A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

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Margaret MacNamidhe

Associate Professor, Adjunct

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Bio

Education: BFA, 1987, National College of Art and Design, Dublin; MAAH coursework, 1993, SAIC; MA, 1996, and PhD, 2002, Art History, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Books: Delacroix and His Forgotten World: The Lost Origins of Romantic Painting (I.B. Tauris, London, 2015) Reviews Frédérique Baumgartner, CAA, reviewed March 12, 2018, Katharine Rovanpera, Art Libraries Review, reviewed March 2016; Katie Hornstein, H-France, reviewed October 2016, Catherine Marshall, Dublin Review of Books, reviewed June 2015. Press: Launch, National Gallery of Ireland, May 2015; Conversation with Anne Leonard, Seminary Bookstore, October 2015; Interview with Fionn Davenport, "Inside Culture," RTE Radio 1, May 2 2016. Articles: “Rose-Period Picasso: Drawing, Effort, and Habit in Modernism,” non-site 16 (Spring 2015), unpag. “Diderot’s Touch,” The Contemporary Querrelle Between the Ancients and the Moderns, Benjamin Binstock and Mary Stieber, eds., Ashgate Publishing (forthcoming) “Action-inaction: l’anti-spectaculaire chez Delacroix,” Bulletin de la Société des Amis du Musée Eugène Delacroix 7 (2009): 3-10 “Etienne-Jean Delécluze’s Response to Eugène Delacroix’s Scenes from the Massacres at Chios (1824),” The Art Bulletin 89 (March 2007): 63-81 “Introduction,” in Stephen Bann, Ways Around Modernism, Routledge, 2006 “Sigalon’s Poison,” in The Enduring Instant, Time and the Spectator in the Visual Arts, Antoinette Roesler-Friedenthal and Johannes Nathan, eds. (Berlin: Gebrüder Mann, 2003): 81-91. Book reviews: S.Hollis Clayson, Illuminated Paris: Painting and Lighting in the Belle Époque, Nineteenth-Century Studies Worldwide (Feb. 2020); Niamh O"Sullivan, Aloysius O'Kelly: Art, Empire, Nation, Nineteenth-Century Studies Worldwide (Oct. 2016); Susan Waller, The Invention of the Model: Artists and Models in Paris, 1830-1870, French Studies 61 (Jul. 2007): 389-390, Daniel et Marie-Jeanne Ternois, eds. Lettres d’Ingres à Gilibert. French Studies 61 (Jan. 2007): 104-105, Marie-Claude Chaudonneret, ed. Adolphe Thiers: critique d’art, Salons de 1822 et de 1824, French Studies 60 (Apr. 2006): 275-276, Richard R. Brettell, Impression: Painting Quickly in France 1860-1890. Nineteenth-Century French Studies 31 (Spring 2003): 352-354. Selected publications: “Practice, Research, and the Visual Arts,” introductory essay to my edited collection of essays on practice, Journal of Visual Art Practice 22 (December 2024); “History Before Art History: The Flawed Resurrectionist Postnational in Nineteenth-Century France,” in Ian McLean and Charles Green, eds. Postnational Art Histories: What is Postnational Art History? (Melbourne: CoVA x Perimeter, 2023), 93-106. Current project:The Desk-Bound Hand: Drawing in Modernism and After (ms under review, University of Chicago Press). Awards: Jean Goldman Literary Lion Research Award (May 2019); Lorado Taft Award, University of Illinois, 2011, Humanities Institute of Ireland, 2009, Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2004–6, Israel Rosen Prize, 1996, Johns Hopkins Fellowships, 1993-95, Fulbright Scholarship, 1991–92, International Student Scholarship, SAIC, 1992, Ireland Fund Bursary, 1991–93, Greek Government Scholarship, 1989–90, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Ireland, 1988, Norwegian Government Scholarship, 1988. Exhibitions (as artist): Solo Exhibition, Mount Street Gallery, Dublin 1989; Art of the State, Dublin Castle; Institute for European Affairs, Louvain, Belgium, 1999, Arís, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, 1993, Contemporary Irish Artists, Venté Museum, Tokyo Drawings by Five Artists, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin, 1991, Art Inc., Guinness Hop Store, Dublin; Greek and International Artists, Athens, 1989, Germinations 5, Musée d’Art contemporain, Lyon; Frauenmuseum, Bonn, De Beyerd, Breda, The Netherlands, 1989-1990, Guinness Peat Aviation Awards, Trinity College, Dublin. Collections: Government of Ireland (National Concert Hall; on permanent exhibition); Fujita Vente Museum, Tokyo; Joseph Masheck, New York. Selected conferences: Modernist Studies Association 2024; Samuel H. Kress Seminar in European Art, Newberry Library, 2023; CAA 2020; CAA 2018 (Chair of Panel “Theorizing the Gap: Studio Knowledge and Art History") 2015 (Chair of Panel, “The Studio History of Art”), CAA 2014; CAA 2011; UIUC 2010; Humanities Institute of Ireland 2009; CAA 2008; 2007 Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge; 2006 University of Bristol; 2005 International Association of Word-&-Image Studies; 2005 University of Leeds; 2005 CAA; 2005 AAH; 2003 University of Notre Dame, London Centre; 2003 University of Sydney; 2003 IAWIS; CAA 2000; Thirtieth International Congress of the History of Art, London.

Teaching

Thesis Advisees
Riley Gunderson, MAAH candidate (current advisee; anticipated graduation 2025): provisional thesis title, "Banner: noun, verb, adjective, form, medium."
Elise Cabral (MA 2020), “László Moholy-Nagy and the Plasticity of Material”
Elle Tompkins (MA 2019), “The Art of Eating: An Investigation of Contemporary Artists and Designers who Critically Analyze Industrial Food, Marking their Parallels to Gastronomic Social Movements”
Kat Buckley (MA 2018), “Threading through the Interwar: Nomadism, Tapestry, and the Rediscovery of Marie Cuttoli”
Anastacia Davis Bersch (MAVCS, 2017), “Joan of Marquette: Materializing a Religious Ecology”
Lillian Elliott (MA 2015), “Great Scott! Picturing the Past through the Waverley Novels”
Jacqueline Kenyon (MS, Historic Preservation, 2014), “Anna Hyatt Huntington, Laura Gardin Fraser, and Sylvia Shaw Judson: A Comparison of Careers and
Study of Cultural Milieu in Historic Sculpture”

Professional Service
CAA Reviewer, May 2019 (Panels, Papers, Poster Sessions), Annual Conference (Chicago, February 2018)
BAAH Thesis Assessment Panel, May 2018 (with Rhoda Rosen and Annie Bourneuf)
MAAH Workshop Panel, March 2017 (with Daniel Quiles and Annie Bourneuf)

Courses taught, 5000:
“History of Art History” (x 7)
“Histories of Skilling and De-Skilling in Art Schools” (x4)
“Art, Criticism, and Our Modern Life, 1789-1920” (x5)
“Why Divide Up Picasso?” (x3)

4000:
“The Blue Flower: European Symbolism, 1857-1914”
Art History Methods/Professional Practice/ProSeminar (x2)
“Painting in France, 1848-71” (x2)
“Impressionism and PostImpressionism” (x 6)
Diderot and Baudelaire (independent study)

Current Interests

I’m researching histories of compulsory childhood education worldwide. What interests me are the epistemologies of different systems and their emphases on handwriting and drawing.

Work

Jules Michelet: Writing Art and History in Nineteenth-Century France

Postnational Art Histories: What Is Postnational Art History?

A Peculiar Movement of the Pen: Joseph Carstairs and His System

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This writing-intensive seminar is intended for students enrolled in the BA in Art History program or the BFA in Studio with Art History Thesis. The course examines the role of methodology and the practice of writing in the history of art, with topics varying by instructor. It fulfills the Junior Professional Practice requirement for BA in Art History students. For BFA students completing an Art History Thesis, it satisfies part of the Professional Practice requirement; these students must also complete an additional Professional Practice (PROFPRAC) course in a studio discipline.

Must be a BA in Art History or BFA in Studio with Art History Thesis student

Class Number

1075

Credits

3

Description

This course will examine some of the ways in which the forces of late imperialism justified their campaigns of subjugation and the multi-layered ways in which those subjugated came to resist colonial rule. We will consider changes across the 19th century, including those in central Africa (Congo; especially the development of minkisi), Cameroon (particularly the distinctive architecture of Bamun), Ivory Coast (paying special attention to the sculptor Kuakudili) before moving onto Oceania (e.g., New Guinea, Australia, Tahiti), east and south-east Asia, and the Americas (among the highlights here are the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa books of ledger drawings). The arts of 19th-century Europe will not be neglected, but they will be seen through the lens of the distortions and refractions that colonialism produced.
Each study-intensive week, we will paying close attention to readings that take us from Walter Mignolo to Joaquín Barriendos Rodriguez. Frequent visits to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Field Museum with their global collections are a particular feature of this course, and we will make use of the valuable teaching resources offered by other institutions in the Chicago area, including some lesser-known destinations such as the Africa International House and Evanston¿s Mitchell Museum of the American Indian.
This course privileges the practice of writing assignments and actively supports a multi-phased approach to a final submission by offering students a series of late-semester workshops that takes the research findings of the first part of the semester and translates them into polished and lucid discussions.

Class Number

2126

Credits

3

Description

Incorporating daily visits to the Art Institute of Chicago, this undergraduate seminar examines the history of European and American art from the 1860s through the early twentieth century through the focused engagement with objects in the museum collections. Class time is divided between classroom lectures, discussions of daily reading assignments, and museum visits. In all of these, students are expected to take an active participatory role. Course topics are determined in relation to the collections on view, but recurring questions focus on materiality and display.

Class Number

1051

Credits

3

Description

This course address the current prominence of drawing and the histories that led to it. One of SAIC¿s biggest departments has drawing as part of its name; artists across the School pursue drawing as a significant activity. In the world of global contemporary art, an extraordinary variety of work testifies to drawing¿s current status as a free-standing endeavor. This course incorporates visits to local collections of drawing to demonstrate how this variety (across differently abled bodies, across public and private domains) is the result of developments in global histories of art and design over three centuries.

Class Number

1928

Credits

3