Gregory Gilbert
Professor of Art History; Director of the Art History Program & Art Museum Studies
Meet Professor Gilbert
Years at Knox: 1995 to present
My specialized area of research is focused on modern and contemporary American art, specifically contextual and theoretical issues associated with Abstract Expressionism. I am particularly interested in studying the intersection of the movement with forms of mass visual culture, as well as its relation to trends in American literature and philosophical thought. Through this interdisciplinary sociocultural approach, I am hoping to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the postwar avant-garde in the United States. Some current major projects of mine include:
- A book project examining the relationship between Abstract Expressionist art and the mass visual culture of World War II. My research analyzes the influence of wartime media and nationalist propaganda on the work of such artists as Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.
- A critical study examining connections between Pragmatist philosophy, American poetry and the early Abstract Expressionist art of Robert Motherwell.
- In addition to my advanced degrees in Art History, I have certification in Museum Studies and have worked as a museum curator. I direct the Art Museum Studies minor program, which includes courses in museum issues and practices and trains students in the curating of exhibitions.
Education
Ph.D., Art History, 1998, Rutgers University.
M.A., Art History, 1984, Rutgers University.
Museum Studies Certificate, 1983, Rutgers University Museum Studies Program.
B.F.A., Art History, 1981, University of Kansas.
Teaching Interests
Curatorial Studies, Contemporary American and European art, twentieth century art and architecture, American art, architecture and culture, Native arts of the Americas, interpreting works of art, visual culture theory, Andy Warhol and the visual culture of the 1960s, collage: critical perspectives.
Full Curriculum Vitae - (PDF)
Selected Professional Accomplishments
Honors/Grants
- Faculty Exceptional Achievement Award, Knox College, 2023
- Contributor, “Abolition for All Time,” a Humanities for All Times Grant, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Knox College, 2022
- Contributor, Sustaining the Humanities Through the American Rescue Plan Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities, Knox College, 2021
- ACM Faculty Site Visit Program Award, Florence Program, April 2016
- Dedalus Foundation Visiting Scholar at the Archives of American Art Fellowship, 2015 (research project: Robert Motherwell, Pragmatism and American Poetics)
- Faculty Exceptional Achievement Award, Knox College, September 2014
- Application consultant, Knox College, Frederick E. & Ida H. Hummel Foundation Grant, for institutional funds to acquire ARTstor, 2008.
- Philip Green Wright-Lombard College Prize for Distinguished Teaching, 2002.
- Knox College Faculty Grant Recipient - U.S. Department of Education, Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Languages Program, research travel to Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic, Summer 2002; research travel to Paris France, Summer 2001.
- Faculty Development Award, Knox College, to attend Summer Institute of American Philosophy, University of Vermont, 2000; 1999; 1998.
- Faculty Development Award, Knox College, research travel to Mexico City to develop course "Native Arts of the Americas: Their History and Cultural Legacy," Summer 1999.
- McNair Faculty Fellow, 2000-2001.
Publications
Editorial Preface, “The Intersection of Abstract Expressionist and Mass Visual Culture - An Historiographic Overview,” Arts, 12 (2), 2023
“Motherwell’s Early Drawings and Pragmatist Perception,” The Brooklyn Rail, vol. 23, issue 1 (February) 2023
“View Magazine and the Mass Visual Culture of World War II,” Arts, 9 (2) 2020
“Federal Art in the Midwest in the 1930s and the Meeting of Rural and Urban Cultures: A Challenge to Grant Wood’s ‘Revolt Against the City’,” in Volume 2 “Rediscovering the American Midwest Series” The American Midwest in a Scattering Time: How Modernism Met Midwestern Culture,” Hastings College Press, 2018
"Monuments to Absence," review of "Charles Ray: Sculpture 1997-2014," Michael Fried, Richard Neer, et al, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2014, The Art Newspaper. January 9, 2016.
"Robert Motherwell," the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, Routledge, 2016.
"Robert Motherwell at 100," The Art Newspaper, April 2, 2016.
Book Review: Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonne, 1941-1991, Yale University Press, 2013, Sehepunkte 14, no. 12, 2014.
A New Deal for Illinois: The Federal Art Project Collection of Western Illinois University, Western Illinois University Art Gallery, 2013
Scale: Ceramic Forms and Photographic Landscapes, Figge Art Museum, 2011.
Beyond Fifteen Minutes of Fame: Andy Warhol's Photographic Legacy. Augustana College Art Museum, 2009.
Touched by the Hands of God: Michelangelo's Models. Figge Art Museum, 2009.
Editor, "Death and Mourning in American Art - Open Session." Constructions of Death, Mourning, and Memory Conference Proceedings, The WAPACC Organization, 2006.
"Robert Motherwell's World War II Collages: Signifying War as Topical Spectacle in Abstract Expressionist Art," The Oxford Art Journal 27.3 (2004.)
"Robert Motherwell: In His Own Words - Again," review of The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell, ed., Stephanie Terenzio, University of California Press, 1999, in Art Journal 60.3 (2001.)
Outside the Shadow of Rembrandt: Selected 17th Century Prints from the Famulener and Wilson Print Collections, Knox College, 2001.
"Artists and Entertainers." Encyclopedia of AIDS, Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998. ("Editors Choice" Award for Reference Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin; "Outstanding Reference Book" Award by the New York Public Library Annual Reference Awards)
"An Interview with Rosalind Krauss," The Rutgers Art Review 11 (1990.)
George Overbury "Pop" Hart: His Life and Art, The Rutgers University Press, 1986.
"A.T.&T. Corporate Headquarters" in the Critical Edge: Controversy in Recent American Architecture, MIT Press, 1985.
Presentations
"Museum Re-Imaginings: Teaching through the Development of a Virtual College Museum," ACM FaCE Development Workshop, Macalester College, St. Paul, MN. June 28-30, 2017.
"Pragmatist Poetics in the Early Art of Robert Motherwell," A Symposium on Robert Motherwell, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., December 2015
"Federal Art in the Midwest in the 1930s and the Meeting of Rural and Urban Cultures: A Challenge to Grant Wood's 'Revolt Against the City'," 2014 Grant Wood Symposium - Revolt Against the City: Midwestern Culture in Hard Times, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, April 2014.
"A New Deal for Illinois: The Federal Art Project Collection of Western Illinois University," Exhibition Curator. Figge Art Museum, Davenport, IA, September 2013 -January 2014.
"Robert Motherwell's Early Collages: From Abstract Expressionist Aesthetics to Modern War." Fine Arts Society of Peoria. Peoria, IL, November 2013.
"The New York Avant-Garde and the Dis-ordering of the Mass Visual Culture of World War II." Midwest Art History Society Conference, Kansas City, 2009.
"Random Order: The Life and Art of Robert Rauschenberg." Topics in Art History Lecture Series, Figge Art Museum, 2008.
Presenter, ACM FaCE Teaching Art History Workshop, Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges, Northfield, Minnesota, 2008.
"Andy Warhol in Context: Pop Art and American Culture." Topics in Art History Lecture Series, Figge Art Museum, 2008
"Televisual Experience and Montage in the Early Art of Robert Rauschenberg." Midwest Art History Society Conference, Chicago, 2008.
"Death and Mourning in American Art." Session chair, Constructions of Death, Mourning, and Memory Conference, Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, 2006.
"Robert Motherwell's Early Abstract Expressionist Collages and the Refusal of System." Collage as Cultural Practice Conference, University of Iowa, 2005.
"Rethinking De Kooning's Women: Gender Identity, Mass Culture, and the Social Construct of the 'Patriotute'." College Art Association Conference, Atlanta, 2005.
"Caricature as Commodity in Andy Warhol's Pop Art." Midwest Art History Society Conference, Pittsburgh, 2003.
"Robert Motherwell's Collage and Cutout Aesthetic," Symposium for the exhibition "The American Cutout," New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, New York City, 2003.
"Caricature as Commodity in Andy Warhol's Pop Art." Excellence in Research - 30 Years of Art History at Rutgers, symposium held in conjunction with 50th Anniversary of the Graduate School, Rutgers University, 2003.
"The Refusal of System: Collage and the New York Avant-Garde of the Early Forties," Midwest Art History Society Conference, Minneapolis, 2001.
"Pragmatist Subjectivity and the New York School: The Case of Robert Motherwell," College Art Association Conference, Chicago, 2001.
"John Dewey and the American Avant-Garde: Re-defining Post-Modern Aesthetics in Relation to Pragmatism," Philosophy of Art Conference - "Re-visioning the Aesthetic: Philosophy of Art after the 20th Century," Beloit College, 2000.
"Multivalence and the Beholder in Abstract Expressionist Art: John Dewey's Reception Aesthetics and the Democratic Ideal." John Dewey, Democracy, and Art Symposium, State University of New York, Cortland, 1999.
Exhibitions Curated
"A New Deal for Illinois: The Federal Art Project Collection of Western Illinois University," Western Illinois University Art Gallery, Macomb, Illinois, 2013.
"The Artistic Legacy of Mercedes Matter: The Knox College Students of Mercedes Matter," Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, 2010.
"Global Currents: The John Deere Art Collection," Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, 2010.
"Scale: Ceramic Forms and Photographic Landscapes," Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, 2010.
"Frank Lloyd Wright: The Art of Living," Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, 2010.
"Beyond Fifteen Minutes of Fame: Andy Warhol's Photographic Legacy," Augustana College Art Museum, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, 2009.
"Touched by the Hands of God: Michelangelo's Models," Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, 2009.
"Knox College Art Faculty: Past and Present," Galesburg Civic Art Center, Galesburg, Illinois, 2008.
"Outside the Shadow of Rembrandt: Selected 17th Century Prints from the Famulener and Wilson Print Collections," Special Collections, Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, 2001.
"Graphic Impressions: Selected 19th Century Prints from the Famulener and Wilson Print Collections," Special Collections, Seymour Library, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, 1996.
"George Overbury ‘Pop' Hart," The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1986.
Professional Service
- Member, Board of Directors, College Art Association, February 2022 to present
- Member, Committee for Outstanding Exhibition and Collection Catalogue Award, Midwest Art History Society, appointed Fall 2016 to present.
- Senior Curator, Figge Art Museum, 2009-2011.
- Editorial/Advisory Board, Aurora: The Journal of the History of Art.
- External Reviewer, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, DePaul University, 2009.
- Member, College Art Association.
- Member, Midwest Art History Society.
- Member, The Association of Art Museum Curators.
- Member, Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy.
Campus & Community Involvement
- Member, Honorary Degree Subcommittee, 2023 to present
- Chair, Assessment Subcommittee, 2021 to 2022
- Member, Assessment Subcommittee, 2019 to 2021
- Member, Faculty Presidential Search Committee, Winter 2021
- Member, Special Collections and Archives Search Committee, Fall 2021
- Member, Curriculum Working Groups - Elements and Specialization, Fall 2016.
- Faculty Member, Honor Board, 2015 to present.
- Chair, Broadcast, Internet and Publications Committee, 2014-2015.
- Member, Broadcast, Internet and Publications Committee, 2012-2014.
- Campus Advisor, ACM Newberry Library Seminar Program, 2012 to present
- Director, Art History Program, 2009-present.
- Committee Member, Studios Midwest Artist Residency Program, 2008-present.
- Instructional Support Committee, 2006-present.
- Advisor, Pre-Professional Architecture Program, 2003-2016.
- Board of Directors, Galesburg Civic Art Center, 2003-2010.
- Chair, Department of Art and Art History, 2006-2009.
- Digital Technology Planning Committee, 2006.
- Chair, Campus Environment Committee, 2003-2005.
- Campus Advisor, ACM Chicago Arts Program, 2003-2005.
- Program Committee Member, Latin American Studies.
- Program Committee Member, American Studies.
- Program Committee Member, Film Studies.
- Curriculum Committee, 1999-2002.
- Judge, Illinois High School Art Competition, Sponsored by the Office of Congressman Lane Evans, Carl Sandburg College, 1999-2002.
- Campus Working Group - Interdisciplinary Learning, 2001.