AARON SHEON
Professor
Emeritus of Art History and free-lance Curator of Exhibitions
Field: Modern Art (19th and 20th-Century European
Painting and Sculpture)
Born:
Address: Department of History of Art & Architecture,
104 Frick Fine Arts
Telephone: Office, (412) 648-2416. Home, (412) 921-1219
Professional Experience
1979 to present, Professor of Modern Art,
Department of Fine Arts,
1985-86, Chief Curator, Monticelli Centennial Exhibition, Musee
des Beaux-Arts, Marseille
1986-87, Curatorial Researcher for
Paul Guigou Exhibition,
1984, Herodotus Fellow and Member,
Institute for Advanced Study,
1980 to present, Curatorial
Consultant on 19th-century paintings,
1982 to present, Curatorial
Consultant on 19th-Century Paintings and
photographs,
1983 to 1989, Art
Critic, Theater Critic, WQED-FM (Public Radio) and In Pittsburgh Arts Weekly
newspaper.
1981, 1999 Visiting Professor,
Department of Art,
1978-79, Acting Chair, Department of
fine Arts,
1977-80, Visiting Curator of
Exhibitions (Monticelli, His Contemporaries, His
Influence; Durer's Prints), Museum of Art, The Carnegie, Pittsburgh (The Monticelli exhibition was also shown at the Art Gallery of
Ontario, Toronto); Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington; and
Rijksmuseum van Gogh,
1975 to present, Occasional
lecturer, Docent Training Program,
1969-78, Associate Professor,
1974-75, Director,
1969, Acting Chair, Department of
Fine Arts
1966-68, Assistant Professor,
Department of Fine Arts
1963-66, Staff Officer, Unesco, Paris, Administrative work
in the Office of the Director-General,
Museum Development Programs for the
1960, Teaching Fellow,
Education
1959
1960
1962
1962-63 Institut
d'art et d'archeologie, Universite de Paris, research appointment and studies with
Andre Chastel while writing thesis
1966
Additional: Post-doctoral
study in International Education Program at
concerning educational uses of museums
in developing nations: see publications below.
Exhibitions Curated in University of
The Gosman
Collection, 1969, the first exhibition held in the newly constructed
Art of the 50's, 1970
The Architecture of Peter Berndtson, 1971
Photographic Selections, George
Eastman House, 1973(faculty sponsor)
Confluences, the Architecture of
Urban Design Associates, 1976,
Photographs by
Cityscapes (Duane Michals), a national photographic competition, 1982
Photographs by Charlee
Brodsky and Dennis Marsico, 1985
Charlee
Brodsky, Recent Photographs, 1989
Awards
Phi Kappa Phi Honor Award and Teaching
Fellowship,
Fulbright Award,
Ford Foundation/International
Dimensions Research grant for study of new educational uses of museums in
developing countries, 1967
Mellon Educational Foundation Grant,
Summer Seminar in
Charles E. Merrill Award, given to a
junior faculty member at the
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Research Grants, 1969 and 1973
Center for International Studies
Grant, 1971
Chancellor John G. Bowman Faculty
Award, 1976
NEH Course Development Grant(
Honor Award of the
Pennsylvania Society of Architects of the American Institute of Architects, in
recognition
of Organic Vision. Award given at "Forum on the Influence of F. L. Wright"
at Fallingwater,
Herodotus Fellowship, Institute for
Advanced Study.
Invited
Participant, Symposium on New Methodology In Art History, in Honor of H. W. Janson,
Fellowship, 1986, from
Florence Gould Arts Foundation,
President's Distinguished Teaching Award. Finalist in University-wide
competition, 1985-1986.
Golden Quill Journalism Award, for
contemporary art criticism in
Student Government Board,
CAS Research Award for “An Art
History Course for Blind and Vision Impaired Students and Adults in the
Bellet
Award for CAS Undergraduate Teaching Excellence, 2002
Innovation in Education Awards, 2003, for “A Capstone
Class in Art and Photography”
France and the European Union, Research Grant, 2006,
European Union
Listed:
Who's Who in American Art, Directory
of American Scholars (History);
Who's Who in the East; Who's Who in
Scholarly Papers
College
Art Association National Meetings
1967 "Carpeaux
and Ravier, Two late 19th-century Romantics"
1971 "L'optique
et la peinture"
1973 "Physiognomy,
Psychotherapy and Caricatures of the July Monarchy"
1976 "The Discovery of
Graffiti"
1978 "Tassaert's
Social Themes"
1983 "Van Gogh's 'Madness' and
the context of Mental Illness ca. 1880"
1983 Respondent, Art Historical
Theory and Methodology Session
1987 "Van Gogh's 'Sense of
Self' and his Interpreters," in session on
Art and Psychoanalysis
1993 Van Gogh's Understanding of Theories of Neurosis,
Neurasthenia and Degeneration in the l880s
Other lectures
1973 Mid-America Art Association National
Meeting, "Courbet and the Discovery of the Unconscious"
1971
1971
1973 Toledo Museum of Art,
"Photo-Realist Painting and the history of Photography
1974 Pitt/CMU 19th century study
group, "Literary and Scientific Dream
Theories and Caricatures,"
and "Perceptions of Marriage
in mid-19th century French art"
1975 SUNY,
Fredonia campus. Conversation in
19th-century French studies, "Caricatures and the History of
Psychotherapy"
1976
1976
1977
1977
1977
1978
1979
1979
1980
1981 Department of Architecture,
1981 Johns
1982
1982
1984 Institute for Advanced Study,
1984
1985
1986 Marseille,
1987
1988 American Psychoanalytic Assn.,
National Meeting, NYC, "Waiting for Gauguin, van Gogh in
1989
1989
1990 Silberburg
Distinguished Lecture, "Van Gogh and Gauguin,
1991 Blatent
Image Photography Gallery, "Surrealist Photography"
1992
1996 Friends of Frick Fine Arts,
"Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec: The Pleasures of
1998
Colloquium
on Memory,
2002
2003
2003 HA&A
Symposium, Reception Theory and the Concepts of art perception by museum goers.
2006
Reviews and Articles
1. Art Reviews, The
2. "Paul Huet
at
3. "Adrien
Guignet at Autun," The
4. "William-Adolphe
Bougereau in
5. "Van Gogh, Fauves and German
Expressionists in
6. "Courbet, Isabev and Jongkind in
7. "Monticelli
and Van Gogh,"Apollo, v. 85, June, 1967, 444-8.
8. "Charles Mervon
in
9. "Museums and Cultural
Resources Development, "Journal of Developing Areas, July, 1969, 539-48.
10. "Museums and Development,
Article of the Year, "International Council of Museums (Paris) News, v.22,
1969, with French
translation,
1-5, 34-37.
11. "Eugene Carriere."
Revue del'Art, No. 6, 1969,
100-101.
12. "French Art and Science:
Some Points of Contact,"Art Quarterly, Winter, 1971, 434-55, 6 ills.
13. "Van Gogh's Sources,"
The
14. "Caricature and the
Physiognomy of the Insane, "Gazette des Beaux
Arts, October, 1976, 145-50, 7 ills.
15. "The Discovery of Graffiti,"The Art Journal, Fall,
1976, 16-22, 10 ills.
16. Review, M. Fidell-Beaufort
and Janine Bailly-Herzberg, Daubigny, Paris 1975, Art
Journal, Spring, 1977, 262-3.
17. "Multistable
Perception and Romantic Caricatures," Studies in Romanticism, Summer, 1977, 331-5, 14 ills.
18. "Gallery Guides" for
Surrealism and Abstract
Expressionism, each with introduction and discussion of nine paintings, 16 pp.,
36 ills.
19. Review, P. Miquel,
Le paysage francais,
20. "Nineteenth-Century French Art in the Clark Collection,"in the Exhibition Catalogue to honor the
Clark Donation to the
21. "Carl Andre, a Minimal
Sculpture," Carnegie Magazine, May, 1977, 220-3.
22. "Adolphe
Monticelli, a Painter at the Threshold of Abstract Art,"Carnegie Magazine, October 1978-4-10.
23. "Monticelli:
Some Thought Him Mad," ARTnews, December, 1978,
100-2.
24. "Monticelli:
His Contemporaries, His Influence," Contemporary French Civilization, Winter, 1979, 255-63.
25. "Benjamin Latrobe,"short note, Encyclopedia of Southern History,
1979.
26. Review of G. Weisberg, Bonvin (
27. Review of K. Adler, Camille Pissarro, J. Isaacson,
Claude Monet, and H. Janson, ed., Seurat, Courbet,
Impressionism in Perspective, Art Journal, Winter, 1979/80, 143-5.
28. Monticelli
Bibliography, prepared with Fieke
Pabst, Rijksmuseum Van Gogh,
29. "Courbet, French Realism
and the Discovery of the Unconscious," Arts Magazine, February, 1981,
114-38, 22 ills.
30 "Octave Tassaert's
Le Suicide: Early Realism and the Plight of Women," Arts Magazine. May, 1981, 142-151, 10 ills.
31. "Lucien Rollin, Architecte-Decorateur
of the 1930s: French Modern Furniture Design vs. German Functionalism,"
Arts magazine, May, 1982,
104-118, 104-118, 28 ills.
32. Review of James Henry Rubin,
Realism and Social Vision in Courbet and Proudhon (
33. "1913:
34. "1913: Forgotten Cubist Exhibitions in
35. "Van Gogh's Still
Life," The Sciences (
36. "Parisian Social
Statistics: Gavarni.
"Le Diable a
37. "Catalogue entries," Ars Medica, Art, Medicine and the
Human Condition,
38. "Mel Bochner's
New Paintings," Dialogue, March/April, 1986, 23-24.
39. Review of Fred Cutter, Art and
the Wish to Die (Chicago, Nelson-Hall, 1983), Art Therapy, November, 1986, 131.
40 . "Van Gogh's
Understanding of Theories of Degeneration, Neurosis and Neurasthenia in the
1880s," Van Gogh 100,
41. “Theo van Gogh, publisher: the Monticelli
Album,” The
Books and Exhibition
Catalogues
1. Monticelli and the Rococo Revival, Ph.D. Dissertation,
2.
The Gosman Collection, exhibition catalogue,
University of Pittsburgh Art Gallery, 1969, 64pp., 45
ills.
3. The Architecture of Peter Berndtson, exhibition catalogue, University of Pittsburgh
Art Gallery, 1971, 14 pp.
4. Art and Alchemy, The Fisher
Collection of Alchemical Painting, exhibition catalogue, Franklin Institute,
5. Monticelli: His
Contemporaries, His Influence. Catalogue of an exhibition in
6. Organic Vision, The Architecture of Peter Berndtson (a Frank Lloyd Wright disciple), with a
biographic essay by Donald Miller,
7. Monticelli,
introduction to catalogue for an exhibition at the Galerie
Cailleux,
8. Marius Engaliere,
exhibition catalogue, Grobet-
9. Monticelli
1824-1886, Centennial Exhibition, Marseille, Musee
des Beaux-Arts and Editions Jeanne Lafitte, Marseille, 1986, 240 pp.
10. Paul Guigou, Exhibition
catalogue for
Impressionist circle.
11.
Visions,
Fragments and Impressions: Nineteenth-Century French Drawings and Bronzes from
the Collection of Dr. Herbert and Carol Diamond,
catalogue,
Carnegie Museum of Art, 2000
12.
Exhibition of Selected Drawings and Sculpture from the Collection of Dr.
Herbert and Carol, Diamond, Check List catalogue,
Work in Progress:
Art History for Blind and Vision Impaired Students and
a Touch Museum, consultations for funding this project through the Pitt
Development Office and the
Undergraduate Courses taught
at University of Pittsburgh
Art and Scientific Thought; Modern Art Survey; Contemporary
Art; History of Graphic Arts: History of
Photography; Art Historical Methods and Theory;
Eighteenth-Century Art;
Twentieth-Century Art; Romanticism and Neoclassicism; Realism and
Impressionism; Modern Sculpture; Van Gogh.
Seminars
Field of Research: How artists responded to
scientific thought in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Realism and Revivals in Nineteenth Century Art: topics
concerning the history of collecting, taste, criticism, attitudes to the Old
Masters, and connoisseurship in nineteenth-century painting.
Nineteenth century Graphic Arts:
studies of the major masters in lithography, etching, engraving, woodblocks
popular prints and caricatures.
Landscape Painting: the evolution of
landscape painting with special attention to the
Art Historical Methods and Theory: the introductory
graduate seminar in the Department, concerning the history of art history,
studies of style and perception, color theory, iconographic
analysis, connoisseurship, etc.
Photography and Painting: topics concerning the
technical and historical development of photography in the nineteenth century
and its relations with contemporary art movements
Realism: the major social, political
and artistic issues in mid-nineteenth century French painting
New Research Approaches in Art and
Psychoanalysis