ART HISTORY FACULTY

A former student writes, "I appreciate the individual attention given to each of the students. (The professors are) very enthusiastic about the material and really want students to understand the reasons and contexts for art."

TCU's student-faculty ratio of 15:1 allows you to work closely with professors committed to teaching excellence and active scholarship in their fields of expertise.

BABETTE
BOHN

Babette Bohn (Professor) is a specialist in Italian art, with a Ph.D from Columbia University, an M.A. from Boston University, and a B.A. from Northwestern University.  She has published widely on Bolognese prints, drawings, and paintings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including Ludovico Carracci and the Art of Drawing (2004).  Other publications have focused on the women artists of Bologna and on the portrayal of Old Testament and Apocryphal heroines in Italian art.  In 2008, she prepared an exhibition for the Uffizi Gallery on drawings by Guido Reni and his followers, for which she also wrote the catalogue.  She is currently co-curating an exhibition on the Italian painter and draftsman Federico Barocci that will travel to Urbino, St. Louis, and London in 2012. Dr. Bohn has received both the Dean’s Teaching Award and the College of Fine Arts’ Teaching Award.  She teaches courses on European Renaissance and Baroque art, Women and the Visual Arts, the History of the Print, and Drawing as Artistic Invention. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and the Villa I Tatti.
Curriculum Vitae
Contact via email: b.bohn@tcu.edu

FRANCES
COLPITT

Frances Colpitt is the Deedie Potter Rose Chair of Art History. A specialist in contemporary art, theory and criticism, she holds a B.F.A. (Painting) and a M.A. (Humanities) from the University of Tulsa, and a Ph.D. (Art History) from the University of Southern California. Dr. Colpitt has taught at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Cornell University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Southern California. Some of her recent graduate seminar topics include Postmodernism, Art Gallery and Museum Practices, Theatricality and the Sublime, Abstraction/Representation, Figuring the Body in Contemporary Art, Critical Issues of the 1990s, and Non-Static Media. Professor Colpitt's books include Minimal Art: The Critical Perspective and Abstract Art in the Late Twentieth Century. She is a corresponding editor for Art in America and a regular contributor to artUS. Dr. Colpitt has curated numerous exhibitions, which have appeared in such venues as the Phoenix Art Museum, the University Art Museum (UCSB), Fisher Gallery (USC), Blue Star Art Space, Artpace, and the UTSA Art Gallery.
Contact via email: f.colpitt@tcu.edu

LORI
BOORNAZIAN DIEL

Lori Boornazian Diel (Associate Professor) received her Ph.D. from Tulane University and a B.A. in Art History and Anthropology from Emory University. A specialist in the pre- and post-conquest art of the Aztecs, Dr. Diel’s book, The Tira de Tepechpan: Negotiating Place under Aztec and Spanish Rule, was published by the University of Texas Press.  She has also written articles on Aztec representations of Spaniards and their material culture in indigenous painted histories and on representations of women in Aztec art, which have been published in journals such as Ancient Mesoamerica and Res: Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics. Her recent work on the Manuscrito del Aperreamiento (Manuscript of a Dogging) has been supported through grants provided by the Wenner-Gren Anthropological Foundation and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies of Harvard University.  She teaches a variety of courses focused on the art of the ancient Americas, such as Art of Mesoamerica, Art of Ancient South America, Maya Art and Architecture, and Art of Mexico from 1500 to the present.
Contact via email: l.diel@tcu.edu

AMY FREUND

Amy Freund received her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and her A.B. in Art History from Princeton University.  Dr. Freund is a specialist in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French art.  Her research and teaching interests include politics and visual culture, portraiture and selfhood, the history of the art market, and artists’ materials and working methods.  She is currently completing a book manuscript entitled Portraiture and Politics in Revolutionary France, 1789-1804, which examines the ways in which sitters and artists used portraiture to reformulate personal and political identity during the French Revolution.  Articles related to this project have been published in Eighteenth-Century Studies and in a forthcoming edited volume on portraiture and masculinity in the nineteenth century.  Dr. Freund’s recent research has been supported by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the National Sporting Library, and the Kress Foundation.  She teaches courses in early modern and modern European art, as well as the History of Photography.
Contact via email: a.freund@tcu.edu

SCOTT A.
SULLIVAN

Scott A. Sullivan (Professor and Dean) holds a BA from John Carroll University, and an MA and Ph.D. from The Joint Program in Art History at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Case Western Reserve University.  He is a specialist in 17th century Flemish and Dutch art.  His book The Dutch Gamepiece was published in 1984 and articles have appeared in The Art Bulletin, Oud Holland, and elsewhere.  He frequently and consults with museums and private collectors on attributions.  Dr. Sullivan's research has been supported by grants from the American Philosophical Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.   He currently serves as Dean of the College of Fine Arts and thus his teaching is limited to special problems and individual studies.
Contact via email: s.sullivan@tcu.edu

MARK THISTLETHWAITE

Mark Thistlethwaite (Professor) holds the Kay and Velma Kimbell Chair of Art History. Having earned degrees in art history from the University of California at Santa Barbara (B.A. and M.A.) and University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D), he specializes in the art of the United States, while also teaching courses in contemporary art, modern and postmodern architecture, and the history of graphic design. As a teacher, he has received TCU's Chancellor's Award for Distinguished Teaching, the Honors Program's "Professor of the Year" Award, and a Mortar Board "Preferred Prof." As a scholar, he has published books and articles on nineteenth century and contemporary art, particularly on the subject of history painting. Dr. Thistlethwaite has chaired the City of Fort Worth’s Art Commission and currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Visiting Committee of the Amon Carter Museum.
Curriculum Vitae
Contact via email: m.thistlethwaite@tcu.edu