Jason Rosenfeld
Open gallery
Title
Professor of Art History and Distinguished Chair (2009-2012)Department
Art and Art HistoryAbout
Jason Rosenfeld has been a member of the faculty at MMC since fall 2003. Dr. Rosenfeld received his B.A. from Duke University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, with a dissertation titled New Languages of Nature in Victorian England: The Pre-Raphaelite Landscape, Natural History and Modern Architecture in the 1850s. He has previously taught at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, New York University, and Queens College, City University of New York. Academic interests include contemporary art and issues in figuration and landscape, art and architecture in New York City, nineteenth-century European art, British art, specifically Victorian and the Pre-Raphaelites, and modern architecture.
He is also Senior Writer and Editor-at-Large at The Brooklyn Rail, and has been a contributor of reviews, essays, and interviews since June 2016. For The Brooklyn Rail New Social Environment Series, he has conducted Zoom interviews with Cecily Brown; Matvey Levenstein; Njideka Akunyili Crosby; Julie Curtiss; Martin Puryear; Shahzia Sikander; Ursula von Rydingsvard; Andy Goldsworthy; Wayne Thiebaud; Peter Saul; TARWUK; Sally Saul; Eddie Martinez; Stan Douglas; Super Dutchess; Kelly Baum and Randy Griffey on Alice Neel; Huma Bhabha; Senga Nengudi and Amanda Sroka; KAWS/Peter Saul/Julie Curtiss; Allison Elizabeth Taylor; Robert Longo; Kon Trubkovich; David Salle; Philip Pearlstein; Keith Mayerson; Walton Ford; Audrey Flack; Aruna D’Souza on Linda Nochlin; Ronny Quevedo; Eric Fischl; Sam Messer, Ridley Howard, and Danielle Mckinney on Edward Hopper at the Whitney; Ryan Sullivan; Loie Hollowell and Harminder Judge; Sean Landers; Luc Tuymans; Stephen Shore; April Gornik; and Aimee Ng and Richard J. Powell on the Barkley L. Hendricks exhibition at Frick Modern.
His book on the Pakistani-born American artist, Shahzia Sikander, will be published by Lund Humphries in April 2025.
His essay, “Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Western Art, and History Painting,” will be included in Njideka Akunyili Crosby, to be published by David Zwirner Books, January 2025.
His essay, “Where the Wild Things Are: Monsters and Maximalism in the Art of Robert Nava,” is in the book Robert Nava: Thunderbolt Disco. London: PACE, 2022.
His essay, “Natural Ganglia: Landscape and Memory in Madison Square Park,” appeared in Cristina Iglesias: Landscape and Memory. New York: Madison Square Park Conservancy, 2022.
His essay, “Mary Magdalen clutching a skull and looking to the heavens outside her desert cave: On Paulina Olowska’s Recent Paintings.” appeared in Paulina Olowska: Her Hauntology. Norway: Kistevos Museum, 2022.
His book on the British-born, New York-based painter, Cecily Brown, was published by Phaidon Press in November 2020.
He wrote an essay titled “La nuova unione” to accompany the show of Matvey Levenstein’s new paintings at Kasmin Gallery, September 9 - October 9, 2021.
His interview with Cecily Brown is in the catalogue to the exhibition “Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium,” held at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, 6 February - 30 August 2020.
He wrote a catalogue titled “Thresholds of Perceptibility: The Color Field Paintings of Leon Berkowitz” for an exhibition at Hollis Taggart Gallery in October-November, 2019.
He wrote the catalogue for an exhibition of Stephen Hannock’s recent paintings, “The Oxbow, from Thomas Cole to Alfred Hitchcock,” seen at Marlborough Fine Art Ltd. in London in June and July of 2018.
His most recent curatorial project was “Ben Wilson: From Social Realism to Abstraction,” an exhibition on the work of the American abstract painter, Wilson (1913-2001) at the George Segal Gallery, Montclair State University, the first comprehensive show of the work of this undiscovered artist.
He also contributed an essay titled “Insta-scapes” for an exhibition of contemporary landscape painting at the Marlborough Chelsea Gallery in the summer of 2016, the catalogue for Bill Scott’s show at Hollis Taggart Galleries in 2016, and the exhibition River Crossings, held at the historic homes of Thomas Cole (Cedar Grove in Catskill, NY), and Frederic Edwin Church (Olana in Hudson, NY), and featuring contemporary art in these spaces for the first time. The exhibition was co-curated with the painter Stephen Hannock. It has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS Sunday Morning, and ran from May 3 - November 1, 2015. The accompanying catalog is published by The Artist Book Foundation.
Recent research interests have revolved around the life and career of the Victorian painter Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896) and his monograph on that artist for Phaidon Press Ltd. was published in 2012. He co-curated the major exhibition on Millais at Tate Britain, London, the National Gallery of British Art, with Alison Smith, Senior Curator of Paintings, which traveled to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, followed by venues in Fukuoka and Tokyo, Japan. The exhibition was seen by in excess of 660,000 visitors. His most recent co-curated exhibition is “Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde,” seen by 242,000 at Tate Britain from September 11, 2012 to January 13, 2013, the second most heavily attended exhibition in that institution’s history. The show drew 251,000 visitors at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (February 17 – May 19, 2013), and has most recently been seen at the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia (June 11 – October 13, 2013) and the Mori Arts Center Gallery in Tokyo, Japan (January 25 – April 6, 2014). Its final venue was the Palazzo Chiablese in Torino, Italy (April 19 - July 13, 2014). Here is an introduction to one of the key works in the show – Millais’s Isabella (1848-9). He was a consultant on the exhibition The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy: British Art and Design held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 20 - October 26, 2014.
He has published many articles and reviews on British art and architecture and contemporary art, writes criticism for The Brooklyn Rail, and was a frequent reviewer for Art in America. He was a co-curator of the exhibition “The Post-Pre-Raphaelite Print” at the Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York, in 1995, and contributed to the “Pre-Raphaelite and Other Masters: The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection” exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 2003. He also contributed an essay to the catalogue of Marcel Dzama’s exhibition at the David Zwirner Gallery, New York, in 2005. In addition, he has been the lead contributor on a monograph on the contemporary American artist, Stephen Hannock, published by Hudson Hills Press in the summer of 2009 and curated an exhibition of Hannock’s new work at Marlborough Gallery, New York (April 25 – June 2, 2012), a version of which traveled to London (February 4 - March 1, 2014). He has also written the catalogue for South African artist Lionel Smit’s exhibition at Rook & Raven Gallery, London (March 21 - April 30, 2014).
Degree(s)
B.A., Art History and Economics, cum laude and with Distinction in Art History, Duke University
M.A., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
Recent Work
See above
Reviews in The Brooklyn Rail
Stephen Hannock: The Oxbow, from Thomas Cole to Alfred Hitchcock. Ex. Cat. London: Marlborough Fine Art Ltd, 2018.
Review of “Passages through Time: Turner’s Modern and Ancient Ports” at the Frick Collection, Journal 18, April 2017.
“Insta-scapes,” essay for Marlborough Chelsea Gallery, Landscapes Exhibition, June 23 - July 29, 2016.
“Bill Scott: Refulgence,” in Bill Scott: Imaging Spring, Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, 2016.
River Crossings. The Artist Book Foundation, 2015.
“Crossing Paths: The Chance Meeting that Spawned ‘River Crossings’.” Apollo (online) (May 29, 2015).
“Q&A with Jason Rosenfeld, Co-Curator of ‘River Crossings.’” Modern Painters (May 2015): 36.
“To Rival Claude: Richard Wilson at the Yale Center for British Art.” Apollo 180 (July/August 2014): 91-2.
Lionel Smit: Dialogic Cumulus. Exh. cat. London: Rook & Raven Gallery, 2014.
Stephen Hannock. Moving Water, Fleeting Light. Exh. cat. London: Marlborough Fine Art Ltd, 2014.
“Millais and the ‘luster of Titian,’” in The Reception of Titian in Britain, c. 1780-1880: Artists, Collectors, Critics. Ed. Peter Humfrey. Brepols, Turnhout, 2013.
John Everett Millais. London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 2012.
(co-authored with Tim Barringer and Alison Smith) Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde. Exh. cat. London: Tate Publishing, 2012 (pub. In U.S. as Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, Tate Publishing and Yale University Press).
Pre-Raphaelites. London: Tate Publishing, 2012, 80 pp.
Stephen Hannock. Recent Paintings: Vistas with Text. Exh. cat. New York: Marlborough Fine Art Ltd, 2012.
Research
PRESENTATIONS
“New Art from Old: The Pre-Raphaelites and Early Italian Painting,” National Gallery of Art, London, Arnolfini Histories: Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait and its Receptions conference, January 12-13, 2018.
“The Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Frederic Edwin Church’s Olana and American Contemporary Art,” Biggs Museum of American Art, Dover, Delaware, Biggs Picture Juror Lecture, July 8, 2017.
“River Crossings: Curator’s Lecture,” Columbia-Greene Community College, May 17, 2015.
“Blaze like a Comet: William Dyce and Heavenly Perception in an Age of Uncertainty,” Science is Measurement: Nineteenth-Century Science, Art and Visual Culture, College Art Association Conference, New York, February 12, 2015.
“Pre-Raphaelites and Pop Culture,” Pre-Raphaelitism, Aestheticism and Japan Workshop, University of Tsukuba, Tokyo, January 25, 2014 and Hosei University, Tokyo, January 26, 2014.
“Post Pre‑Raphaelitism: The Global Influence of the Victorian Avant-Garde,” The Pre-Raphaelite Society AGM and Founder’s Day Lecture, Birmingham & Midland Institute, October 19, 2013.
“The Pre-Raphaelites and International Modernism: Interlacings,” Modernisms/Modernities Symposium, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., March 8 & 9, 2013.
“Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde, Conception, Exhibition, Reception,” Yale Center for British Art, with Tim Barringer, March 6, 2013.
Respondent and panelist, Medievalism, Modernity, and the Sacred in Britain and America after 1900 Symposium, Yale Center for British Art, February 23, 2013.
“Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde,” Curator’s Lecture with Tim Barringer and Diane Waggoner, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., February 17, 2013. “Pre-Raphaelites and Global Pop Culture from the 1960s to the Present,” Curator’s Talk, Tate Britain, London, January 12, 2013. “Pre-Raphaelites and Film,” International Pre-Raphaelitism Workshop, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, January 11, 2013. “Stephen Hannock: Painted VistaVisions,” Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, Brattleboro, VT, September 28, 2012. English-Speaking Union, New York, “Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde,” with Tim Barringer, May 24, 2012. Architecture Lecture Series, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey, “Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelitism, Historicism, Eclecticism: Toward an Architecture,” April 2, 2012. The Treasures of the Collection in Context: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Symposium, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico, “John Everett Millais and the Old Masters,” February 4, 2012.Teaching
COURSES
NYC 101 New York City Seminar: Autumn in New York, the Arts and the City (New York City Seminar for first-year students)
NYC 101 New York City Seminar: Springtime in New York, the Arts and the City (New York City Seminar for first-year students and transfers, Spring term)
WRIT 101: Art and Politics (First-year writing seminar)
ART 166 Exploring the Visual Arts
ART 250 Survey of Western Art I: Prehistoric to Early Renaissance
ART 252 Survey of Western Art II: Late Gothic to Modernism
ART 260 Sophomore Art History Seminar (Art History Methodologies seminar for majors and minors in the discipline)
ART 288 Visual Arts Abroad: Art and Theatre in London (with Professor of Theatre Arts Mary Fleischer)
ART 288 Visual Arts Abroad: Art in Florence and Rome
ART 288 Visual Arts Abroad: Art and Architecture of Ancient Greece in Athens, the Peloponnese, and Delphi
ART 288 Visual Arts Abroad: Art and Science in Ancient and Renaissance Rome (with Professor of Chemistry Alessandra Leri)
ART 288 Visual Arts Abroad: Past and Present: Gothic Art and Revivals in London and Belgium (with Associate Professor of Theatre Arts Rob Dutiel)
ART 288 Visual Arts Abroad: Italy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Geology of the Mediterranean Basin (with Adjunct Professor Debra Tillinger)
ART 318 Michelangelo
ART 325 Caravaggio, Bernini, and Baroque Art in Rome
ART 355 Renaissance and Baroque Art
ART 361 Curatorial Skills Seminar
ART 362: Visual Arts Seminar: New York City
ART 380 Modern Art I: The Nineteenth Century from Neoclassicism to Post-Impressionism
ART 381 Modern Art II: The Early-Twentieth Century from Post-Impressionsim to Pop Art
ART 384 Contemporary Art (College Honors Program)
ART 393 The New York School: Painters and Poets, with Jerry Williams
ART 398 The Pre-Raphaelites
ART 451 Senior Art History Seminar (capstone for Art History major)
ART 499: Independent Study projects for Honors in Art History. Topics have included the work of the Italian, American painter Joseph Stella and concepts of the body and the gaze in the work of the Lebanese, French artist Huguette Caland.
Professional Experience
College Service, Marymount Manhattan College
President, Faculty Council 2013-15.
Chair, Academic Technology Group.
Member, Strategic Planning Committee.
Member, General Education Committee.
Member, Academic Advisement Research Group.
Member, Honorary Degrees Committee.
Member, Distinguished Chair Committee.