Hartigan and Mitchell navigated the gendered tensions of the New York School. Chapter 3 studies how Hartigan and Mitchell's artistic styles reflect their construction of identity in relation to art historical tradition and the use of a controlled expressivity in their work. </p><p> Archival materials from the Martha Jackson Gallery Archives at the UB Anderson Gallery and the Grace Hartigan Papers at the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University, as well as periodicals, oral history interviews and other primary sources provide a new perspective of the social history of the time. With this new perspective, the challenges Hartigan, Mitchell, and Jackson faced become clearer, as do their means of resistance.</p>

<p> This thesis provides a revisionist history of Dutch artist Jan Dibbets's early practice. Jan Dibbets has not yet, been credited in art historical scholarship for his contributions in foregrounding visual experience within Conceptual practice. This thesis offers an additional narrative by suggesting a comparison between his early practice and the work being produced by European artists working in a tradition of visual perception. By studying the contemporary reception of Dibbets's work and Perceptual Abstraction, I argue how traditional art historical boundaries have obstructed a possible reading of this artist's practice.</p>