Art, Art History, and Film Faculty

Nancy Netzer

Professor, Art History

Inaugural Robert L. and Judith T. Winston Director, McMullen Museum of Art

Professor by Courtesy in History

Profile

Professor Netzer teaches courses on European medieval art of the first millennium and the history and philosophy of museums from the classical period to the present. Her research focuses on illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, and sculpture of Britain, Ireland, and the Continent in the early medieval period and on the reception, collecting, publication, and display of medieval art from the early modern period to the present. She is currently collaborating on a European-wide project of publications on Insular manuscripts from Ireland, Britain, and Francia in the Age of Charlemagne. Lead by Prof.Joanna Story of the University of Leicester, the project combines art historical, paleographical, textual, and codicological analysis with new scientific technologies for analyzing pigment and parchment with the aim of providing a more accurate picture of the development and practices of manuscript production in the eighth and ninth centuries.

She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London; in 2000, she received an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Ulster in recognition of her contribution to the study of Irish art. As director of the University鈥檚 McMullen Museum she has curated several exhibitions on medieval art and organized more than eighty loan exhibitions in a broad range of areas. Currently, she heads the Museum Studies concentration within the department鈥檚 Art History major.

Professor Netzer has received fellowships from the Whiting Foundation and the American Council for Learned Societies, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and other foundations She has served as chair of the board of Mass Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and remains a member of several of foundation鈥檚 committees. In 2018 she received the foundation鈥檚 Massachusetts Governor鈥檚 Award for contributions to public humanities enhancing civic life in the Commonwealth.

Publications

Books

Editor with Jeffrey Hamburger, William Stoneman, Anne-Marie Eze, and Lisa Fagin Davis. 聽Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in 艾可直播 Collections, Chestnut Hill, MA, 2016.

贰诲颈迟辞谤,听Secular/Sacred, Chestnut Hill, 2006

Editor with Virginia Reinburg.聽Fragmented Devotion: Medieval Objects from the Schnutgen Museum in Cologne, Chestnut Hill, 2000.

Editor with Virginia Reinburg.聽Memory and the Middle Ages, Chestnut Hill, 1995.

Cultural Interplay in the Eighth Century: The Trier Gospels and the Making of a Scriptorium at Echternach, Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Medieval Objects in the Museum of Fine Arts, 艾可直播: Metalwork. 艾可直播, 1991.

With Hanns Swarzenski,聽Medieval Objects in the Museum of Fine Arts, 艾可直播: Enamels and Glass, 艾可直播, 1986.

Editor with Jeffrey Hamburger, Anne-Marie Eze, Lisa Fagin Davis, and William Stoneman,聽: New Research on Manuscripts in 艾可直播 Collections,聽PIMS,聽University of Toronto Press, 2021.

Articles and Book Chapters

鈥淭he Book of Durrow and the Lindisfarne Gospels鈥 in The Lindisfarne Gospels, New perspectives, Richard Gameson, ed. Leiden, 2017, pp. 166-182.

"Cloths of Ireland's New 'Golden Age': Creating Textiles for the Honan Chapel" in V. Kreilkamp, ed., The Arts and Crafts Movement: Making it Irish, Chestnut Hill, MA, 2016, pp. 101-116.

"Displaying Roman Britain in the British Museum" in Roman in the Provinces: Art on the Periphery of Empire, Lisa R. Brody and Gail L. Hoffman, eds., Chestnut Hill, MA, 2014, pp. 195-214.

鈥淭he Design and Decoration of Insular Gospel-Books and other Liturgical Manuscripts鈥 in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, volume I c. 400-c. 1100, Richard Gameson, ed., Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 225-243.

鈥淣ew Finds Versus the Beginning of the Narrative on Insular Gospel Books鈥, in Insular and Anglo-Saxon Art and Thought in the Early Medieval Period, Index of Christian Art Princeton University, Occasional Papers, 13, Colum Hourihane, ed., Princeton, 2011, pp. 3-13.

鈥淭he 鈥楥eltic鈥 Bronzes from Dura Europos: Connections to Britain,鈥 in Dura Europos: Crossroads of Antiquity, Lisa Brody and Gail Hoffman, eds., Chestnut Hill, MA, 2011, pp. 283-294.

鈥淔raming the Book of Durrow inside/outside the Anglo-Saxon World鈥, in Shaping Understanding: Form and Order in the Anglo-Saxon World, ed. L. Webster., Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, 16, 2009, Oxford, pp. 65-78.

鈥淭he Rise of the Study of the History of Christian Art鈥 in M Brown, The Lion Companion to Christian Art, Oxford, 2007, pp. 297-299.

鈥淚nsular and Islamic Cosmophilic Responses to the Classical Past鈥 in S. Blair and J. Bloom, Cosmophilia: Islamic Art from the David Collection, Copenhagen, Chestnut Hill, MA, 2006, pp. 39-44.

鈥淪ecular鈥 and 鈥淪acred鈥 Objects from the Middle Ages: Illuminating the History of Classification鈥 in Secular/Sacred: 11th 鈥 16th Century Works from the 艾可直播 Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts, 艾可直播, ed. Nancy Netzer, Chestnut Hill, MA, 2006, pp. 11-18.

"Art Full Ground: Unearthing an Irish Past," in Vera Kreilkamp, ed. Eire/Land, Chestnut Hill, MA, 2003, pp. 49-56.

"Style: A history of uses and abuses in the study of Insular Art," in Redknap, Edwards, Youngs, Lane and Knight, eds. Pattern and Purpose in Insular Art, Oxford, 2002, pp. 169-177.

"Collecting, Re/collecting, Contextualizing and Recontextualizing: Devotion to Fragments of the Middle Ages," Fragmented Devotion: Medieval Objects from the Schn眉tgen Museum, Cologne, Chestnut Hill, MA, 2000, pp. 17-30.

"Die Arbeitsmethoden der insularen Scriptorien Zwei Fallstudien: Lindisfarne und Echternach," in J. Schroeder, ed. Die Abtei Echternach 698-1998, Luxembourg, 1999, pp. 65-83.

"The Book of Durrow: The Northumbrian Connection," in J. Hawkes ed. The Golden Age of Northumbria, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1999.

Publications