Kathryn Brush
{{short description|Canadian professor of visual arts}}
{{distinguish|Katharine Brush}}
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| name = Kathryn Brush
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| occupation = Art historian
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| spouse = {{marriage |John Shearman| 1998 |end=d. 2003}}
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| education = B.A., Art History and German, McMaster University
M.A., PhD., Art History, Brown University
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| thesis_title = The West Choir Screen at Mainz Cathedral: Studies in Program, Patronage and Meaning
| thesis_url = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/33878590_The_west_choir_screen_at_Mainz_cathedral_studies_in_program_patronage_and_meaning
| thesis_year = 1987
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| discipline = Art history
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| workplaces = University of Western Ontario
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| main_interests = medieval art and architecture; history of museums and collecting; historiography{{cite web |title=UWO Faculty Pages|url=https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/about/facultypages/brush_k.html |website=uwo.ca/visarts/about |access-date=October 14, 2020}}
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Kathryn Louise Brush {{post-nominals|list=FRSC}} is a Canadian art historian. She is Distinguished University Professor Emerita at the University of Western Ontario, and was the first professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Western Ontario to be named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.{{cite web |title=Emerita & Retired Faculty |url=https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/about/faculty/emeriti.html |website=uwo.ca/visarts |access-date=September 28, 2020}}
Education
Brush attended McMaster University while majoring in modern languages and literature. She spent two years studying in Canada before spending her third year in Europe at the University of Poitiers and the University of Göttingen. Following this, she changed her major to Art History and German for her Bachelor of Arts at McMaster University in 1978, and subsequently earned her MA (1982) and PhD (1987) in Art History at Brown University.{{cite web |last1=Mayne |first1=Paul |title=Brush named to top professor honour |url=https://news.westernu.ca/2017/03/brush-named-top-professor-honour/ |website=news.westernu.c |access-date=May 7, 2019 |date=March 23, 2017}} Her dissertation under Kermit Champa there was titled "The West Choir Screen at Mainz Cathedral: Studies in Program, Patronage and Meaning."{{cite web |title=The west choir screen at Mainz cathedral: studies in program, patronage and meaning |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/33878590 |website=researchgate.net |access-date=May 7, 2019}}
Career
After graduating from Brown University, Brush became the first woman hired for a full-time position in Art History at the University of Western Ontario in 1987.{{cite web |title=University of Western Ontario Detailed Faculty Information |url=https://arthistoryincanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/UWO_Detailed-Faculty-Data.pdf |website=arthistoryincanada.ca |access-date=May 9, 2019 |archive-date=May 8, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190508223523/https://arthistoryincanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/UWO_Detailed-Faculty-Data.pdf |url-status=dead }}{{cite web |last1=Lennon |first1=Madeline |title=When the face of campus changed |url=https://news.westernu.ca/2018/01/face-campus-changed/ |website=news.westernu.ca |access-date=May 7, 2019 |date=January 25, 2018}} She earned research fellowships at Harvard University, Princeton University, and the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich.{{cite web |title=Kathryn Brush |url=https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/about/facultypages/brush_k.html |website=uwo.ca |access-date=May 7, 2019}} Her work has also been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung.{{cite web |title=UWO Faculty Pages|url=https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/about/facultypages/brush_k.html |website=uwo.ca/visarts/about |access-date=September 28, 2020}} In 1996 she published her first monograph, The Shaping of Art History: Wilhelm Vöge, Adolph Goldschmidt, and the Study of Medieval Art, which analyzed the work of two of the most influential German scholars of medieval visual culture during the years from 1885 to 1915, when art history was first institutionalized as a university discipline.{{cite web |title=The Shaping of Art History|url=http://services.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/arts-theatre-culture/western-art/shaping-art-history-wilhelm-voge-adolph-goldschmidt-and-study-medieval-art?format=PB&isbn=9780521147620 |website=services.cambridge.org |access-date=September 28, 2020}} In 2003, she published Vastly More than Brick and Mortar: Reinventing the Fogg Art Museum in the 1920s through Yale University Press, a book which described, in detail, the history of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University and its place in the development of formalized art study and museum practice in the US and the international domain.{{cite journal |last1=O'Laoghaire |first1=Niamh |title=Vastly More Than Brick and Mortar: Reinventing the Fogg Art Museum in the 1920s (review) |journal=University of Toronto Quarterly |date=Winter 2006 |volume=75 |pages=373–375 |doi=10.1353/utq.2006.0175 |s2cid=162328672 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/193534/summary}}
In 2010, Brush was the curator for a SSHRC-funded exhibition on "Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier". The exhibition and accompanying essay volume explored the concept of "medieval" Canada, considering the technologies developed by Indigenous peoples before 1500, the medieval notion of "wilderness" grafted onto Canada's landscape by European colonists, and the medievalisms of Canada's iconic Group of Seven.{{cite web |title=Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier |url=https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/research/mapping/index.html |website=uwo.ca/visarts/research |access-date=Oct 14, 2020 }}{{cite web |title=Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier |url=https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/research/mapping/index.html |access-date=2022-09-20}}
In 2013, Brush was awarded the university's Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching{{cite web |last1=Winders |first1=Jason |title=2012–13 Awards for Excellence in Teaching |url=https://news.westernu.ca/2013/03/2012-13-awards-for-excellence-in-teaching/ |website=/news.westernu.ca |access-date=May 7, 2019 |date=March 21, 2013}} and was a candidate as a councillor of the Medieval Academy of America.{{cite web |title=Slate of Candidates for MAA Election 2013 |url=https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/2012Ballot/Slate-of-Candidates-for-MAA-Election-2013.htm |website=medievalacademy.org |access-date=May 7, 2019}} Two years later, Brush was one of three professors from the University of Western Ontario named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and thus became the first Visual Arts professor from the university to be elected.{{cite web |last1=Mayne |first1=Paul |title=Trio of scholars named to Royal Society of Canada |url=https://news.westernu.ca/2015/09/trio-of-scholars-named-to-royal-society-of-canada/ |website=news.westernu.ca|access-date=May 7, 2019 |date=September 8, 2015}} In 2017, she was named an Distinguished University Professor and awarded the 2017 Hellmuth Prize for Achievement in Research.{{cite web |last1=Mayne |first1=Paul |title=Hellmuth Prize celebrates elite researchers |url=https://news.westernu.ca/2017/05/hellmuth-celebrates-elite-researchers-2/ |website=news.westernu.ca |access-date=May 7, 2019 |date=May 10, 2017}} The following year she collaborated with Joanne Bloom to curate an exhibition at Harvard University's Fine Arts Library called "Camera Woman Along the Medieval Pilgrimage Roads" which focused on the early 20th-century photographer Lucy Wallace Porter (1876–1962).{{cite web |title=Camera Woman Along the Medieval Pilgrimage Roads |url=https://library.harvard.edu/events/camera-woman-along-medieval-pilgrimage-roads |website=library.harvard.edu |access-date=May 7, 2019}} She is currently writing a book on the life and scholarly imagination of the legendary Harvard medievalist Arthur Kingsley Porter (1883–1933).{{cite web |title=UWO Faculty Pages|url=https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/about/facultypages/brush_k.html |website=uwo.ca/visarts/about |access-date=October 14, 2020}}
Personal life
Brush was married in 1998 to John Shearman, professor of Italian Renaissance art at Harvard University,{{cite web |last1=Gewertz |first1=Ken |title=Obituary: John Shearman |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2003/09/obituary-john-shearman/ |website=news.harvard.ed |access-date=May 7, 2019 |date=September 18, 2003}} until his death in August 2003.
Publications
The following is a list of publications:{{cite web |title=au:Brush, Kathryn. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3ABrush%2C+Kathryn.&qt=results_page |website=worldcat.org |access-date=May 7, 2019}}
- Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings (co-editor) (1995)
- The Shaping of Art History: Wilhelm Vöge, Adolph Goldschmidt, and the Study of Medieval Art (1996)
- Vastly More than Brick and Mortar: Reinventing the Fogg Art Museum in the 1920s (2004)
- Mapping Medievalism at the Canadian Frontier (2010)
- Numerous articles in North American and European journals and essay volumes
References
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Category:Academic staff of the University of Western Ontario
Category:McMaster University alumni
Category:Brown University alumni
Category:Canadian art historians
Category:20th-century Canadian women writers
Category:20th-century Canadian non-fiction writers
Category:21st-century Canadian women writers
Category:21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers
Category:Canadian women non-fiction writers
Category:Canadian women academics
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada