Dear HAA Community,
As we head toward winter break, I want to reach out and give you an update on the many exciting things happening in HAA this academic year.
HAA is the first year of a two-year grant from the Mellon Foundation on the theme of Reparative Histories of Art and Architecture. Across the fall, we had visits from three amazing speakers: Nicole Furtado, Nicole Fleetwood, and Ana Ozaki. You can find summaries of the visits on the Mellon grant website: https://arthistories.hcommons.org/. In the spring, we will welcome five more speakers. Please join us for these wonderful events, which are free and open to the public and take place in the Frick Fine Arts Lecture Hall at 4PM. The dates of their visits are:
January 29 - Matthew Rarey
February 5 - Steven Nelson
March 5 - Ananda Cohen-Aponte
March 26 - Dana Katz
April 9 - heather ahtone
Kirk Savage has been a pillar of HAA for more than 35 years. Kirk joined the department in 1990 and received the designation as William S. Dietrich II Professor in the History of Art in 2017. His first book, Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves (Princeton, 1997), broke beyond the bounds of an academic readership to reach a much broader public in an exceptional way and the publication of its second edition in 2018 made the work available as something like a handbook during the renewed monument wars of summer 2020. The impact of his other publications has been similarly wide-ranging and following untrodden paths. His book Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape won the 2010 Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Art from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In recognition of his scholarship, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Science in 2021. During his 35 years of service in HAA, he repeatedly reimagined the structure of the department, secured large grants for the collective good, mentored junior colleagues into positions of leadership, and much more. Professor Savage will be retiring at the end of this academic year, and he will be sorely missed by faculty, students, and staff.
HAA is extremely heartened that this spring we will be conducting an international search for a new colleague, who will inherit the title of William S. Dietrich II Professor moving forward. The last year has been challenging for higher education, and most universities are still very cautious about hiring new faculty. The fact that Pitt has allowed HAA to conduct a search of this prestige in an uncertain environment is a testament to the work that we do and to the trust that the administration has in the future of our department.
I also want to let you all know about a new initiative in HAA. In 2024, HAA entered a partnership with the department of French and Italian to run a study abroad program in Rome . I taught the first iteration of the program, and it was fantastic. To be able to teach the HAA 1025: History and Ethics of Collecting using collections like the Capitoline and Vatican Museums as our classroom was magical. To ensure that the program meets enrollment requirements, we will run this program every other year. In summer 2026, Tom Morton will teach HAA 1025 as well as a course on the architecture of Rome that will count toward the Architectural Studies major requirements.
Working with the department’s Planning and Budget Committee, we have come up with a plan to help support undergraduate students who want to go to Rome by offering six $1,000 travel awards. We are hoping to be able to increase that number to 10 awards using donations to HAA’s fund for the 2026 Pitt Day of Giving. This year, Pitt Day of Giving will occur on February 24, 2026. Please mark your calendars. If HAA reaches certain goals, we will receive matching funds (or other incentives) from the university. So, the more we give, the more we get! We hope that HAA will make a strong showing this year.
Please be in touch with any exciting updates that you have, and I hope to see many of you at the Mellon lectures in the coming months.
Warmly,
Chris