Awards and Achievements
(Image: Art History 2019 Honors recipients, Montgomery Nelson, Ridley Rochell, Kathryn Rothstein & Yiran Chi with Prof. Clayson.)
Each year, the department awards four prizes. The most prestigious award is the J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis given to a senior chosen by the Committee on Undergraduate Affairs to have written an exemplary thesis on a topic advised by a faculty member in the department. Our coveted Outstanding Junior Art History Major is awarded to a student who performs exceptionally well in the classroom and is an active campus citizen. The department also gives two writing prizes. The David Van Zanten Prize in Advanced Art Historical Writing goes to a student judged to have done outstanding work in a 300-level course and the Warnock Prize for Art Historical Writing recognizes excellent work for an introductory-level course.
2023
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Grace Wu
Outstanding Junior Art History Major
Madie Giaconia
David Van Zanten Prize in Advanced Art Historical Writing
Sadie Bernstein
Warnock Prize in Art Historical Writing
Sean Liu
Past recipients
2022
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Bailey Pekar, "That Which No Other Country can Duplicate’: Greece’s Display of Plaster Casts at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893"
Outstanding Junior Art History Major
Vitoria Faria
David Van Zanten Prize in Advanced Art Historical Writing
Helen Bradshaw
Warnock Prize in Art Historical Writing
Grace Wu
2021
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Rory Tsapayi, "The Right to See Knows No Obstacle: Staffrider, Afrapix and Social Documentary Photography in South Africa, 1976-1983"
Outstanding Junior Art History Major
Evangeline Bambakidis and Bailey Pekar
David Van Zanten Prize in Advanced Art Historical Writing
Evangeline Bambakidis
Warnock Prize in Art Historical Writing
Madie Giaconia
Phi Beta Kappa
Fiona Asokacitta and Katharina Nachtigall
2020
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Meghan Considine, "Knowledge and Wonder: Place, Policy and Publics"
Outstanding Junior Art History Major
Fiona Asokacitta and Brianna Heath
David Van Zanten Prize in Advanced Art Historical Writing
Emily Andrey
Warnock Prize in Art Historical Writing
Yi-Tse Chen
Phi Beta Kappa
Luke Cimarusti, Elizabeth Hawley, April Peng and Louis Tauber
2019
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Yiran Chi,"Now You Have No Gender': CGI Feet, China’s Digital Working Class, and a New Bodily Discourse in Li Shuang’s T
Kathryn Rothstein, "An American Art Journalist: The Untold Story of Aline B. Saarinen, 1914-1972"
Outstanding Junior Art History Major
Lois Biggs and Nicholas Liou
David Van Zanten Prize in Advanced Art Historical Writing
Meghan Considine
Warnock Prize in Art Historical Writing
Alfonso Pacheco, Yiran Chi and Kathryn Rothstein
2018
Outstanding Junior Art History Major Prize
Kathryn Rothstein
Warnock Prize in Art Historical Writing
Sarayah Wright and Luke Cimarusti
2017
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Linnea Hodge, “Northwest Coast Indian Art’ at the Century 21 Exposition: Native Phantasmagoria and Seattle’s ‘Cultural Heritage”
Outstanding Junior Art History Major Prize
Yucheng Zhu
Warnock Prize in Art Historical Writing
Steven Norwalk and Emily Moon
2016
Outstanding Junior Art History Major Prize
Linnea Hodge and Julia Poppy
Warnock Prize in Art Historical Writing
Will Kirkland
2015
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Sinéad López and Alexander Lordahl
Outstanding Junior Art History Major Prize
Oona Ahn
Warnock Prize in Art Historical Writing
Mariam Al Askari and Perry Nigro
2014
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Claire Dillon, "Empty Space and Identity Politics in the Work of Félix González-Torres: Negation, Visual Rhyme, and Creative Reinterpretation"
Outstanding Junior Art History Major Prize
Sinéad López
Warnock Prize in Art Historical Writing
Peter Adams
2013
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Jasmine Jennings, "The Problem in Room 24: Racial Constructions and the Making of National Identity in the National Museum of Fine Arts of Argentina"
Outstanding Junior Art History Major Prize
Hannah Kleinman
Warnock Prize in Art Historical Writing
Sinéad López
2012
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Matthew Kluk, "The Maison Cubiste: Modernist Fantasy and Bourgeois Reality"
Outstanding Junior Art History Major Prize
Sophie Jenkins
Best 200-Level Paper Prize
Jessica Bickel-Barlow
2011
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Kristin Leasia, "The Emergence of Nurse and Guardian Images in Ancient Egyptian Royal Funerary Art: Some Connections to Dynasty 18 Pharaonic Legitimacy and the Hathor Cult"
and
Sophia Mancall-Bitel, "In Search of Los Angeles: Myths, Movies and Maps in the Work of Ed Ruscha"
Outstanding Junior Art History Major Prize
Matthew Kluk
Kerry Bickford
Best 200-Level Paper Prize
Ellie (Jennifer) Graham
2010
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Elliot Reichert, "Unretractable Social Marks: The Critical Spatial Practice of Street Art"
and
Jennifer Wong, "Reinventing the Ancient: the Transforming Female Figures of the Twentieth Century Painter Zhang Daqian"
2009
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Jessica Davidson, "Candidates for Admiration: Identity and Display in the Art of London's Public Parks, 1750 - 1800"
and
Viktoriya Kamara, "Extending Discourse on Soviet Art 1920's -1930's: The Career of Ekaterina Zernova"
2007
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Amanda Wasielewski, "From the Urban Dérive to the Internet Drive: Deterritorialized Capitalism in the Guise of a Digital Utopia"
2005
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Darrah Doyle, "HIV/AIDS Is Our Concern: An Examination of a Work by Artists of the Chivirika Self-Help Embroidery Project"
and
Lauren Wright, "Time-based to Time-bearing: Temporality in Recent Film and Video Art"
2004
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Alison Goldstein, "Dürer versus Raimondi: A Claim of Ownership"
2003
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
David Peterson, "National Endowment for the Arts v. Karen Finley: Understanding U.S. Government Arts Funding Amidst Controversy, Political Warfare and Ideological Clashes"
2002
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Dana Atlagic, "Perpetuating Inequalities: A Look at Happenings Through Gendered Criticism"
2001
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Brook Crowley, "Compassionate Orientalism: Théodore Chassériau's Arab Horsemen Carrying away Their Dead, 1850"
1999
J. Carson Webster Prize for Distinguished Honors Thesis
Anju Shivaram,"'Imagined' Femininities: The Chinese Calendar Woman as National Symbol"
and
David Mullet, "Etats Secondaires in Czech Symbolist and Surrealist Art"