Graduate Student Symposium: “Modernism Foretold”

Graduate Student Symposium

MODERNISM FORETOLD: THE NADLER COLLECTION OF LATE ANTIQUE ART FROM EGYPT

Saturday, January 30, 1 PM – 5 PM

Register here. 

Registration is free.

This virtual symposium will showcase research by graduate students in Dr. Asen Kirin’s fall 2020 art history seminar course. ​The graduate course and resulting scholarship is focused on the exhibition “Modernism Foretold: The Nadler Collection of Late Antique Art from Egypt,” on view through September 26, 2021. 

The exhibition includes objects dating from the 3rd to the 8th century CE that belong to Emanuel and Anna Nadler of New York City and Palm Beach. The Nadler family has long been one of the most important collectors of Coptic art. Coptic art was made by and for native Egyptians, Greeks and Romans who favored both classical pagan and Christian themes. Fifty-six objects include a marble Corinthian capital with crosses and eagles from the Monastery of St. Menas; two sections of large tapestries used as wall hangings in churches or homes; small textile fragments which originally embellished tunics used in burials; 19 works of sculpture derived from funerary sites; and miniature bone carvings that were embedded into pieces of furniture, bridal caskets and small chests for storing jewelry and other precious items. “Modernism Foretold” draws attention to the history of the collection and to changing perceptions of late antique art from Egypt.

Symposiarch: Dr. Katherine Marsengill (Brooklyn, NY)
Dr. Marsengill received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art history from the University of Georgia, where Dr. Kirin was her thesis advisor. She also has a master’s degree with distinction and a doctoral degree from Princeton University. She is the author of Portraits and Icons: Between Reality and Spirituality in Byzantine Art (2013) and has published articles on late antique art.

Schedule: 

1:00 – 1:15 pm Welcome from Dr. William Underwood Eiland, Director of the Georgia Museum of Art

1:15 – 2:15 Session One 
Noah Dasinger, “Classical Content and Non-classical Form: The Nadler Leda and the Swan Relief and the Theory of Kunstwollen”

Tara Craft, “Tangled Symbols: Exploring Sexuality and Sacred Space through Late Antique Egyptian Hairpins (the ivory hair pin from the Nadler Collection)”

2:30 – 3:30 pm Session Two
Alex Hathaway, “The Christianization of the Classical Architectural Orders: Column and Pilasters Capitals in the Nadler Collection”

Molly A. Stevens, “’Go Down to the Netherworld, Plant Grapes”: The Nadler Bacchus in Context” 

3:45 – 4:45 pm Session Three
Lacy Hamilton, “Marsden Hartley and Coptic Textiles: Late Antique Art from Egypt and Modernism in America”

Charlotte Gaillet, “Writing Authentic Histories: Recognizing the Role of Coptic Art Forgeries within Museum Collections”

4:45 – 5:00 pm General Discussion

Image above : Lions and antelope, 6th or 7th century CE. Limestone relief fragment; architectural element, 12 x 29 1/4 x 2 1/8 inches. Possibly from El Minya. The Nadler Collection. Courtesy of Georgia Museum of Art