The intersection between climate change and art history opens new pathways for understanding how visual and material culture mediates human relationships to the natural world. Historical and contemporary depictions of nature illuminate how aesthetic practices register environmental knowledge and respond to ecological stress.
"Far from being a luxury of elite culture, art history is an essential tool for imagining alternative ecological futures," said John López, UC Davis associate professor of art history and the organizer of this year's Alan Templeton Colloquium in Art History.
The event will feature art historians Andrew Patrizio and Alan C. Braddock with López moderating on March 6 from 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.
Andrew Patrizio
Professor Patrizio, University of Edinburgh, is an art historian and curator specializing in art after 1945. His research and teaching lie at the intersection of Scottish art, environmental humanities, ecocritical methods and politics.
He teaches Scottish visual culture from 1945 onwards, art and ecology, and art and ethics in the Edinburgh College of Art.
Patrizio's most recent book, The Ecological Eye: Assembling an Ecocritical Art History (2018, Manchester University Press), explores the neglected territory between the care of the planet and the historical study of visual art. A follow-up edited collection, Methods for Ecocritical Art History, will be published in early 2026 (co-edited with Dr Olga Smith, Newcastle University, published by Manchester University Press). Patrizio has written for publishers ranging from Princeton University, Black Dog, de Gruyter, Routledge, Strange Attractor and Intellect as well as for journals such as New Formations, Antennae and Architecture and Culture. Patrizio is also part of the Edinburgh Environmental Humanities Network, a community of academics working on environment and climate issues.
He has curated numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally and works closely with art practice through collaboration, commissioning and writing. Patrizio has been a long-time collaborator with artist Ilana Halperin, and has worked closely with artists such as Christine Borland, Alan Davie, Giuseppe Penone and Mona Hatoum. In 2016, he co-curated, with Bill Hare, the exhibition The Scottish Endarkenment. Art and Unreason from 1945 to the Present which was named as one of the top 10 UK exhibitions of the year by The Guardian. Patrizio’s ecological focused work led to him developing an art, culture and heritage policy collaboratively with members of the Scottish Green Party.
Alan C. Braddock
Professor Braddock’s teaching and research explore the history of American and global art, ecology, environmental justice and animal studies. He is the Ralph H. Wark Professor of Art History, Environmental Humanities and American Studies at William and Mary in Virginia.
He is the author Thomas Eakins and the Cultures of Modernity (University of California Press, 2009) and Implication: An Ecocritical Dictionary for Art History (Yale University Press, 2023). He is also the co-author/co-editor of three other books: A Keener Perception: Ecocritical Studies in American Art History with Christoph Irmscher (University of Alabama Press, 2009), A Greene Country Towne: Philadelphia’s Ecology in the Cultural Imagination with Laura Turner Igoe (Penn State University Press, 2016), and Nature’s Nation: American Art and Environment with Karl Kusserow (Princeton University Art Museum in association with Princeton University Press and Yale University Press, 2018). Nature’s Nation accompanied a traveling exhibition co-curated by Braddock and Kusserow, winning three major awards: the Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award for Distinguished Catalogue from the College Art Association, the Association of Art Museum Curators Award for Excellence and the Association of American Publishers PROSE Award for best art exhibition publication of the year.
He will soon complete another new book titled Gun Vision: Ballistic Imagination in the First American Avant-Garde. The Getty Research Institute has also invited him to co-edit a new global anthology on art history and ecology.
The Templeton Colloquium in Art History is co-sponsored by the Department of Art and Art History and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. The colloquium is made possible through an endowment established by Alan Templeton (B.A., art history and psychology, ‘82).
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