Full Time Art History/ Arts Management Faculty
Jean Y. Audigier received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. His areas of interest include the relationship between the visual arts, poetry, and music; The School of Barbizon & the Impressionists; the graphic works of Rembrandt, Picasso, and Chagall; the works of contemporary artists Chemiakin, Kuper, Baskin, Brisson, and Arranz-Bravo. full bio
Paula Birnbaum is Director of the Art History and Arts Management program and Associate Professor in the Department of Art + Architecture at the University of San Francisco. Her research focuses on how gender, ethnicity, social class, and sexual orientation have affected women artists' self-representation, with contemporary Israeli and Palestinian art as a new area of interest. She has recently completed two books: Women Artists in Interwar France: Framing Femininities (Ashgate), and a co-edited anthology with Anna Novakov, Essays on Women's Artistic and Cultural Contributions 1919-1939 (Edwin Mellen). full bio
Fr. Thomas Lucas S.J., is a Professor of Art+Architecture and director of USF's Thacher Gallery, received his doctorate in Theology and the Arts at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, in 1992. He also holds degrees from the Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome; Fordham University, New York; The Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, and Santa Clara University, California. Lucas is an internationally recognized expert in Jesuit art history, as well as a well-known liturgical designer and artist with an international portfolio. full bio
Catherine H. Lusheck is Assistant Professor of Art History/Arts Management in the Department of Art + Architecture at USF, specializing in Renaissance and Baroque art. Kate received her PhD in the History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley. Previously, she was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) in Washington, D.C., the Belgian-American Foundation (Brussels/New Haven), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), and a graduate intern at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C.) and the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu). full bio
Adjunct Art History/ Arts Management Faculty
Laura Allen Ph.D. is an adjunct faculty member teaching Asian art history in the Department of Art + Architecture at the University of San Francisco. She received her Ph.D. in the History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include the intersection between visual and verbal forms in Japanese narrative art, the construction of identity by female artists in early modern and modern Japan, and the artistic exchange with the West following the opening of Japan in the late nineteenth century. As a consultant and independent scholar, Dr. Allen has worked with institutions nationwide; since 2009 she has been assisting with curatorial projects at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.
Paloma Añoveros is a consultant in arts management with extensive experience in strategic planning and implementation in the areas of Museum Collections and Exhibitions at the national and international levels, in both non-profit and for-profit environments. Paloma has worked with local institutions and companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Lucasfilm Ltd., the National Japanese American Historical Society, Pixar Animation Studios, The San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She was adjunct faculty at JFK University in the graduate Museum Studies program for seven years. She has also presented as speaker and specialist in preservation of cultural patrimony in Latin America. Paloma has an MA in Museum Studies from JFK university, a BA in Art History from the Complutense University in Madrid, Spain, a Superior Degree in Conservation from Spain and a post graduate fellowship in conservation from Harvard University.
Elisabeth Cornu is a conservator in private practice. She formerly served as objects conservator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco for 32 years. She focuses upon the conservation of wood and stone and decorative arts objects from 14th to 21st century, antiquities objects, the treatment of indoor and outdoor sculptures, historical objects and period rooms, stone monuments, as well as project coordination and intern supervision. Elisabeth also has extensive experience in exhibition conservation, including the preparation of condition reports, packing, couriering, installation organization, seismic safety, and exhibition maintenance for many international and national exhibitions. Her teaching and consulting experiences include: the Getty Conservation Institute in Central America and North Africa; UNESCO/UNDP (United Nations Development Program); US State Department at various museums in the Caribbean, South America and Africa; UMSA [Universidad del Museo Social] in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Jacqueline Francis, Ph.D., is an Americanist art historian. Her essays have been published in Radical History Review, American Art, Third Text, and other scholarly journals. Her book, Making Race: Modernism and “Racial Art” in America, will be published by the University of Washington Press in January 2012. She is a co-editor of and contributor to Romare Bearden, American Modernist (2011), an anthology that explores the work of this twentieth-century painter and writer. She serves on the Board of Directors of the College Art Association, an international organization serving students, artists, scholars, and other professionals working in the creative arts.
Ellen Huang, Ph.D. is a Research Fellow at the USF Center for the Pacific Rim. Combining her experiences in technology, intellectual history, and art history, she focuses on analytical problems of visual and material interpretation of artifacts from East Asia. Her current research project examines how china (porcelain) became China and the relationship between art, technology, and production during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Her broader interests include ornament and decorative arts, and methodological issues of language and cross-cultural aesthetic exchange. Prior to USF, she was a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley, taught art history at East China Normal University in Shanghai, and helped to curate the Asian art collection at the Cantor Arts Center.
Barbara Jaspersen holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in English (Creative Writing)
from the University of California, Irvine. She has published reviews of visual art, film, and theater, as well as poetry in various small publications, and as a musician and actor, has performed throughout the Bay Area since 1990. Barbara has a special interest in art that engages with marginalized groups, and has worked with Each One Reach One, Copus, Rob Nilsson, and Golden Thread Productions, among others. At USF she focuses on creating opportunities for students outside the classroom through internships, service learning, and community-based projects. She acts as liaison with a broad range of organizations, from large established commercial galleries and museums; to design and architectural firms; to small community-based groups emphasizing innovation and grass roots projects for students to employ their academic and artwork interests toward social change. She currently teaches the arts management internship class.
Mary Mattlage has been teaching art history at USF since 1993, specializing in Asian Art. She received her MA in Asian Art from the University of Hawaii, Manoa and her BFA
from Shepherd University, Shepherdstown WV. She also studied etching and lithography at the Santa Reparata Graphic Arts Studio in Florence, Italy. Mary combines her multicultural knowledge of art history with 35 years experience as a visual artist. She currently teaches Art Appreciation. Mary collaborated along with other visual artists from USF for the Burmese/American art exchange in Yangon, Myanmar in 2009, and has shown with the Graphic Arts Workshop, Art Salon SF, EcoArts of Lake County, SF Arts Commission, City Hall, the Meridian Gallery, Somar Gallery, and USF’s Thacher Gallery. Mary is currently researching the history and revival of fine book presses in San Francisco.
Wendy Norris is the founder and principal of Norris Communications, an arts and culture communications firm based in San Francisco. Ms. Norris has worked in the arts and culture field for over 15 years, and holds degrees in Anthropology (BA) from the University of Oregon and in Museum Studies (MA), with a focus in non-profit business administration, from John F. Kennedy University. Ms. Norris was a founding member of the Maasai Cultural Center in Eugene, Oregon in 1994, and in 1995 went on to serve as the public relations and project manager for its sister institution in Nairobi, Kenya. Prior to forming Norris Communications, Ms. Norris worked for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in the Marketing & Communications Department, serving as Acting Director of Marketing & Communications. Notably, Ms. Norris was responsible for leading the communications and media relations team for the ramp-up and the reopening of the new Herzog & de Meuron designed de Young Museum in October 2005.
Glori Simmons, Associate Director of the Thacher Gallery at USF, has managed the gallery since its first exhibition in 1998. Using the gallery as a learning lab, Glori has worked with countless Art + Architecture students as internship instructor, gallery assistant supervisor and facilitator of the annual student exhibition. Prior to coming to USF, Glori worked in nonprofit administration. She received an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan and a Stegner Fellowship in fiction from Stanford. She has been published widely, including a poetry collection, Graft, (Truman State University Press, 2001).
Jessica Snow received a BA in Art Studio from UC Davis and a MFA from Mills College. She also studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and Universite de la Nouvelle-Sorbonne III. Squeak Carnwath, Hung Liu and Wayne Thiebaud were memorable teachers, to whom she's indebted for their mentoring. Currently she is working on a painting project for the Rosewood Hotel in Abu Dhabi, and has recently participated in shows at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art and Paris Concret, along with a solo show at Jen Bekman Projects in NYC. Jessica enjoys teaching Art Appreciation courses as well as studio in the Fine Arts area.
Celia Stahr, Ph.D., has a background in Modern and Contemporary art history as well as African art and the Diaspora. Her secondary areas include Native and Mesoamerican art and visual culture. She is particularly interested in artists who cross cultural boundaries and the political, social, artistic, and psychological ramifications of such actual or imagined “border” crossings. Stahr has published essays on artists such as Frida Kahlo, Elaine de Kooning and Yong Soon Min. She is writing Frida Kahlo and the American Experience, a book that contextualizes Kahlo and her artistic production within the historical and social circumstances of San Francisco, Detroit, and New York during the Great Depression.
Jenifer Wofford received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute, and her Master of Fine Arts from UC Berkeley. She is a professional visual artist, curator, graphic designer, and illustrator who works both nationally and internationally. Wofford has shown her work extensively in the Bay Area, at venues such as Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, de Young Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, and Frey Norris Gallery. In addition to teaching at USF, she has also taught at California College of the Arts, UC Berkeley, Diablo Valley College, and the San Francisco Art Institute.
John Zarobell is Assistant Professor of International Studies and Program Chair of European Studies at the University of San Francisco. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Hampshire College and an MA and PhD in the History of Art from the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining the faculty of USF in fall 2011, he worked for ten years as a curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is a regular contributor to the online journal Art Practical and he has published in museum catalogues and journals. His book, Empire of Landscape (2010) concerns the intersection of colonial politics and landscape art in nineteenth-century France. His current research is a book project, “Art and the Global Economy.”
