Conference Speakers
Dr. Lana Sloutsky, Conference Organizer
Lana Sloutsky is Curator of Exhibitions and Collections at the Museum of Russian Icons and the Executive Editor of the Journal for Icon Studies. She received her PhD from the Department of Art and Architecture History at Boston University, where her research centered on the role of aristocratic women in preserving Byzantine culture after 1453. Prior to joining MoRI, she was a lecturer at the Museum of Fine Arts, and taught at several Boston area universities.
Dr. Robert Nelson, Keynote Speaker
As of the conference, Robert Nelson is the Robert Lehman Professor of the History of Art at Yale University, but by July 1, 2021 he will be emeritus. For some years, he has been investigating Italian collections of Byzantine art, in the course of studying the fate of an eleventh-century Greek lectionary, Florence Biblioteca Laurenziana Med. Palat. 244 in Renaissance Rome and Florence.
Dr. Ray Silverman, Keynote Speaker
Raymond Silverman, a historian of the visual cultures of Africa, is professor emeritus of History of Art, African Studies and Museum Studies at University of Michigan. His research and writing explore historical and contemporary visual practices in Ethiopia and Ghana, and museum and heritage discourse in Africa. Silverman’s recent work focuses on the visual culture of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His publications include Museum as Process: Translating Local and Global Knowledges (2015), Painting Ethiopia: The Life and Work of Qes Adamu Tesfaw (2005), Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity (1999), and the soon to be published, Ethiopian Church Art: Painters, Patrons, Purveyors (in press) and National Museums in Africa: Reflections on Memory, Identity and the Politics of Heritage (in press).
Dr. Roann Barris
Roann Barris, PhD, is a professor of art history at Radford University whose research has focused on Russian constructivist stage design. Presently she is hoping to write a book on American exhibitions of Russian art in the 20th century. This presentation is connected to that project.
Dr. Christine Brennan
Christine Brennan, PhD, Senior Researcher and Collections Manager, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a specialist in the history of collecting medieval art in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe and America. Another area of her expertise is in Nazi/WWII era provenance research of medieval art. Her most recent work in this area was featured in the Museum’s 150th anniversary exhibition, Making The Met, held in 2020. She holds a PhD from the Bard Graduate Center.
Dr. Derrick Cartwright
Derrick R. Cartwright is Associate Professor of Art History in the Department of Art, Architecture + Art History at the University of San Diego. He is also the Director of University Galleries at USD and the Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Timken Museum of Art. Cartwright has lectured throughout the world and published on a wide variety of American art and transatlantic cultural exchange topics. His previous museum experience includes directorial service at the Musée d’Art Américain Giverny, Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, San Diego Museum of Art, and Seattle Art Museum. Recent publications include Robert Henri’s California: Realism, Race, and Region 1914-1925 (2014) and D. Y. Cameron: Mystic Beauty and Sacred Space (2018). Cartwright’s exhibition Fitz Henry Lane in Castine, Maine will take place in 2023 at the Timken Museum of Art.
Mariam Otkhmezuri Charlton
Mariam Charlton is a graduate student in art history at Hunter College, CUNY whose research interests include cross-cultural encounters in European art from the Early Modern era to the present; the print culture and practices of image-making; construction of national identity through art and imperialism; socio-political aspects of architecture; and the history of collecting and museological practices. Additionally, she is passionate about engaging with contemporary artists from her native Georgia in curatorial and exhibition projects.
Amy Consalvi
Amy Consalvi is the Director of Education & Visitor Services at the Museum of Russian Icons. As an experienced educator specializing in visitor-centered and object-based learning, she develops engaging programming for a wide variety of audiences. She looks for new and exciting ways to connect audiences to the Museum’s collection. She received her M.A. in Museum Education from Tufts University and her B.A. in American Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. She previously held positions at the Concord Museum and the Lowell National Historical Park.
Clare Elliott
Clare Elliott is Associate Research Curator at the Menil Collection, Houston, where she has organized exhibitions and contributed to catalogues since 2003. Elliott received her M.A. in the history of art from Williams College in Massachusetts.
Dr. Jelena Erdeljan
Jelena Erdeljan, Full Professor at the Department of Art History, Faculty of Philosophy, at the University of Belgrade, is the author of monographs, studies, and edited volumes on aspects of visual culture of the medieval and early modern period, with a special focus on the Balkans and the Mediterranean world. Professor Erdiljan was decorated Kavayera del Ladino for promoting Sephardic studies.
Laura Garrity-Arquitt
Laura Garrity-Arquitt has been the Registrar at the Museum of Russian Icons since 2010. She graduated from Regis College in 2008 having studied History and Museum Studies.
Dmitry Gurevich
Independent researcher Dmitry Gurevich specializes in the research and attribution of the artifacts pertaining to the Christian faith. He co-curated the exhibitions Opulence Rediscovered: The Romanov Liturgical Silver (2019) and Tradition & Opulence: Easter in Imperial Russia (2020) at the Museum of Russian Icons, presented at academic conferences, and authored scholarly texts for books, catalogs, journals, and museum publications
Dr. Louise Hardiman
Dr. Louise Hardiman is an independent scholar specializing in Russian and Soviet art and the history of British-Russian cultural exchange. Her publications include two co-edited volumes: Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art: New Perspectives (2017) and Abramtsevo and its Legacies: Neo-national Art, Craft, and Design (2019). In 2021 she will be teaching a course on Modernism in Russian and Soviet Art at the University of Cambridge.
Dr. Mihaela D. Leonida
Professor of Chemistry at Fairleigh Dickinson University, in Teaneck, New Jersey, Dr. Mihaela D. Leonida teaches Biochemistry, Enzymology, and Science and Art. She has authored and co-authored 12 books and chapters in books, 75 journal papers, and has presented at numerous national and international venues.
Dr. Francesco Lovino
Francesco Lovino, PhD (2015), Università degli studi di Padova, is Associate fellow of the Centre for Early Medieval Studies of the Masaryk University in Brno. His research interests include Byzantine illumination, medieval cartography, historiography of art history, and the reception of Byzantine art and imagery during the nineteenth and twentieth century. Lovino is coeditor of two volumes on art historiography Byzantine Studies as a Bridge between the Worlds (Brno, 2018) and Orient oder Rom? (Rome, 2018) in the series From Kondakov to Hans Belting Library. He is currently writing a monograph on the Exposition internationale d’art byzantin held in Paris in 1931.
Dr. John McCarthy
Following his education at Cambridge University (MA LLB) career Australian diplomat John McCarthy was appointed ambassador to Vietnam, Mexico, Thailand, United States, Indonesia, Japan, and India. Originally a barrister in London, he worked with Shearman and Sterling in New York. Since retiring from the Foreign Service, he has been National President of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and has worked with Murdoch and Griffith universities, from which he holds honorary doctorates. John is currently an adviser to Asialink at Melbourne University and to Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, Tokyo. He has been interested in icons since the mid-eighties and his collection was exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, Victoria in 2014.
Nicholas Nicholson
Nicholas B.A. Nicholson was recently appointed curator of the Russian History Museum at Jordanville, New York, and is a scholar of Russian fine and decorative art. He was a co-curator of the MoRI exhibition Tradition & Opulence: Easter in Imperial Russia (2020), and curator of MoRI’s Two Imperial Icons on the 1908 wedding of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna the Younger (2017). His most recent book, Michael Romanov: Brother of the Last Tsar Diaries and Letters 1916-1918 was published last year by Academica Press.
Dr. Ginevra Odone
Assistant lecturer in the History of Modern Art at Aix-Marseille Université, Ginevra Odone completed her double PhD in Art History on the collection of abbot and lawyer Agostino Mariotti (1724-1806) who lived in Rome in the middle of the 18th century. Her research includes the history of collections, the display of art in private collections, and the art market. She has participated in various conferences and published several articles on the Roman art market and antiquities (ArtItalies, Symbolae Antiquariae, and Studi sul Settecento romano among others) and collaborated with various institutions in Paris and Rome (Musée du Louvre, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, and Museo Napoleonico). She is also member of the Board of Directors of the Association des Historiens de l’Art Italien (AHAI) in Paris.
Dr. Georgi Parpulov
Dr. Georgi Parpulov studied history at the University of Sofia and Art History at the University of Chicago. He did curatorial work at the Walters Art Museum (Baltimore) and the British Museum (London), and taught at the University of Oxford. Dr. Parpulov works at the University of Birmingham in the UK and his latest publication is a book on Bulgarian icons (Sofia: Methodivs Books, 2021).
Kent Russell
Kent dur Russell is the Executive Director of the Museum of Russian Icons. Russell met museum founder Gordon Lankton in 1995, and in 2001 he presented Shields of Faith at the Higgins Armory Museum, Worcester, MA, the first museum exhibition of Mr. Lankton’s icons collection. Starting in 2006, Russell helped Gordon Lankton conceptualize, design, and build the Museum of Russian Icons and accompanied him on numerous trips internationally in search of Russian icons. Mr. Russell holds MA.s from both Trinity College Dublin and CCNY in the history of art.
Dr. Wendy Salmond
Wendy Salmond received her PhD at the University of Texas at Austin and now teaches art history at Chapman University in Orange, CA. Her publications on Russian art include Arts and Crafts in Late Imperial Russia, Treasures into Tractors: The Selling of Russia’s Cultural Heritage, 1918-1938, Tradition in Transition: Russian Icons in the Age of the Romanovs, and most recently, “Eternity in Low Earth Orbit: Icons on the International Space Station” https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/11/11/611. She is also editor of the Journal of Icon Studies https://www.museumofrussianicons.org/jis/ published by the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, MA. Her current book project is Russian Icons in America. The Fate of Orthodox Painting, 1917-39.
Dr. Christine Sciacca
Christine Sciacca is Associate Curator of European Art, 300-1400 CE at the Walters Art Museum. She received her PhD, MPhil, and MA in Art History from Columbia University and a BA in Art History from Cornell University. Christine was a curator of illuminated manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum for ten years, and has worked at The Met Cloisters and The British Library.
Dr. Deborah Stein
Independent art historian Deborah Stein specializes in eighteenth and nineteenth-century American and European fine arts and visual culture and in the history of collecting and museums. She holds a PhD from Boston University in the history of art and architecture, has taught American and Italian Renaissance art, and has also been a lecturer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston since 2006.
Dr. Sir Richard Temple
Sir Richard Temple, Bt., PhD founded the Temple Gallery in 1959. He has sold icons to the British Museum, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Timken Art Gallery in San Diego, California, the Museum of Russian Icons, and the Museum of the Patriarch’s Collection in the Church of the Holy Redeemer in Moscow. He advised collector Eric Bradley, whose icons passed into the Museum of the Menil Foundation in Houston, Texas, and he formed the collection of the late Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III. His books include Icons and the Mystical Origins of Christianity (Element Books, 1990, 1992, Luzac Oriental, 2001) and ICONS Divine Beauty, (Saqi Books, 2004)
Dr. Elizabeth Dospel Williams
Elizabeth Dospel Williams is Associate Curator responsible for the care of the Byzantine Collection at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. Her publications address late antique aesthetics, dress practice, and sensory experience. She has also published on the history of collecting and art market issues, with a particular interest in the provenance histories of archaeological material from the late nineteenth century through the Second World War.
Dr. Justin Willson
Dr. Justin Willson, lecturer in Medieval and Byzantine Art at Princeton University, received his PhD in January 2021 from Princeton where he studied Byzantine and early Russian art. Justin is currently working on book which examines art discourse in Muscovy in the early modern period. Justin’s publications have been published in a variety of journals, including Journal of the History of Ideas, Res: Anthropology & Aesthetics, and Studies in Iconography.
Dr. Masha Zavialova
Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Maria Zavialova received her doctorate in English and Cultural Studies from the University of Minnesota. As chief curator for the Museum of Russian Art (TMORA) she has curated more than fifty exhibitions since 2008. Working closely with the collection of museum founder Ray Johnson, she curated such exhibitions from the Johnson collection as Road North (2010), Shades of Red: The Evolution of Early Soviet Painting (2011), From Thaw to Meltdown – Soviet Paintings of the 1950s-1980s (2012), Women in Soviet Art (2013), Art of Collecting (2014, presenting a chronological and thematic study of the Johnson collection), Romance in Soviet Art (2015), Valerian Formozov (2016), Born in the USSR (2017), Art in Conflict (2018), and Body in Soviet Art (2019). She also works on independent curatorial projects and writes for art catalogues. She is an award-winning translator of African American women’s writing into Russian, a co-director of a folk performance group, and a board member of the American Siberian Educational Foundation.
Dr. Amy Adams, Moderator
Amy Adams is Professor of Russian Studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. She received her B.A. in Russian Language and Literature at Dartmouth College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. On the topic of Russian icons, she co-edited and contributed to the volume Framing Mary: The Mother of God in Modern, Revolutionary, and Post-Soviet Russia. She has also published articles and book chapters on the topic of icons in Russian literature. Her current research includes the creation of iconic space both in Russian literature and in contemporary Russian life.
Dr. Nicole Paxton Sullo, Moderator
Dr. Nicole Paxton Sullo is a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in the History of Art Department at Yale University. Her scholarship explores the mutually generative interplay between art making and cognitive processes. Her current book project, The Byzantine Art of Memory, considers the dual formation of individual intellect and communal identity to investigate shifting concepts of memory across the eastern Mediterranean, as well as the manipulation of cultural memory through visual means. Dr. Sullo’s research has been supported by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale, and the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame.