Dr. Mary Caroline Simpson
Associate Professor of Art History, Graduate Coordinator MA Studio ProgramEducation & Training
Ph.D. Indiana University, Bloomington, IndianaM.A. Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
B.A. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia
Conference Presentations
Select Conference PresentationsFebruary 2013: “Joseph Randall Shapiro’s framing of Chicago collections and Latin American art during the Third Pan American Games and 1959 Festival of the Americas,” Midwest Art History Society Panel: “Civilizing the Midwest.” 101st Annual Conference of the College Art Association, February 12-15, 2013, New York, NY.
February 2011: “The Art Institute of Chicago’s use of educational programming and public relations to foster public acceptance of Willem de Kooning’s Excavation (1950).” Panel: “Furnish Popular Instruction: Museums and cultivating a taste for Modernism.” Conference: 99th Annual Meeting of the College Art Association. New York, New York, February 9-12, 2011.
Community
Professional MembershipsCollege Art Association
Publications
Journal Articles & AnthologiesMary Caroline Simpson, "Withstanding Entanglement: Claire Zeisler and 1960s Fiber Art Reconsidered," in American Women Artists, 1935-1970: Gender, Culture, and Politics. Edited by Helen Langa and Paula Wisotzki. Publisher: Ashgate, 2016.
Mary Caroline Simpson, “Modern Art Collecting and Married Women in 1950s Chicago—Shopping, Sublimation, and the Pursuit of Possessive Individualism: Mary Lasker Block and Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman.” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal (39:6) September 2010: 585-621. Publisher: Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. ISNN: 0049-7878.
Mary Caroline Simpson, “American Artists Paint the City: Katharine Kuh, the 1956 Venice Biennale, and New York’s Place in the Cold War Art World,” American Studies with American Studies International (48:4) Winter 2007 issue (Published fall 2009). Publisher: Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press. ISSN: 0026-3079.
Exhibition Catalogues
Printed in Omaha: A Thirty-Year Retrospective of the Visiting Artists Program of the UNO Print Workshop, 1976-2006. Publication Date: April 2008. Exhibition: February 28-April 4, 2008, UNO Art Gallery, University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Book Reviews
The Art Deco Murals of Hildreth Meière, by Catherine Coleman Brawer and Kathleen Murphy Skolnik (Andrea Monfried Editions, 2014). Reviewed by Mary Caroline Simpson. Woman’s Art Journal (Rutgers University Press). Fall / Winter 2015 Vol. 36, No. 2: 57-59.
Extra/Ordinary: Craft and Contemporary Art, by Maria Elena Buszek (ed.) (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011). Reviewed by Mary Caroline Simpson. Woman’s Art Journal (Rutgers University Press). Fall/Winter 2012, Vol. 33, No. 2: 47-48.
String, Felt, Thread: The Hierarchy of Art and Craft in American Art,by Elissa Auther (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2010). Reviewed by Mary Caroline Simpson. Woman’s Art Journal Spring/Summer 2011, Vol. 32, No. 1. Rutgers University Press.Hannah Wilke,by Nancy Princenthal (New York, NY: Prestel, 2010). Reviewed by Mary Caroline Simpson. Woman’s Art Journal (Rutgers University Press). Spring/Summer 2012, Vol. 33, No. 1: 48- 50.
The Modern Eye: Stieglitz, MoMA, and The Art of The Exhibition, 1925-1934, by Kristina Wilson (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009). Reviewed by Mary Caroline Simpson. Design and Culture (3:1) March 2011: 121-123. Berg Publishers.
Funding & Grants
Summer 2013: "Joseph Randall Shapiro's framing of Chicago collections and Latin American art during the Third Pan American Games and 1959 Festival of the Americas," Summer Research and Creative Activity Awards, EIU Council on Faculty Research.June-July 2013: “Making Modernism: Literature and Culture in Twentieth-Century Chicago, 1893-1955,” National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute,The Newberry Library, Chicago, IL.
July 2011: American Material Culture: Nineteenth-Century New York, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute, Bard Graduate College, New York, NY.
CAH College Travel Fund (2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010).
EIU Redden Fund for the Improvement of Undergraduate Instruction (2013-2014, 2012-2013, and 2011-2012).
Spring 2013: Student: Alexandra E. Beetz. Project Title: “The Two Mrs. Brundages: American Women Illustrators, Artistic Values, and the Boundaries of Good Taste in the late-19th and early-20th centuries.” Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities (URSCA).
Faculty Development Support Grant (Fall 2012).
Summer 2012: Faculty Development award for registration, travel, and housing for attendance of the Wakonse Conference on College Teaching, Camp Miniwanca, Michigan, May 24-29, 2012.
Frequently Taught Courses
Art 2602: History of Art IIArt 3680: Modern Art
Art 4765: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture
Art 5920: M.A. in Art Colloquium
Professional Affiliations
Associate Professor, Department of Art, Eastern Illinois Univeristy, Charleston, IL (2014-present)Assistant Professor, Department of Art, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL (2008-2014)