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The first Art History Research Prize was established in 2007. This prize recognizes outstanding achievement in art history research conducted by art history majors at the University of Puget Sound.

WINNERS OF THE 2025 ART HISTORY RESEARCH PRIZE

There were two winners this year

  • Melany Juarez: Minoan Bull-Leaping as a Performance of Masculinity
  • Mariko Uemura: The Fall of Adam and Eve: Renaissance Icons of Gendered Sin & Shame
     

 

WINNERS OF THE 2024 ART HISTORY RESEARCH PRIZE

  • First Prize: Melany Juarez: "Constantine's Imperial Imagery..."
  • Honorable Mention: Eva Hines: “Perceptions of Theodora in the Byzantine Empire.”
  • Honorable Mention: Rhae Schulz-O’Neil: “How the Buddha Helps Us Understand Chairman Mao En Route to Anyuan”

 

 

THERE WAS NO COMPETITION HELD IN 2020-2023

Mary Thompson

2019 Winner

Mary Thompson ’19

Project Title: 
Pubic Hair Untamed: Agency and Primitivism in Modigliani’s Female Nudes (2018)

Project Abstract: 
“Pubic Hair Untamed” explores how a series of female nudes painted by twentieth-century artist Amedeo Modigliani complicate viewership by confronting both racial and gender identities by discussing Modigliani’s studies of ‘primitivist art,’ and the inclusion of pubic hair (a widely omitted detail of female nudes in the art historical canon). Drawing on feminist and intersectional analysis, my research questions the power dynamics forged between viewer, subject, and artist within these works and explores how they construct the way women and their bodies are represented in art.

Past Award Winners

THERE WAS NO COMPETITION HELD IN 2018

 

There were two first prize winners this year:

Kyla Dierking ’17, “Women of the Luncheon: How Renoir Empowered Women through Luncheon of the Boating Party.”
Hannah Lehman ’17, “Graffiti of Innocence in the Syrian Refugee Crisis: Use of Children to Manufacture an Alternative Image.”

There were two first prizes this year:

Adri Fernandez ’16, “The Elevation of Status in Raphael’s School of Athens.”
Sarah McDonald ’16, “Colonizing Art: Museums Past and Present.”

First prize: Louisa Raitt: Representing Femininity in Baroque Spain: The Façade of Obradoiro and the Co-Patronage Controversy
Second prize: Elsa Woolley: Frida Kahlo’s Bed: A Shift From Previous Representations
Third prize: Nichole Lindquist-Kleissler: Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I of England: Representations of Gender, Influence, and Power

There were two first prize winners this year:

Benjamin Block ’14, "A Chronic Tuberculosis: Carl Spitzweg and the Biedermeier."
Tosia Klincewicz ’14, "On Display: Curating the Works of Julia Margaret Cameron."

First prize: Joelle Luongo ’13, "Viewing, Seeing, and Displaying: The Presentation of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Oeuvre."
Second prize: Benjamin Block ’14, "Roman Structure and Ideology in the Garden of Schonbrunn."
Third prize: Liana Hardcastle ’14, "Prayer Rugs and Mosque Architecture."

First prize: Westrey Page ’12, “The Erotic Play of the Aphrodite of Knidos: Mechanisms and Implications of Her Sexual Allure."
Second prize: Katherine Havlik ’12, “Frida Kahlo’s Cultural Syncretism and the Rebirth of Mexico.”
Third prize: Emily Bolton ’12, “Fire Medicine: Catharsis in the Post 9/11 Work of Cai Guo-Quiang."

First prize: Michelle Reynolds ’12, “The Problem of Interpretation: The Mosaic Panel of Constantine IX and Zoe in Hagia Sophia.”
Second prize: Kelsey Eldridge ’12, "The Paris Psalter and the Macedonian Renaissance.”
Third prize: Samantha Kielty ’11, “Lucio Fontana’s Spatial Concept: Expectation—Liberating Dynamic Space.”

First prize: Zoe Fromer ‘10, “A Comparative Study of Mughal Mausolea: From Humayun’s Tomb to the Taj Mahal.”
Second prize: Katie Geracie ‘10, “Death and Marriage: The Representation of the Greek Woman on Athenian White Lekythoi.”
Third prize: Kara Ketchum ‘10, “Feminine Identity in a Changing Mexican Landscape: How Graciela Iturbide Used the Women of Juchitán to Negotiate the Past and Present in Photography.”

First Prize: Lauren Justice ’09, “Interpreting the Outsiders: A Historical Perspective on the Study of Outsider Art.”
Second Prize: Kimberly Achkio ’09, “The Villa of the Mysteries: The Active Cult Life of Women in Ancient Rome.”
Third prize: Rachal Gunderson ‘09, “From Beautiful Boys to Masculine Men: Pederasty and Gender in Greek Vases.”

First prize: Andrew Griebeler ’09, “Within the Turtle’s Heart: A Time and Space Idiom in Maya Art.”
Second prize: Ellison Kuhne ’08, “The Harem: Fantasy and the Orient.”
Third prize: Ashley E. Dowden ’08, “Assertions of Female Power in Medieval France: Queen Blanche of Castile and the Rose of France.”

First prize: Andrew Griebeler ’09, “Visual Polemic and the Mosaics of San Vitale.”
Second prize: Danielle Boullay ’07, “Early Byzantine Marriage Jewelry: Magic and Christianity.”
Third prize: Ellison Kuhne ’08, “Mexico’s Complicated Women: Pieces of an Identity.”