History Of Art Education Research Articles

An Illustrative Legacy: Art Education and Zulu “Crafts”

This article addresses the stylistic selection and the reproduction of art illustrations in the publications of John W. Grossert, and situates his work in the history of South African art education...

‘The attainment of a true eye and a correct hand’: Drawing, art training institutions and theories of art education in Cape Town, 1860–1926

This is a study of the early history of Cape Town's institutional art education, from the establishment of the Roeland Street School of Art in the late nineteenth century to the opening of the Michaelis School of Fine Art in the early twentieth. With debate on the purpose of art education continuing into the twenty-first century this is a history with contemporary relevance. The article contextualises South Africa's art education debates at the turn of the last century in relation to corresponding British developments in art education and the accompanying questions as to the aims, constituency and curriculum of art schools and art education. The article argues that an emphasis on drawing is a constant throughout the period, but that the idea of what constitutes drawing changes enormously, paralleling significant shifts in the understanding of who benefits from an art education, and how. From the early period, when the South Kensington system is prevalent, to the later period, when a fine art model inspired by the Slade is instituted, Cape Town sees a change from a model of drawing as part of the general curriculum and a technical aid to a wide public, to a model of it as specific to an artist's education, with narrowly focused themes and goals. The article ends with the new ‘school of fine art’ raising criticism for its anglophile traditionalism, signaling a future of further debate about art education in the colony. In a postcolonial South Africa, these questions can only become more pressing.

Chance Meeting–Street by Leah Wingfield

The art education history of Leah Wingfield, who was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1957,1Leah Wingfield Bio. http://www.habatat.com/bio_popup.asp?ArtistID=77. Accessed July 3, 2013.Google Scholar is widely varied. From 1977-1978 she studied ceramics at the Glendale Community College, in Glendale, Arizona.2Masterpiece Online The World of Art at Your Fingertips. Website. http://www.masterpieceonline.com/bio.php?artistId=10009992&id=16A2-CHDH-6E59&name=Leah%20Wingfield. Accesssed July 2, 2013.Google Scholar In 1984 she studied hot glass at the Pilchuck School in Stanwood, Washington, under Dan Dailey,3Wentz M.R. The Good Grandees by Dan Dailey.Mayo Clin Proc. 2005; 80: 1103Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Google Scholar and subsequently taught there in 1988 and 1990. She also studied design and drawing at Phoenix College, Phoenix, Arizona, in 1985.2Masterpiece Online The World of Art at Your Fingertips. Website. http://www.masterpieceonline.com/bio.php?artistId=10009992&id=16A2-CHDH-6E59&name=Leah%20Wingfield. Accesssed July 2, 2013.Google Scholar Having mastered glassblowing, Wingfield, found working in cast glass to be more freeing. She stated “Glassblowing is more of a sport, where casting is limitless technique.”4Oregon Art Beat: Leah Wingfield and Steve Clements. http://www.opb.org/programs/artbeat/segments/view/836. Accessed July 3, 2013.Google Scholar She frequently collaborates with her husband, Steve Clements,4Oregon Art Beat: Leah Wingfield and Steve Clements. http://www.opb.org/programs/artbeat/segments/view/836. Accessed July 3, 2013.Google Scholar and when describing their collaborative process, commented, “We have to do what the muse tells us…hopefully the muse shows up!” They currently reside in Jacksonville, Oregon.5Leah Wingfield Profile. USA Projects website. http://www.hatchfund.org/user/leahwingfield. Accessed July 9, 2013.Google Scholar Chance Meeting–Street, (26.5 × 14 ×7 in) is one of a series of sculptures by Wingfield, created in her favored medium and technique of carved and polished cast glass. Sculpted with intricate detail and sandblasted for the opaque and muted finish, Chance Meeting–Street narrates an event: two presences brushing past each other, their obvious hurriedness, oblivious to their surroundings, momentarily suspended in the experience of the other. It is intimate and sensual. Movement flows through each of them as gracefully as if they were a pair of choreographed ballet dancers or equally paired figure skaters performing their roles in the middle of a street. Their apparel suggests a blustery day, with the tam and long coat of the gent, and present-day time revealed in the tunic and slacks of the lady. Hands swaying in rhythm to their gait, are they poised for a kiss? Wingfield stated: “My deep, dark secret is that I want to make a Masterpiece,”5Leah Wingfield Profile. USA Projects website. http://www.hatchfund.org/user/leahwingfield. Accessed July 9, 2013.Google Scholar and perhaps has done so in Chance Meeting–Street. A gift of Edward F. Anixter, Chance Meeting–Street is located on the 4th floor of the Mayo Building in Rochester, Minnesota.

Recent Developments in British Art Education: ‘Nothing Changes from Generation to Generation except the Thing Seen’

Developments inside and outside the contemporary academy and the continuing proliferation of free art schools call for serious assessment of those alternative models of art education. While acknowledging the wider global trend in free schools and the context that provides, this paper suggests that an understanding of such tendencies in Britain might more usefully be framed within the recent history of British art education, particularly since the so-called Coldstream reforms of 1960. These alternative models often claim to shift pedagogies towards a broader definition of art education, practice and disciplinarity and to do so through experimental and radical means. Here, as Thierry de Duve suggests, ‘pedagogy itself becomes a kind of strategy’. Yet, despite the freshness and energy of such projects, the sorts of question they seek to address are rarely new. In art historical terms, these developments are often less innovative than they aim to be, less a radical break with the past than an echo of earlier pedagogical practices and models. Therefore, this article seeks to reframe these projects and to reflect on them against a broader art historical narrative, assessing their value as one of the most recent innovations in British art education post-Coldstream.

Discursive underground: Re-transcribing the history of art education using critical multicultural education

Abstract This article proposes the application of three primary tenets of critical multicultural education to assist art educators in re-conceptualizing myopic histories of art education currently dominating the field. Traditionally, voices of those from non-dominant groups have rested on the outskirts of most American art education historical narratives. Critical multicultural education provides an alternative framework as it examines the subjugation of certain non-dominant cultural knowledge and voices. Critical multicultural education re-directs investigations of power as it relates to culture construction and maintenance, knowledge creation and culture fluidity. The objective of this article is to challenge art educators to re-evaluate firmly established historical ‘truths’, and encourage them to recognize a broader audience of voices in order to articulate the cultural complexity of the history of art education.

Negotiating historical interpretation and White privilege in histories of art education

Abstract Frances Euphemia Thompson (c. 1896–1992) taught art education at what is now Tennessee State University in Nashville, from summer 1922 until her retirement in 1969. She was appointed Professor in 1944 and Professor Emerita in 1974. The Tennessee Department of Education published Art in the Elementary Schools: A Manual for Teachers, based on her bachelor’s thesis from Massachusetts School of Art, to help classroom teachers, chiefly in rural African American communities, carry out a functional art programme. I am a White art educator, working in the twenty-first century, carrying the ‘invisible knapsack’ of White privilege. The contents of that knapsack shape my interpretation of Thompson’s art learning and teaching. As an art educator doing historical research, I carry other invisible knapsacks: assumptions about art education, what history is and can be. These values and beliefs contribute to the paradox of historical interpretation. How and under what circumstances did Thompson’s identity as an African American art educator matter in her professional contributions? In order to answer this question and interpret the life experience of African American art educator from the last century, I must unpack my invisible knapsacks. I will compare my White privilege with Thompson’s experiences in the segregated south, and discuss challenges of using culturally and historically appropriate language.

The Barrio Mobile Art Studio: The history of an art education programme for Chicanas/os and Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles

Abstract The Barrio Mobile Art Studio, an educational outreach programme created in 1975 by the art centre Self Help Graphics, predominantly served Chicano/a and Mexican immigrant populations in East Los Angeles. The paper examines the creation of this programme, its philosophy and pedagogy in the context of the Civil Rights Movement and an agenda for equity and social justice. By examining the training of the artists who became the teachers for the programme, and its impact on the population it served, it brings to light a significant aspect of the history of Self Help Graphics: its innovative educational outreach programme, which has particular relevance to Chicano/a studies, as well as to the broader history of art education in the United States.

Art education – mostly for girls?

This article discusses whether and how Art education is gendered, and whether and how the art world is gendered. The history of Art education is briefly described from a gender perspective, as well as some current reports on Art education in Sweden. The article draws on material from a postgraduate study about Art education and gender. Art lessons were observed and pupils were interviewed about their views on art. Based on the interview data, it is suggested that one reason that Art education is femininely gendered is that the subject is strongly associated with expressing feelings. Concerning the gendering of the art world, more women than men are professional artists today. However, due to the fact that there is a male art historical canon, that is taught in schools, the art world appears to be masculine, making ‘artist’ one possible position for boys within art education. That the art world seems masculine while Art education is gendered feminine is an interesting paradox worthy of further investigation.

Creating e-learning History of Art courses in Higher Education

In the last years the number of technological tools and devices at the disposal of art historians is constantly increased. New technologies are changing the way art history is taught or, at least, they have the potentiality to do it. Many of the experiences carried out until now simply replace the face-to-face lecture with online materials or combine in-class experiences with online materials or activities (for instance forums to answer questions submitted electronically or to have seminar-style discussions with small group of students). A most powerful way to use technologies to teach art history is to use them to engage students in new activities and to facilitate them in taking control of their learning. In order to achieve this goals it could also be useful to take advantages of the potentialities related with mobile devices as delivery tools and with game based teaching approaches as methodology. This paper aims to identify the most used methodologies to teach History of Art in higher Education and, based on these considerations, to propose a model to design History of Art e-learning courses for University. The field testing of this model will be done as part of a doctoral research described at the end of this paper.

Simple Minds

When our daughter was born, it seemed a forgone conclusion that she would be an artist of some sort. Her mother and I, both formally trained in the arts, would inevitably guide her down an artistic path with no return. When she was born, I was teaching art and art history to college students. It was decided that I would pause my teaching career and stay at home full time with her until she reached school age. In effect, I would be her teacher.

For One ‘Storical’ History of Arts Education: On the Many Stories of History

The assumption that there are as many histories as there are historians is present in this paper, addressing history(ies) of arts education and some representations of its purposes throughout the past two centuries [1]. Focusing on a topography [2] of arts education’s goals as present in Portuguese literature, the proposed methodology uses fictional narratives to present some of the possible stories in a history of arts education, concerning different ways its existence in school curricula has been both advocated for and criticized. Drawing from a particular set of Portuguese literature on the subject, this way of telling history establishes possible connections between the core group of educators examined and other international authors and thinkers in a rhyzomatic [3] way. This account of a history of arts education is anchored not in a geographical location or a time period, but in particular stories that such a history tells.

Lessons from Prison: What I Learned Teaching Art History in Prison

Lessons from Prison: What I Learned Teaching Art History in Prison

Ulrich Middeldorf prior to emigration: ThePhotothekof the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (1928-1935)

When Ulrich Middeldorf departed Florence in November 1935 to teach art history at the University of Chicago, he left behind at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz the ‘Photo collection – the special pride of our Institute’ in the structure that has characterised it up to the present day. Middeldorf was 25 when he first came to the Institute as a scholar. In the following years he turned thePhotothekinto a modern research instrument, re-organising its classification system and its card indexes as the main finding aid. His contribution to the growth of the collection was enormous, not only thanks to his own donations, but also through the relationship he fostered with the main patron of the collection, Luigi Vittorio Fossati Bellani.

Historical Contexts and Emerging Practices in Art Education

When I began writing this editorial, i was sitting in the Vancouver International Airport in British Columbia, having just spent 3 days with colleagues from across the US and Canada discussing a range of contemporary concerns related to art education.Topics of conversation included the impact of social contexts on aesthetic experience and artistic practice; the expanding power of fear and the role it plays in the lives of students and teachers; and the emergence of do it yourself or DIY influences on art, and more broadly, on the richness of our material culture. These conversations encouraged me to continue thinking about how art education responds to the social forces within which it constructed and practiced. For me, this means that the history and future development of art education cannot be understood and imagined from the standpoint of an objective set of incontrovertible facts. Instead, we must address the diverse ways in which artists and educators see and engage with the world, as well as the forces that enable or constrain that engagement. Whatever understanding we acquire of the or the new pathways emerging in the present always situated within and influenced by the framework of our prevailing interpretations. When responding to the question, What history?, E. H. Carr (1961) wrote that it is a continuous process of interaction between the historian and his [sic] facts, an unending dialogue between the present and the past (p. 35); it a process of interpretation situated in a particular context at a particular time.Forthose persuaded of this contextual perspective, it always useful to study and reflect on the forces that influence our understanding of what art education has been in the or could be in the future. Sometimes untold or lesser-known stories and events can be brought to light in such a way that we change our thinking about art education's and perhaps, re-envision the possibilities for its future.The articles included in this issue of Studies in Art Education address a wide range of topics. However, they all, in different ways, help us to reflect on the social forces that affect what art education has been and what it may become. Two of the articles present research on important moments in the history of art education, while the remaining three set the stage for thinking about how our contemporary stories or narratives will be interpreted and told by art educators in the future. To think about this requires that we consider how current social forces are uncovering and constructing new potentialities and possibilities for the practices of art and art education.In Lowenfeld at Hampton (1939-1946): Empowerment, Resistance, Activism, and Pedagogy, Ann Holt looks at one of art education's most influential figures, Viktor Lowenfeld. Holt interested in an aspect of Lowenfeld's legacy that not usually thematized. Focusing on the years spent at the Hampton Institute in Virginia, Holt positions Lowenfeld's pedagogical engagement as a practice of social justice, grounded in efforts against institutionalized racism.''While doing so, Holt not only focuses on Lowenfeld's work to support his students in the face of well-entrenched racism; she also draws our attention to issues of historiography. Her article challenges us to consider how are created, whose pasts are deemed worth remembering in histories and why, and whose interests are served by leaving out the messiness of political turmoil, cultural conflict, racism, and class discrimination.In a similar vein, Gina Wenger's History Matters: Children's Art Education Inside the Japanese American Internment Camp reflects on the role played by art education during a particular period of political and cultural turmoil. Through archival research and interviews with survivors who were relocated and interned in camps during WWII, Wenger examines the practice of art education within these camps and the role it played in the cultural assimilation of young Japanese Americans. …

Lowenfeld at Hampton (1939-1946): Empowerment, Resistance, Activism, and Pedagogy

Viktor Lowenfeld (1903-1960) has been abundantly documented as having influenced art teaching in the United States. Scarce attention, however, has been given to the significant and remarkable advancements he made to resist structures of institutionalized racism and promote inter-racial cooperation. Lowenfeld was a mentor to several notable African American artists, who participated in his art program at the Hampton Institute, a historically Black college in Virginia (now Hampton University). While recognized in African American art history texts, it has been largely understated in histories of art education even though extant archival materials authenticate this aspect of his career. This article, based on archival research, revises Lowenfeld’s story to include his connection to his African American students whose agency shaped the art world and helped create social change. It also raises questions concerning the collection, documentation, and preservation of the historical record in furthering knowledge about art education that reflects inclusivity, plurality, and social justice perspectives.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF ART EDUCATION IN LATVIA FROM 1890 TILL 1990

Art education is a very important field, as it represents the ethical and esthetical needs of the society and reflects the politics and ideology of the age. The urgency of art education and cultural education is affirmed also by the fact that the year 2009 was announced as the year of innovations and creativity in Europe. It is necessary to research the possibilities the art education can offer to promote the creativity of young people and to improve the quality of art education. The overview of the history of art education gives us the possibility to find connections between different conditions as well as examples of the best practice. The development of art education is divided into three stages within the period from 1890 to 1990: founding of the first establishments of art education at the end of the 19th century (1890 – 1915), development and growth of the establishments of art education during the independence period in Latvia (1915 – 1940) and changes brought by the time of occupation (1940 – 1990). This period shows the development of art education in three different contexts of social, economical and political ideology, giving us the opportunity to see their influence on the development of the cultural and spiritual life of Latvians. The aim of the research: to gather and analyze the main tendencies of the development of art education from 1890 to 1990. Methods of research: analysis of the scientific literature and sources.

Dismantling a Master Narrative:Using Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to Teach the History of Art Education

(2012). Dismantling a Master Narrative:Using Culturally Responsive Pedagogy to Teach the History of Art Education. Art Education: Vol. 65, No. 5, pp. 6-10.

The Difficulties of Naming White Things

In considering Kobena Mercer’s four-volume edited series Annotating Art’s Histories (2004–8), Eddie Chambers sets out to critique the often unspoken but nevertheless hegemonic and complicated racial hierarchies that exist across many of the country’s universities, with particular reference to the teaching of art history. Chambers explores why certain subjects or disciplines must, apparently, have their content racially signified by prefixes, such as African American art, African diaspora art, and so on, while supposedly more elevated disciplines within art history are allowed to exist in largely racially unfettered contexts, or contexts in which the racial dimension is coded, presumed, and understood. For example, how is it that the study of American art of the nineteenth or twentieth century can be taught with no reference whatsoever to ethnic diversity? Such pathologies presuppose the marginality of black artists. Similarly, must this marginality be attended to only by the provision of separate faculty and separate curricula that have the study of black artists at their core?

The Role of Family Snapshots in Teaching Art History Within a Dialogic Pedagogy

The Role of Family Snapshots in Teaching Art History Within a Dialogic Pedagogy

Transformative shifts in art history teaching: the impact of standards‐based assessment

This article examines pedagogical shifts in art history teaching that have developed as a response to the implementation of a standards‐based assessment regime. The specific characteristics of art history standards‐based assessment in the context of New Zealand secondary schools are explained to demonstrate how an exacting form of assessment has led teachers to transform their practices to target precise assessment outcomes. The article also examines the complexities of facilitating effective learning for a skills‐focused assessment programme alongside an existing and demanding art history content prescription, and discusses how assessment has, unintentionally, created shifts in the knowledge expectations of both students and teachers. Learning activities are included to illustrate how a high level of precision in alignment between assessment and pedagogy has the potential to enhance understanding in relation to standards‐based achievement.