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Welcome from the Director
Ihope you will enjoy this edition of The Annual, which brings you a record of the many events, milestones, and achievements of the Institute of Fine Arts community during 2021-2022. It was another year of pandemic mitigations and safety protocols, including holding all of our public programs via webinar or Zoom, but we returned to in-person teaching and resumed on-site work at our excavations. We remain vigilant and continue to require masks while indoors and to follow all of NYU’s Covid-response rules that have allowed us to safeguard our community and to avoid classroom transmission.
Our students have once again shown themselves to be remarkably creative, resourceful, and passionate about their studies. They carried out their scholarly research and conservation projects with excellent results. Despite the anxiety provoked by the continuing pandemic, and by the constant turmoil of events in the world, our community demonstrated great concern for the welfare of everyone at the Institute, and a commitment to social justice and positive change in our disciplines and in the world. We celebrated the achievements of our students with an inperson graduation in May, with MoMA curator and scholar Jay Levenson giving our Distinguished Alumnus address. His talk, which focused on the world of global cultural exchange and the role that art historians can play in it, was also hilarious. He cautioned against “premature professionalization,” and urged us to remain interested in a wide range of unfamiliar artistic traditions as we travel through our studies. He reminded us to remember who we are and what we can do when driven by curiosity, open-mindedness, and bold thinking. We held a wonderful reception afterward at the Duke House with champagne toasts and spirited conversation.
The last year was also unusual for the number of retirements and departures that were announced. We will greatly miss the inspired teaching, brilliant scholarship, and wit of Professors Colin Eisler, Marvin Trachtenberg, and Hannelore Roemich, each of whom retired on August 31. A lively retirement party was held for Hanne Roemich in July, and celebratory events for Colin Eisler and Marvin Trachtenberg will take place in the fall. These are among the faculty members who, through many years, defined the Institute of Fine Arts as a preeminent research and teaching school, unique in the United States.
Brenda Phifer Shrobe, the longtime anchor of the Institute and Assistant to the Director for Administration and Human Resources, also retired at the end of August 2022. It is hard to imagine the Institute without Brenda’s warm and thoughtful presence, her laughter, and her excellent advice on all manner of topics. Hired decades ago by Director James R. McCredie, Brenda has an unparalleled knowledge of the Institute’s history, board, faculty, staff, students, and friends. Only Wil Manzo, our building supervisor, could have rivaled her at the Institute trivia bingo game that we played at our holiday party last year. She will be sorely missed by all.
Conley Lowrance, Manager of the Academic Office, and Vanessa Muana Stone, Academic Advisor, also departed this past summer to take up new career challenges. As two of the welcoming presences of our Academic Office, they offered advice and guided our students through the many phases of earning their degrees. Conley, a writer and poet, also served as the Managing Editor of Lapis: Journal of the Institute of Fine Arts (a position that our webmaster, Jason Varone, will now take up). As Managing Editor, Conley saw the journal through its early organization, established many of its protocols, and supervised its virtual publication. We owe its success largely to his thoughtful work with the student editors and with Professor Alexander Nagel, Lapis’ faculty advisor. Vanessa served as a highly-valued, well-informed, and compassionate academic advisor, helping students solve problems and make timely progress toward completion of their degrees. We will miss them both and wish them well in their new endeavors! At the same time, we also welcomed our new Manager of the Academic Office, Elizabeth Spock, who joined us in mid-July and who is quickly getting to know our students and larger community.
Shan Kuang, Associate Conservator for the Kress Program in Paintings Conservation, left the Conservation Center this summer to take up the position of Conservator for the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. The extraordinary
website devoted to the conservation and examination of Kress pictures at the Institute formed a major part of her work last year and is well worth a visit. Dr. Matthew Hayes, a Conservation Center alumnus, took up the mantle, joining us as Kress Post-Doctoral Associate in Paintings Conservation and as Institute Lecturer and Advisor as of August 1, 2022.
With the termination of NYU’s pandemic related hiring freeze, we were able to make several other important appointments. In July, we welcomed our new Librarian for Research Services, Annalise Welte. And in the spring, Denali Kemper joined us as our new Alumni Relations Officer.
All of our administrators and staff have helped us work through this period of transition, as some long-time faculty and staff depart and others come on board. We owe a debt of gratitude to everyone on our amazing administrative, building, and technical teams. Only through their hard work, dedication, and good spirits were we able to host over 100 webinars and events this past year, maintain our classrooms and provide for our expanding digital needs, and navigate the ever-changing circumstances presented by the pandemic.
I would like to thank you for being a member of the vibrant Institute of Fine Arts community, and for your commitment to our continued success in research, teaching, and public outreach.
Christine Poggi Judy and Michael Steinhardt Director The Institute of Fine Arts
