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Professor of Art History

Renaissance, Baroque
and Nineteenth Century Art

A founding member of the Art History program, Dr. Beckwith's interests in Italian, French, British,and North American art and architectures of the fifteenth to the early twentieth century involve interdisciplinary studies of the visual arts and their cultural contexts. Dr. Beckwith holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, an M.A. from Brown University, a B.A. from the University of Rochester and a Diploma di Proffito from the University of Florence. She teaches the Renaissance, Baroque, Nineteenth Century, and occasionally the North American Architecture components of the art history curriculum at Providence College.

INTERESTS AND RESEARCH

Current research: An exhibition for the John Hay Library at Brown University and the Sacramento Public Library, "Illustrating the Good Life" concerning the books of Lucien and Esther Pissarros' Eragny Press, 1894-1914.

Other interests include the history of design from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, particularly the history of books and printing and the reception of medieval and Renaissance art and ideas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Dr. Beckwith serves as President of the New England Chapter of the American Printing History Association and directs their Oral History Project.

Research Centre in the History of the Book

A book is, more than most things, a compendium of human values. Some of these appeal to the intellect, some to the emotions, some to the eye, and some even to the sense of touch. One can not pick up a beautiful book without inhaling this elixir of creative effort, which is at the same time so stimulating and so gratifying to the senses.

Bruce Rogers, 1870-1957
from a Rowfant Club keepsake, 1954

COURSES TAUGHT

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

"Learning is a demand of the human soul," Martin Brewer Anderson

Good teaching develops student participation in the life of the mind and allows moments of discovery. Conducting classes as friendly, interesting gatherings makes our exploration of the world of art a compelling adventure.

Emily Angiola, Heirophany

[ Bernini, Cathedra Petri, 1656-66. Emily Angiola was a student
in the Baroque and Rococo course before she took this photograph]

SELECTED CURRICULUM VITAE

Conference Papers and Presentations:

"Success of the Eragny Press" for the Bibliographical Society of America Conference, New York City, March 2007.

"Learning from Disaster, Florence 1966" in the session "The Real Art History: Tales from the Trenches and Stories from the Crypts" College Art Association Conference, Boston, February, 2006.

"Voices from Digital Edge: The American Printing History Association Oral History Project". University of London, School of Advanced Studies, Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies. Conference of the Society for History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing. July, 2002. Also at the Museum of Printing, North Andover, Massachusetts. October, 2002.

"John Ruskin and the London Metaphysical Society". Providence College, Conference on Metaphysics, April, 2002.

Book and Exhibition Review Essays:

A History of the Eragny Press, by Marcella Genz, Matrix, XIV, Winter 2004.

April Blood, Florence and the Plot against the Medici, by Lauro Martines, and The Medici, Michelangelo and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence, by Marco Chiarini et al. Providence: Studies in Western Civilization, VIII, no.1 Spring/Summer, 2003, 100-101.

John Ruskin, The Later Years, Providence: Studies in Western Civilization,VI, no. 1 Spring/Summer, 2001, 140-141.

Standing in the Sun: A Life of J.M.W. Turner, Providence: Studies in Western Civilization, IV, no.3-4 Fall/Winter, 1999, 278-279.

After Eden: The Rise and Reform of American Art, 1840-1910, Art New England (January 1997).

Exhibitions:

"Illustrating the Good Life: The Pissarros' Eragny Press," 1894–1914, Grolier Club, New York 2/20-4/28, 2007; John Hay Library at Brown University, 9/5-11/1, 2007; Sacramento Public Libary, 1/5-3/28,2008.

"Speaking for Ourselves: Painting and Poetry from the Women of the Adult Correctional Institution", Hunt Cavanagh Gallery, 2003.

"Christian Continti, Paintings V", Hunt Cavanagh Gallery, 2003.

"Steven Zannini, Random Perceptions", Hunt Cavanagh Gallery, 2003.

Alisa Snyder, "Edge of the Wild," Hunt Cavanagh Gallery, Providence College, 2000.

Apo Torosyan, "Bread Series," Hunt Cavanagh Gallery, Providence College, 1999.

"The John Carter Brown Library, Aldus Manutius, and the Work of D.B. Updike," The John Carter Brown Library, Providence, 1993.

Journal Editor:

Guest Editor for "Spirituality and the Arts," a special issue of the journal Providence Studies in Western Civilization, Winter, 1996. Associate editor 1994- present.

Essays in Monographs:

"Fairy Tales and French Impressionism: Medieval Content in Eragny Press Books," in The Year's Work in Medievalism V, ed. Leslie Workman, Kathleen Verduin and Ulrich Muller,Goppingen, Austria:Kummerle Verlag, 1996, pp. 142-152.

"Pre-Raphaelites, French Impressionists, and John Ruskin, Intersection at the Eragny Press," in Pre-Raphaelite Art in Its European Context, ed.. Susan Casteras and Alicia Faxon, London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1995, pp. 175-190 .

Museum and Library Catalogues:

Illustrating the Good Life: The Pissarros' Eragny Press 1894–1914, New York: Grolier Club.

The Humanist Printer, Providence: Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities, 1993.

Victorian Bibliomania: The Illuminated Book in 19th-Century Britain, Providence: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1987.

Gold Award, Council for the Advancement and Support of Education;

National Endowment for the Humanities Grant to Museums

American Silver 1670-1830: The Cornelius C. Moore Collection at Providence College, ed. and "Cornelius C. Moore, Collector and Educator," Providence: Providence College and the Rhode Island Bicentennial Foundation, 1981.

Bibliography I, co-author Karen Markey, Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University, 1977.

Essays in Reference Books:

"Eragny Press," "St. Dominic's Press," "Vale Press," in British Literary Publishing Houses 1881-1965, ed. Jonathan Rose and Patricia Anderson, Detroit and London: Bruccoli, Clark, Layman Inc. 1991, pp. 109-11, 280-282, 334-336.

"Pierre August Renoir," in The St. James Guide to Biography,ed. Paul E. Schellinger, Chicago: St. James Press, 1991, pp. 658-659.

"Germaine Boffrand" and "Guarino Guarini," two essays in Great Lives from History: Renaissance to 1900, Pasadena: Salem Press, 1989, pp.226-230, 980-984.

 

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