Michael Ann Holly (née Mueller; July 19, 1944) is an American art historian who has worked on historiography and the theory of art history.

Personal life

Born in 1944 in

Alton, Illinois Alton ( ) is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 25,676 at the 2020 census. It is a part of the River Bend area in the Metro-East region of the ...

, the daughter of Peggy and George Mueller, Holly worked at the

Wesleyan University Press Wesleyan University Press is a university press that is part of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. The press is currently directed by Suzanna Tamminen, a published poet and essayist. History and overview Founded (in its present for ...

from 1963 to 1966 and the Center for Brain Research at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The University of Roc ...

before beginning her academic career. Her daughter is the actress

Lauren Holly Lauren Holly (born October 28, 1963) is an American actress. She has played the roles of Deputy Sheriff Maxine Stewart in the television series ''Picket Fences'', NCIS Director Jenny Shepard in the series '' NCIS'', Dr. Betty Rogers on ''Motive' ...

,"Michael Ann Holly." ''Contemporary Authors Online'', Gale, 2014. ''Literature Resource Center'', Accessed 2 Mar. 2018. and sons Nick and Alexander Innes Holly (1977–92).

Education

Holly earned a B.A.

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

from William Smith College in 1973.Holly, Michael Ann. “The Origin and Development of Erwin Panofsky's Theories of Art.,” 1981, biographical sketch. She completed her doctorate in art history from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1981 with a dissertation on

Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 in Hannover – March 14, 1968 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a German-Jewish art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work represents a hig ...

's theories of art.

Career

Michael Ann Holly taught history and art history at Hobart and Williams Smith Colleges from 1978 to 1984, then joined the faculty of the University of Rochester, where she co-founded the Visual and Cultural Studies Graduate Program in 1986, and taught for 13 years. Holly served as the Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, commonly referred to as the Clark, is an art museum and research institution located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. Its collection consists of European and American paintings, sculp ...

Williamstown, Massachusetts Williamstown is a town in the northern part of Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, United States. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolit ...

before retiring in 2016, and currently serves as the Starr Director Emerita. She now teaches critical theory, methodology, and historiography in the Williams Graduate Program in the History of Art. She is a past Fellow of the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

and Guggenheim Foundation,

Getty Foundation The Getty Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California at the Getty Center, awards grants for "the understanding and preservation of the visual arts".Getty FoundationAbout the Foundation. Retrieved September 18, 2008. In the past, it funded the ...

, and has received grants from the

American Council of Learned Societies American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

, National Endowment of the Humanities,

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

, and the

Mellon Foundation The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City in the United States, simply known as Mellon Foundation, is a private foundation with five core areas of interest, and endowed with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pitts ...

. Holly served as a trustee of the

National Humanities Center The National Humanities Center (NHC) is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any university or federal agency. The center was planned under the auspi ...

Research Triangle Park Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States, occupying in North Carolina and hosting more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers. The facility is named for its location relative to the three surrounding cities ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, and currently serves as trustee emerita.

Bibliography

*''Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History''. (Cornell University Press, 1984). *(Editor, with Norman Bryson and Keith Moxey) ''Visual Theory: Painting and Interpretation''. (Harper Collins, 1991). *(Editor, with Norman Bryson and Keith Moxey) ''Visual Culture: Images and Interpretation'' (University Press of New England for Wesleyan University Press, 1994). *''Past Looking: Historical Imagination and the Rhetoric of Images'' (Cornell University Press, 1996). *(Editor, with others) ''The Subjects of Art History: Historical Objects in Contemporary Perspectives'' (Cambridge University Press, 1998). *(Editor, with Keith Moxey) ''Art History, Aesthetics, Visual Studies''. Clark Studies in the Visual Arts. (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2002). *(Editor, with Marquard Smith) ''What Is Research in the Visual Arts? Obsession, Archive, Encounter''. Clark Studies in the Visual Arts. (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2008). *''The Melancholy Art''. (Princeton University Press, 2013).

References

External links

Clark Art Institute bio page

''Theoretically Speaking . . .: David Carrier, Michael Ann Holly, and Andrei Pop in Dialogue'' (2 March 2020)

School of Visual Arts Video: The Back of the Painted Beyond (17 March 2016)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holly, Michael Ann Living people Women art historians American art historians Hobart and William Smith Colleges alumni Cornell University alumni People from Alton, Illinois 1944 births University of Rochester faculty 20th-century American historians 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American historians 21st-century American women writers Historians from Illinois American women historians