Call for Papers: ICMA-Sponsored Session at Forum Kunst des Mittelalters 2026: Tricks of the Trade: The Visual and Material Dimensions of Medieval Sex Work, due 15 October 2026

Call for Papers

VIII. Forum Kunst des Mittelalters

WORK | ARBEIT

Spuren, Konstallationen, Wertungen

Traces, Constallations, Valuations

23-26 September 2026

Due by 15 October 2025

Flore and the prostitutes, from Philip the Bold's copy of Boccaccio's Des cleres et nobles femmes, 1402, Paris BnF, MS fr. 12420, fol. 98v

ICMA SPONSORED SESSION:
(21) Tricks of the Trade: The Visual and Material Dimensions of Medieval Sex Work

organized by Rowanne Dean

In his vita of the “saved prostitute” (turned “crossdressing” ascetic) St. Pelagia, James the Deacon describes how Nonnus, a bishop of Antioch, reproaches his male religious peers for averting their eyes from the courtesan’s beauty and bodily adornment. He implores them to instead comprehend her as an exemplative lesson: just as Pelagia lavishes time and attention to the work of decorating her body for her lovers, so too, should the bishops prepare their souls for their eternal Bridegroom. In the Golden Legend, Pelagia is similarly said to have “painted herself so meticulously” that she should be brought forth on the day of Judgment against those who take little care to please their heavenly Spouse. Though here a courtesan’s cosmetic labor is analogized in positive terms, the work involved in providing commercial sexual gratification was, by turns, merely tolerated and actively vilified in medieval theological, literary, and legal discourse. Building on the classic studies of Ruth Karras, Leah Lydia Otis, and Jacques Rossiaud, among others, recent scholarship has considered the visual dimensions of medieval sex work in various ways. Judith M. Bennet and Shannon McSheffrey have discussed female “crossdressing” in late medieval London, which was associated with sex work; Jess Bailey has analyzed depictions of disabled sex workers in the drawings of Urs Graf; and Jelle Haemers has examined the material culture of prostitution in the late medieval Southern Low Countries. This session aims to further explore the question of how sex work was thematized in medieval material and visual culture. How were sex workers represented? How were they thought to represent themselves? And how were viewers implicated in their visual apprehension? Paper proposals might explore the following topics: the visual marking of the prostitute’s body through garment regulations and sumptuary laws; the question of sex work as a craft or trade; representations of brothels; notions of illusion and deception in discussing sex workers; relationships between sex-work and (visible) gender non-conformity; the idealization and/or vilification of (feminized) sex workers’ beauty; sex work and cosmetics or bodily adornment; iconographic traditions such as the Prodigal Son with prostitutes or the Whore of Babylon.

A note about Kress Travel Grants
Thanks to a generous grant from the Kress Foundation, funds may be available to defray travel costs of speakers in ICMA sponsored sessions up to a maximum of $600 for domestic travel and of $1200 for overseas travel. If a conference meets in person, the Kress funds are allocated for travel and hotel only. If a presenter is attending a conference virtually, Kress funding will cover virtual conference registration fees.
 
Click HERE for more information. 


HOW TO SUBMIT:

The German Association for Art Research cordially invites you to the eighth Forum Art of the Middle Ages, which will be held in 2026 in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Ulrich Rehm (Ruhr University Bochum) and Prof. Dr. Kirsten Lee Bierbaum (Technical University Dortmund). The topic is "Arbeit / Work. Spuren, Konstellationen, Wertungen / Traces, Constellations, Valuations".

Papers of 300 words are now being requested for a total of 22 sections, each discussing the proposed thematic approach. Presentations will last a maximum of 20 minutes. We ask for your understanding that only one speaker is allowed per presentation and that only one submission per person can be accepted. Conference languages are primarily German and English.

After submission, the contributions will be reviewed by the advisory board and section heads; you will be notified of the selection at the end of the year.

Please submit only via the website https://www.dvfk-berlin.de/forum/ - submissions sent by e-mail cannot be considered.

Please submit an abstract for one of the sections by October 15, 2025. The results of the selection and the program will be published at www.dvfk-berlin.de and in the relevant portals.

Here is the link to the official call: https://www.dvfk-berlin.de/en/call-2/

Organization: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft e.V. together with Prof. Dr. Ulrich Rehm, Ruhr-Universität Bochum in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Kirsten Lee Bierbaum, Technische Universität Dortmund. Kirsten Lee Bierbaum, Technical University of Dortmund



OTHER SESSIONS:

(1) The artistic moment“ within accounts, contracts, descriptions of objects and self-portrayel in the High Middle Ages.

Jens Rüffer

Medieval work processes based on the division of labour, nevertheless the responsibility – not necessarily the execution – lay with the magister operis or the master workman. The beginnings of a artistic self-conception start there, where a portion of the wage is paid as a general gratuity for the execution itself, inscriptions referring to the craftsmen or similar symbols of status. This material remuneration or the intangible recognition honours what can be retrospectively described as additional artistic value. In northern Italy, this type of gratification became established earlier than north of the Alps. In general, the question arises as to when this phenomenon begins to occur, in which geographical regions it can be observed and in which social structure (monastery, city, court) it emerges. Furthermore, it is necessary to ask about those persons and groups of persons who decided whether and how much this “special remuneration“ was.

A large number of accounts or contracts have survived in which such references can be found (building workers, goldsmiths, carpenters, glass painters, etc.). Sometimes these documents also provide information about the work process itself, about the division of labour, in-house or external work, hierarchies within the workshop, the establishment of a temporary object-related working group or production according to oneʼs own or someone elseʼs design. These “facts“ or “realities“ can be contrasted with descriptions of objects that do not primarily follow the rhetorical strategy of ekphrasis, but describe in more detail what is experienced in the viewing. In this respect, all descriptions are interesting, even if they do not express anything about that what is considered as an “artistic“ moment from todayʼs point of view. Because this is also a statement about the contemporary perception of this kind of work. Finally, there are various medieval visualisations that depict master craftsmen or work processes, inscriptions that praise the work and/or the master, which must also be critically examined for their informative value. Older research has interpreted a lot into this.

This section is looking for contributions that critically scrutinise the above-mentioned source genres in an exemplary way with regard to the “artistic“ moment. Since northern Italy plays a pioneering role here, trans- and cisalpine sources should not be mixed without reason. However, they can be compared with each other from a socio-historical point of view.

 

(2) Arte-factum. Theory formation through working practice in the arts of the Middle Ages

Heike Schlie

This session will discuss how working practices, and their material and technological conditions generated the formation of art theories in various genres during the Middle Ages. Despite extensive research on the reception of works and the self-image of medieval artists, the idea persists that "craft" prevailed in the Middle Ages and "art" emerged under new conditions in the early modern period. However, it is often overlooked that the Christian Middle Ages first made a re-evaluation of the artes mechanicae possible. Their work and products were considered a partial restoration of paradise on earth. Consequently, the creation of the artes mechanicae was seen as a continuation of God's creative power. This concept integrated the artifex's expertise and the material conditions of artifact production. Materials, material effects, tools, and techniques are not contingent on the earth, but are intended by divine creation and the salvation plan to glorify God and generate knowledge of all kinds. This has consequences for both the status of the artifex and the products of the artes. At the same time, artists employed various strategies to link their work to the artes liberales (e.g. geometry: architectural drawing, optics: oil painting, arithmetic: bronze casting). Theologians theorized and allegorized the artes, materials, and techniques in their writings, resulting in a condensation of the discourse, which is reflected in the works' argumentation about their working practices. Ultimately, these allegorizations belong to theological theorems, thus generating them in the craft.

Possible topics and key questions:

·       Visualization, meaning, and theorization of material and technical processes in the artifact

  • Artistic practical knowledge as a contribution to theory formation

  • Symbioses instead of dualisms of form and material, theory and practice: observations from source texts (e.g. art theory treatises, recipe books, theological writings) and artifacts

  • Terms and concepts from image and art theory (e.g. mimesis, perspective), metaphors (e.g. window, mirror, veil), basic categories (e.g. transparency/opacity): To what extent can these be (re)thought in terms of material and artistic practice?

  • Artistic self-reflexivity between theory and practice (e.g. artists' self-portrayals, Lukas-Madonna, signatures, etc.)

 

(3) Artists at (Municipal) Work: Image-Making and Civic Governance

Masha Goldin

What common ground existed between artistic work and the business of governing cities in the Late Middle Ages? This session seeks to address this question by examining case studies in which artistic practice and municipal regimes became intertwined. Such instances are particularly evident in the oeuvres of artists who, in addition to their workshop activity, held roles as civic officials. Examples include Tilman Riemenschneider, who served as mayor of Würzburg from 1520 to 1525, and the prolific illuminator Diebold Schilling, who acted as notary of the civic court of law in Bern from 1481 to 1515. In what ways did these dual roles inform one another? Numerous other artists held official roles in town councils as a result of their guild membership. At the same time, sculptors, painters, goldsmiths, and other craftspeople working in various media—bearing no governmental titles—were hired by municipalities to pursue artistic projects for civic ends. How did municipal patronage shape the products of the artists’ labor? What kinds of artefacts were used or produced in the bureaucratic work of town councils?

The session seeks to broaden the discussion by inviting contributions that consider proto-curatorial and urban planning practices, often carried out by municipal authorities when arranging installations of objects, such as civic insignia or loot, or when envisioning visual programs for public spaces in their towns. What guided municipal administrators in undertaking the task of commissioning shared civic infrastructures, such as city walls, commerce facilities or prisons? And how did artistic techniques, concerns, and discourses play into communal rulership? Papers that explore these or related questions across late medieval cultures and urban centers are welcome to apply.

 

(4) Stone Connects – Building Guild Networks from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century

Katja Schröck

The medieval large-scale construction sites of church buildings were not only places of artistic and craftsmanship production but also hubs of complex personnel and material networks. The supra-regional networks of builders´ huts enabled the transfer of knowledge, design models, and technical solutions, as well as the mobility of master builders, stonemasons, and sculptors. The construction sites of the Ulm and Bern Minsters exemplify an artistic and craftmanship practice that was interconnected far beyond their respective locations. Already in the Middle Ages, close professional contacts between the construction sites can be documented – this axis was revived in the 19th century.

However, the continuity of these guilds was often abandoned in the late Middle Ages for various reasons. During the long 19th century, various completion efforts led to a return to the tradition of building guilds.

This section examines, among other things, the personnel, material, and ideological/conceptual connections between construction sites as a model for reexamining the dynamics of medieval art production in terms of "work" and the continued or resumed structures: as a cooperative practice, as a socially embedded processes, and as an object of social evaluation. The aim will be to understand how work processes, constellations of actors, and networks in medieval construction can be reconstructed – and how they were (re)constructed, remembered, and made productive in the 19th century.

 

(5) Ora et labora? Talking and writing about artistic labour in the Middle Ages

Bruno Klein

The value of physical labour was viewed ambivalently during the long period of the Middle Ages: According to Max Weber, it was only in the late Middle Ages that precursors of the ‘Protestant ethic’, which sees work as the essential content of a fulfilled life, developed from a rather negative assessment of work in antiquity.

The verb “laborare” (Latin: to labour, to struggle) hardly appears in medieval artists' inscriptions, and even in early modern Paragone, intellectual labour was still given priority over physical labour, in line with the tradition mentioned above.

But how was artistic labour - from physical to mental - spoken and written about in the Middle Ages? After all, it was a reality, and it took up or absorbed a great part of manpower, for example in the construction of large cathedrals or town churches and their furnishings. Is this perhaps not adequately reflected in writings because the producers of texts did not belong or did not want to belong to the group of physically labouring people?

How and (from) when was such labour mentioned and named in treatises, textbooks, work contracts or corporate regulations, either directly or indirectly, e.g. in the definition of maximum working hours? Or in narrative sources such as those on the so-called cart cult, i.e. the collective physical labour, which was also similar to worship, for the construction of churches?

The section welcomes contributions that deal with this question specifically or systematically on the basis of individual or multiple sources. For example, by relating specific findings from building archaeology or ledger books on the amount of work involved to their further written mention and appreciation.

There is a particular interest in finding out whether and (from) when there was a special valuation of artistic labour and how this was defined. Sideways glances at pictorial representations, whose analysis could help to clarify these questions, are very welcome.

 

(6) Workways of Ornament

Irina Dudar

Ornament arises from the ordered and structured repetition of units. To make these requires, almost by definition, repetitive forms of work. These in turn can imply specialized tools creating repeatable forms: punches, stencils, and print blocks for instance. But ornament can also be created through the more-or-less exact repetition of simple gestures in defined intervals, in a process partly determined by the properties of the human body.

Although ornament has often been considered as the end result of a creative process, less attention has been paid to the working of ornament and its repetitive nature. Historically and still today, the former has served positivist goals such as workshop attribution and the distinction of individual hands; in more recent years, research has also turned to the skills involved in creating ornament, as well as to the sourcing and use of particular material. In addition, the cognitive and affective potential of ornament have been increasingly studied, but overwhelmingly from the reception side. This section prefers to analyse the cognitive dimension of ornament and its need for repetition from the perspective of those working, who act as the bridge between the idea and its material mise-en-oeuvre, the concept and the labor process. Objects of study from this perspective are repetitive gestures, concepts, and material processes, as well as the impact of repetition on the structure of labor.

In this section, we wish to consider how the repetitive forms of work implied by ornament both engender and spring out of embodied knowledge of materials, tools, and the body itself, and how this embodied knowledge in turn feeds into the cognitive work of planning ornament for any particular material circumstance.

We invite presenters to reflect on the following questions:

  • what happens at the intersection of planning and improvisation in the creation of ornamental fields?

  • how is improvisation practiced and repeated?

  • how do embodied knowledge and technique inform the planning process for ornament?

  • on the other hand, when is knowledge created from repetitive forms of work, including but not limited to the iterative planning of ornament in similar tasks?

  • when and how do the knowledge and technique gained from ornament-making inform the creation of figural forms?

 

(7) Aesthetic norms and technical reproducibility – aspects of serial production in Medieval Europe

Juliane von Fircks

Standardized work processes, which used identical materials, techniques, and forms to produce similar artifacts, were common in many medieval artists' workshops. A typical example of this are the workshops of Limoges, which, since the 12th century, have been producing a wide range of materially and aesthetically high-quality objects on a highly developed technological basis, intended for various functions in connection with Christian worship and courtly culture. The processional crosses, reliquaries, book covers, bishop's croziers, and decorative plaques produced in the Limousin workshops reproduced design standards that had been established over a long period of time. Characteristics associated with the enamel technique, such as colouring, figure formation and ornamentation, ensured that the artefacts were highly recognisable and this was probably responsible for the widespread sale of the objects throughout Europe. Similar phenomena can also be observed in the workshops of ivory carvers, silk weavers, embroiderers, goldsmiths, and seal engravers.

Only at first glance do the aspects of serial production in the workshops of the 14th and 15th centuries north and south of the Alps appear to be completely different. Precisely the same time when the names of individual artists were becoming widely known, painters and sculptors north and south of the Alps were particularly open to economizing their work. They experimented with the reproduction of heads, figures, compositions, and certain details of clothing and armor. They used cartoons and stencils, including mechanical fabric imitations such as pressed brocade. Sculptors experimented with artificial stone and clay, which allowed them to reproduce figures and compositions identically. In that era, the printing of patterns and images on fabric and paper was invented, which was to profoundly change the media landscape in Europe.

This section examines artistic genres and techniques from the High and Late Middle Ages in light of the following questions: What was the relationship between economized work processes and the appearance of the finished work? Were standardized procedures, including mechanical reproduction, used primarily to produce more effectively and in greater quantities, or was it also a matter of securing established aesthetic standards or reproducing certain “archetypes”? What was the relationship between effective repetition of form and style? How did the division of labor work in detail? Who supplied the designs, and what kind of quality controls were in place? Who was credited as the author? For which customer groups were the works intended, and how was sales organized? Were the artworks and artifacts in question also perceived as serially produced in their reception? Under what conditions could artefacts produced serially or using standardized working methods achieve an auratic effect and that status of unmistakable uniqueness in cult and social practice that Walter Benjamin described as the essence of the artwork in the pre-industrial age?

 

(8) Between Work, Science, and Wonder: Automata and the (In-)Visibility of Labor

Joanna Olchawa

Automata are among the most remarkable objects in the history of medieval art, science, and technology. Whether in the form of clocks, fountains, organs, steam machines, or figurative ensembles, these works seem to move on their own, produce sounds, or carry out complex processes. Driven by pneumatics, hydraulics, or finely tuned mechanics, they create the illusion of ‘work without workers,’ challenging fundamental notions of labor or (transcendent) creative force. While the underlying mechanisms are often hidden, work must still be done to set them in motion and maintain their operation. This, in turn, required highly specialized workshops. Automata thus create a rather ambivalent view of labor, blurring the boundaries between art and skill, and between work, science, and wonder.

This session focuses on the previously underexplored connection between automata (from the Latin West, Byzantium, and regions under Islamic rule) and labor between the eighth and fifteenth centuries CE. It is particularly interested––though not exclusively––in: 1) the ‘working’ mechanisms such as gears, weights, pulleys, and other technical components; 2) the social positioning of those involved in their creation, and thus the question of who designed, built, and maintained these objects; 3) the symbolic implications of labor made visible or hidden by automata, and how these relate to contemporary notions of human, mechanical, and ‘divine’ efficacy; and 4) periodization, as automata are often associated with the Early Modern period or Modernity, even though they were known, admired, and integrated into various visual and material contexts and discourses in the Middle Ages.

By combining approaches from the history of technology, social history, and visual culture, this session aims to explore the phenomenon of automata as a focal point of medieval concepts of labor, while also offering a new perspective on art-historical debates concerning the relationship between art and technology, nature and culture, craft and imagination, and play and seriousness.

 

(9) Working with Fire: Collaborative Art(Work) across Pyrotechnologies

Hallie G. Meredith

Fire, long regarded as one of the fundamental natural forces and elements, is universallyaccepted as vital to human life. Mediated by human action, the controlled application of fireunderpins a vast array of historic technologies, from clay crafts (baked bricks, clay pipes, pottery)to metal production (copper alloy, gold, silver) and silica-based arts (faience, glass, porcelain). Acrucial aspect of craftwork involving fire is the transformation produced. Transformative craftschange raw materials through pyrotechnology or chemical processes to create a new material.The fundamental question that underpins this proposed session concerns the interactivitybetween craftworkers and the elements - not only fire but also air, water, and nature writ large -during the dynamic late Antique/early Medieval era (c. 4th-6th centuries CE) and throughout theMedieval period.The focus of this session will be the art(work) that embodies and communicates suchinteractivity. Pyrotechnic industries, for example, relied on tools, such as braziers, furnaces andkilns (often made of earth), that served to some extent as a means of containing, gradating, andmanipulating fire, which cannot happen without air. These industries included the production ofceramics, encaustic, glass, lime, metal, and even the heating of baths, among others. Scholarsstill commonly approach pyrotechnologies as isolated and independent, but many of these werelikely interconnected activities, with overlap in terms of labour, skill sets, tools, locations, as wellas marketing and trade. The possibility of such networks is relevant to the burgeoning study ofinter-industry relations or cross-craft.The constellations of collaborative making may include the relations between craftworkers, theimagined exchange between a human labourer and a divine creator, or the interaction between ahuman worker and one or more non-human, engineered materials. Inter-industry relations andhow they may have impacted the division of labour and the notion of a specialist are alsopotentially fruitful areas of enquiry. The overall goal of this session is to highlight the place ofthe materials themselves in shaping the realities of craftwork - and craft society - in earlyMedieval history, bringing to light transformations both within and beyond.

 

(10) Working on the Object: Reuse and Transformation as an Art Historical Approach

Carolin Gluchowski

When is the work on an object finished? When can an artwork be considered complete – with the final brushstroke? With the payment of the invoice? Upon delivery to the patron? Or does a new phase begin after the work on the object is completed – namely, the work with the object, once it enters into use?

The reuse and transformation of artworks is not a modern phenomenon but rather an anthropological constant that can be observed across different cultures and historical periods. In the Middle Ages, reworking, adapting, modifying, integrating, expanding, or reducing objects was a common and accepted practice – driven by pragmatic, aesthetic, religious, or symbolic motives. In recent years, art historical scholarship has increasingly turned its attention to this phenomenon, using conceptual frameworks such as reuse, reframing, deframing, recycling, appropriation, or resemanticization.

This proposed panel seeks to shift the focus toward the ongoing work on the object itself and to enrich theoretical and terminological debates through concrete case studies. We invite contributions that approach the topic from the perspective of the object and centre on specific practices of alteration and transformation:

What kinds of changes can be traced materially on the object? What remains stable, what is removed or added? Which intermaterial relationships are interrupted, redirected, or created? And which methodological tools are available to art historians to detect, reconstruct, and analyse such traces of work?

These questions also prompt an investigation of the contexts in which reworking took place: In what social, religious, or economic circumstances was work on an object resumed or continued? What motivated premodern actors to alter an object? Who carried out this work – and how were these individuals perceived: as artists, artisans, creators, or restorers?

The aim of the panel is to take the forum’s theme – work – literally: as a visible, reconstructable, and contextualisable activity enacted upon medieval objects. In doing so, the panel contributes to ongoing discussions surrounding processes of making, object biographies, authorship, (inter)materiality, and the social embeddedness of artistic production.

 

(11) Working with Ivory – Material, Craftsmanship, Trade

Svea Janzen

Questions about work processes – concerning producers, techniques, and material-specific manufacturing possibilities – occupy a central position in the research of medieval ivory carvings. Over the past century, stylistic analysis has allowed for the geographical and chronological classification of numerous groups of artefacts, as well as the reconstruction of individual artists’ or workshops’ oeuvres. Based on these foundations and motivated by the growing interest in the artefacts of material culture within the ‘global Middle Ages’, ivory research has recently gained fresh momentum, leading to the expansion and refinement of questions and methods. The subject of ‘work’ with this precious raw material and its more accessible alternatives remains a central focus of scholarly investigation:

Research on sources and the trade of materials such as elephant tusk and walrus ivory has significantly advanced our understanding of major developments in ivory art, while studies of historical sources and the evaluation of archaeological contexts have provided a more nuanced picture of ivory-working trades and their clientele. Object-centred investigations into specific material processing have provided insights into production methods, ranging from custom work to serial production. Moreover, the incorporation of previously understudied everyday objects (mirrors, combs, etc.), as well as artefacts of lesser value made from more affordable surrogates (buttons, dice, etc.), offers significant potential to reconsider medieval everyday culture and the organization of craftsmanship. All these approaches inspire for further research; especially, in a research landscape traditionally divided into ‘Romanesque’ and ‘Gothic’ periods, the potential to address questions through a comparative perspective spanning the entirety of the Middle Ages still remains.

In this context, the session calls for contributions that explore all aspects of working with ivory and related organic materials (walrus and narwhal tusks, bone, antler, and horn) during the Middle Ages. Possible topics for discussion include: trade and availability of raw materials; production techniques and traces of work; steps of processing between different locations and crafts; output of individual workshops; the work organization and collaboration with other crafts; resources and use of the valuable raw material; ivory carvers operating within urban centres, courts, and ecclesiastical institutions; market for ivory artefacts (including patrons, clients, and intermediaries, etc.); and other related themes. Contributions are welcome from art historians, conservators, historians, and archaeologists alike.

 

(12) Coworking spaces – Collaborative working in the Middle Ages

Julia von Ditfurth

In contemporary coworking spaces, professionals from various fields come together to work in an inspiring working environment and to benefit from mutual exchange. A similar dynamic could already be observed in the workshops of Gothic cathedrals, where craftspeople from various trades shared a platform that encouraged interdisciplinary dialogue and laid the groundwork for artistic innovation. Although ‘Romanticism’ recognised the value of such collaboration, academic discourse split the ‘fine’ and ‘applied’ arts and overlooked their interplay in favour of isolated, media-specific approaches.

This section will explore the various forms of collaboration between stained-glass painters and other visual arts, examining the communicative coordination processes and reflecting on both its potential and limitations.

We welcome contributions that address the relationship between stained glass and architecture: As a medium inherently tied to architecture, stained glass required close coordination with architects and stonemasons. The visual correspondence of architectural framing in stained glass painting to the built architecture invites reflection on the exchange of designs. What role did stained-glass painters play in the creation of new decorative forms, and how did this involvement influence their working practices?

Submissions focusing on the subject of design and execution are particularly encouraged. Stained glass serves as a prime example of a transfer process, as its realisation always requires a preliminary design. While both design and execution were originally undertaken by a single person, growing specialisation in the late Middle Ages saw panel painters increasingly entrusted with the design. In regions where close collaboration between panel and stained-glass painters is documented (Strasbourg, Nuremberg and Augsburg), the active role of panel painters in execution and the adoption of painting techniques warrants further investigation. Can traces of this cooperation be detected in the surviving works through modern art-historical or technological analysis? What role did guild regulations play in shaping workshop practices? What rules governed collaboration, and where were boundaries clearly defined?

Finally, various late medieval written sources reveal that stained-glass painters often also worked as panel painters or manuscript illuminators. What artistic interactions took place across these media, and what was the specific organisational structure of such workshops?

 

(13) The Work of Goldsmiths

Rebecca Müller

At first glance, we seem to have ample information with which to understand the ‘work of goldsmiths’: the objects that come down to us are increasingly being examined in the spirit of an interdisciplinary ‘technical art history’, and texts such as the Schedula diversarum artium provide us with sources that encompass, among other aspects, practical and socio-artistic dimensions. Yet, outside of the few touchstone sources and objects, one can identify surprising desiderata when it comes to the actual conditions of goldsmiths’ work, particularly for the period before 1300: questions persist regarding training, degrees of specialization, geographical fields of activity, the procurement of materials and tools, and labor organization – all compounded by the often multifaceted nature of goldsmithery in terms of techniques and materials. This section invites both case studies and broader reflections on these themes, including from the fields of Islamic and Byzantine art history.

Possible topics include: What conclusions about the working process may be drawn from the objects themselves – whether from materials, techniques, toolmarks, alterations, etc., or from images and inscriptions? How did goldsmiths themselves give directives (e.g., offset marks), and to whom: the assembler or the user? Why might an object have been reused, discarded, or left unfinished? Historically, how have traces of the working process been interpreted? Also of relevance are the media involved in fabrication that remained separate from, or ‘invisible’ in relation to, the resulting object (e.g., drawings, fillings used in repoussé work, wooden cores).

How informative are written sources with respect to the production of goldsmiths’ work and its social contexts, such as the organization of workshops, the division of labor, and associated technical procedures? Particularly crucial is the issue of whether changes can be identified between the ‘Middle Ages’ and the ‘early modern period’, and thus whether the attribution of epochal differences is justified – a question that comes to bear also on the evaluation of goldsmiths’ art.

Submissions are welcome from all fields related to the work of goldsmiths, and especially from museums and conservation science.

 

(14) Textile Work in the Middle Ages: Production Processes between scientiae mechanicae and artes liberals 

Corinne Mühlemann

In the Middle Ages, textile work was among the most complex and economically significant branches of production. Situated at the intersection of artisanal specialization, artistic sophistication, economic relevance, and social attribution, it offers a rich field for the art-historical analysis of textile artefacts. This session addresses textile production from two interrelated perspectives: on the one hand, within the framework of historical systems of knowledge such as the scientiae mechanicae, and on the other, through material traces that provide insight into manufacturing processes.

Knowledge about raw materials, their processing and refinement through dyeing and other techniques goes back to antiquity and are recorded in texts such as Pliny the Elder’s “Naturalis historia” and Isidore of Seville’s “Etymologiae”. In the 12th century, Hugh of St. Victor defined lanificium – the science of textile production – as the first of the seven scientiae mechanicae, in parallel to the seven artes liberales, in his “Didascalicon”. Additional insight into textile production processes is offered by written sources from the Mediterranean, including documents from the Cairo Geniza, ḥisba treatises, and the «Trattato dell’Arte della Seta».

These sources provide detailed information about the complex workflows involved – from the procurement and transformation of textile fibers to the production and finishing of yarns, and finally to the creation of textile surfaces, such as woven fabrics or tapestries. These pieces could be the final products in their own right or further processed with increasing complexity – through painting/printing, embroidery, and/or tailoring – into furnishings, garments (both liturgical and ceremonial), or close-fitting clothing.

Counting and measuring were essential at every stage of production: while counting was indispensable in weaving (e.g. in setting up looms), precise measurements became especially relevant in trade and in tailoring. The variety of medieval metrological standards and the impressive lengths of woven pieces (coupons) point to specialized technical knowledge and a sophisticated division of labour. This is particularly evident in high-quality artistic products that employ seemingly restrictive techniques such as weaving. In this context, creative ambition can also be seen as a form of playful engagement with the artes liberales, e.g. in ‹free› techniques such as embroidery through a counted-thread or repetitive structure. Such choices may reflect a nuanced self-image on the part of the makers.

The session jointly developed by Caroline Vogt and Corinne Mühlemann invites contributions that explore material evidence and written sources shedding light on production processes, division of labour and the visibility of the artisans and artists involved in textile production, and their social status in medieval Europe and the Islamic world. We also welcome papers on the historiography of the field, especially regarding the perception and appreciation of textiles and their makers in art-historical discourse.

 

(15) Temposensorial Settings – Zeit und Sinnlichkeit im Kontext mittelalterlichen Arbeitens

Hanna Christine Jacobs

Against the backdrop of the fast-paced work of today's era of rationalization, digitalization, and AI, where routine tasks are completed with great haste on the one hand and work-induced flow experiences are celebrated on the other, this session asks about the conscious experience of time and sensuality in the context of medieval work and work-free “festive times” and their reflection in artworks of this era.

First, questions of time perception will be addressed: How can the conscious experience of time be described against the backdrop of the close connection between work and daily structure? Does the design of the artifacts reveal anything about the value of the category of time within their production, function, or reception? Where, how, and when do the works of art refer to the experience of time? To what extent do elaborate objects (such as hard stone carvings or goldsmith work) reflect the enormous amount of time that went into their production, and does this influence their reception? Does the temporal limitation with which objects are used in the context of ritualized actions influence their form? Can the traditional media concept of art history be expanded to include temporal, fluid, situational, and processual aspects?

Secondly, we focus on the aspect of sensuality in connection with the working process itself and with rituals that can be understood as a contrast to everyday work: How is the sensual experience taken into account in specific situations of use during production? How does it determine the material development of objects? How do multisensory material affordances guide the work on the pieces? And how and by what means do the objects become part of rituals that are staged as pauses from recurring work? How do those people who are not allowed to perform the liturgical or ceremonial acts participate through the craftwork they put into the objectsand their festive activation?

Thirdly, the section also wants to ask what opportunities for insight practical, sensually experienceable work with 3D printing, virtual reality, and other digital media offers for art historical research. Under these and other aspects of “temposensorial settings”, the section will examine the “working” steps involved in the production, use, and reception of medieval works of art.

 

(16) The object in focus – on the contribution of object autopsy to art historical research using goldsmithing as an example

Stephan Patscher

The surviving works of art from the Middle Ages also include works of goldsmithing. They are often characterised not only by the use of high-quality materials, but also by a high level of craftsmanship. Due to the relative resistance of precious metals and many decorative materials to degradation and corrosion processes, they are comparatively well preserved. This also applies to tool marks and other traces of manufacture and to signs of wear and tear caused by the use of the object in question. Accordingly, these objects of medieval treasure art can be subjected to an autopsy in order to scientifically determine the materials, identify the construction and recognise and analyse traces of manufacture and use.

But in what way can such an interdisciplinary autopsy contribute to actually expanding the level of art historical knowledge about an object or group of objects? To what extent does it allow conclusions to be drawn about the production process and thus about the technological and technical knowledge and skills at the time of creation? To what extent is it suitable for helping to resolve art historical disputes, for example regarding the integrity of an object, its use or even its place of origin? 

Welcome are contributions that can show exemplary how a broadly based autopsy of an individual object or groups of objects can answer questions from art studies such as those mentioned above.

 

(17) Working on the Original, Engaging the Public: Medieval Craft Traditions in the Contemporary Museum

Katja Triebe

In the Middle Ages, artists translated complex theological ideas into tangible forms, shaping key themes through their craftsmanship. Today, museums face both familiar and new challenges when presenting these works. Most medieval artefacts are fragile, often fragmentary, and displayed outside their original contexts within art-historical frameworks. At the same time, museums must justify their work to funders, sponsors, and increasingly diverse audiences with varying expectations.

Many visitors lack prior knowledge of medieval art. Religious imagery, liturgical functions, and theological content are no longer self-evident. Meanwhile, medieval themes are flourishing in popular culture –including video games, films, TV series, and novels – often with increasing historical sophistication. These media also influence how the Middle Ages are perceived within the museum context and are already being strategically employed to offer accessible yet substantively relevant pathways into medieval art. In this process, materials, historical working techniques, and tools often come to the fore in object interpretation. Might it be that artistic craftsmanship is what connects us across the centuries with sacred art?

Current exhibition practices vary widely, ranging from permanent displays and open storage to blockbuster shows and small-scale exhibitions. These presentations are often situated in dialogue with artworks from other cultures, contemporary art, and broader global discourses. Moreover, the museum's own working processes – such as provenance research and conservation – are becoming integral parts of the narrative. New strategies emphasise participatory, inclusive, and interdisciplinary approaches, supported by emerging scholar initiatives and cross-institutional collaborations.

Against this backdrop, the question arises: which aspects of medieval art are (or should be) conveyed through this diversity? Is this development beneficial or overwhelming – and for whom?

This session aims to examine how museums work with medieval art in order to explore potential answers. What constitutes effective mediation of medieval art today? Central to the discussion are questions of appropriate modes of presentation amidst the tension between conservation demands, religious sensitivity, digital transformation, and scholarly responsibility. For whom, and how, should museums operate today?

We warmly welcome practice-based reports, conceptual approaches, analyses, and visions!

 

(18) Recasting Byzantium: Tracing Work and Craftsmanship in Popular Culture

Antje Bosselmann-Ruickbie

This session addresses how Byzantine work and workmanship are reimagined in global popular culture across a variety of visual and literary media – including film, graphic novels, comics, video games, music albums, stage design, and costumes – and how they contribute to contemporary conceptions of Byzantium. These media often constitute the primary point of access to historical periods for the general public.

Central to our inquiry is the question of valuation: are these traces of work portrayed with historical specificity and contextual nuance, or are they freely interpreted? Do such representations reflect scholarly engagement with Byzantine arts and crafts, or do they uncritically perpetuate orientalist tropes, aesthetic eclecticism, and romanticised visions of a “lost” empire?

A compelling case in point is the Netflix series Vikings: Valhalla (2022–2024), which follows the eleventh-century Norseman Harald Hardrada to Constantinople. While certain architectural and topographical elements suggest engagement with accessible scholarly reconstructions, the depiction of material culture – and the traces of the elaborate workmanship behind it – from costume and military equipment to interior design and furniture, largely presents a hybridised collage of Byzantine, Western, Islamic, Ottoman, and modern design traditions, replete with clichés of oriental decadence and eroticism. The series thus oscillates between portraying Byzantium as historical reality and as medieval fantasy.

This example reveals the wide scope of artistic license in popular culture – arguably a form of craft in its own right – and raises critical questions about the dichotomy between historical accuracy and authenticity. This panel considers how Byzantine arts and crafts shape cultural memory, and how knowledge of material culture circulates, mutates, and acquires meaning beyond academic frameworks – informing aesthetic perception and memetic transmission. The growing use of Byzantium as a reference model reflects rising interest, but this contrasts with limited public knowledge – leaving ample space for imaginative, politicised, or ideologically charged projections. By including both visual and literary media, we highlight the breadth of this still underexplored yet increasingly relevant field.

Proposals from advanced students and scholars at all career stages are expressly welcome.

 

(19) Images that Operate: Representing Medical Knowledge & Labor in Medieval Scientific Manuscripts

Reed O’Mara

In medical texts like Roger of Salerno’s (c. 1080–1119) Surgery or John of Arderne’s (1307–1392) Fistula in ano, images of doctors and their patients—or simply parts of their bodies—visualize ailments and procedures in vivid detail. The roles such images as well as accompanying diagrams play in medieval scientific, especially medical, manuscripts from the later Middle Ages have yet to be fully analyzed. Their contextualization within the increasing professionalization of surgeons and other medical practitioners in the Middle Ages also remains to be seen. How these images and diagrams “work” in relation to and beyond the texts they accompany, and what they meant for the standardization of medical knowledge, including the development of its verbal and visual terminology, has only recently come under art historical investigation. The relationship between word, image, and the actual labor of medical practitioners and surgeons requires further study. Therefore, this session welcomes papers analyzing the creation, use, and reception of illustrated scientific works like, but not limited to, Fistula in ano, Galenic surgical treatises, and Robert of Salerno’s Surgery. Papers that investigate the shared medical traditions of Latin and Hebrew medical manuscripts are especially encouraged.

Guiding questions for papers include the following: how do the labors of the author, scribe, artist, and physician-reader in illustrated medical manuscripts all intersect? What are the limitations of using the term “illustrated” to describe such volumes? What is the necessity or value of having such robust and frequently repetitive image programs? What is the divide between the diagrammatic and the imagistic? What is the significance and purpose of diagrams within such volumes? What role does gender play in medical representation? How do the images and diagrams themselves perform and operate? How are patients and doctors alike figured and conceptualized within these image cycles and what is the cultural backdrop of these representations?

 

(20) Labours of the Month – The Occupational Calendar

Gia Toussaint

In the rural society of pre-modern times, work was largely linked to the cycle of the year with its seasons and their specific climatic conditions and challenges. A fixed system of activities structured the entire year from January to December and made work a cyclically recurring activity. These activities are visualized in the "labours of the month", images that portray the work that had to be completed in a specific month, such as the grape harvest in September.

Labours of the Month cycles have been preserved in manuscripts since Carolingian times. Their integration into liturgical and paraliturgical manuscripts indicates the importance of the calendar structured by Christian festivals and saints' days with specific work associated with them. While work came to a standstill on high Christian festivals, saints' days were proverbially associated with certain activities (e.g. ‘St. Martin brings the cattle into the stable’ on 11 November). In this way, the rough monthly division was thoroughly organized down to the smaller units of (saints') days and was additionally linked to the favourable influence of certain saints, whose blessings were implored for the work to be done. In addition, work was linked to cosmological influences, as each month was dominated by a specific sign of the zodiac and an individual position of the moon and sun, whose specific powers had an effect on nature and humans. Work, seasons, celestial bodies and saints' days formed a fixed unit that had to be recognized and implemented anew throughout the course of the year.

Calendars illustrated with monthly tasks were effective teaching aids and offered practical and religious guidance. They placed working people in a God-given order in which every job had its place. However, this section will not only discuss calendars in manuscripts, but also examine the function of monthly tasks on church portals and furnishings (e.g. Chartres). How is work depicted in the image sources: as drudgery, as a source of meaning, or even as pleasure? Was the work depicted adapted to specific groups of recipients? Were only “godly” activities worthy of being depicted, or were trades on the margins of society also represented? How relevant are the accompanying texts in classifying the depictions of work, or can the images stand on their own?

 

(21) Tricks of the Trade: The Visual and Material Dimensions of Medieval Sex Work

Rowanne Dean

(sponsored session ICMA)

In his vita of the “saved prostitute” (turned “crossdressing” ascetic) St. Pelagia, James the Deacon describes how Nonnus, a bishop of Antioch, reproaches his male religious peers for averting their eyes from the courtesan’s beauty and bodily adornment. He implores them to instead comprehend her as an exemplative lesson: just as Pelagia lavishes time and attention to the work of decorating her body for her lovers, so too, should the bishops prepare their souls for their eternal Bridegroom. In the Golden Legend, Pelagia is similarly said to have “painted herself so meticulously” that she should be brought forth on the day of Judgment against those who take little care to please their heavenly Spouse. Though here a courtesan’s cosmetic labor is analogized in positive terms, the work involved in providing commercial sexual gratification was, by turns, merely tolerated and actively vilified in medieval theological, literary, and legal discourse. Building on the classic studies of Ruth Karras, Leah Lydia Otis, and Jacques Rossiaud, among others, recent scholarship has considered the visual dimensions of medieval sex work in various ways. Judith M. Bennet and Shannon McSheffrey have discussed female “crossdressing” in late medieval London, which was associated with sex work; Jess Bailey has analyzed depictions of disabled sex workers in the drawings of Urs Graf; and Jelle Haemers has examined the material culture of prostitution in the late medieval Southern Low Countries. This session aims to further explore the question of how sex work was thematized in medieval material and visual culture. How were sex workers represented? How were they thought to represent themselves? And how were viewers implicated in their visual apprehension? Paper proposals might explore the following topics: the visual marking of the prostitute’s body through garment regulations and sumptuary laws; the question of sex work as a craft or trade; representations of brothels; notions of illusion and deception in discussing sex workers; relationships between sex-work and (visible) gender non-conformity; the idealization and/or vilification of (feminized) sex workers’ beauty; sex work and cosmetics or bodily adornment; iconographic traditions such as the Prodigal Son with prostitutes or the Whore of Babylon.

 

(22) “By the sweat of your brow you will eat” and create(?): Ritual and creative implications of medieval representations of the labours

Vladimir Ivanovici

Over the twelfth century, labours associated with each month of the year began to be depicted in prominent locations of Christian buildings and on key liturgical furnishings, namely cathedral portals and windows, baptismal fonts, and church pavements and columns. Replacing or accompanying depictions of the zodiac constellations – for which Christians had continued to use the polytheistic imagery inherited from the Romans – the new images of the labours signalled a changed perspective on work, as various types of physical work were presented as joyful activities. Past research focused on the iconographic formulas and explored their socio-political implications, as instruments meant to appease social unrest and confirm the status quo of medieval communities. This session invites papers that explore instead the ritual and creative dimensions of the images. Considering their locations and the rituals performed there, papers should inquire how the representations were integrated into or contributed to the experience, whether strictly religious (i.e., baptism) or the varied, civic and religious celebrations performed in front of cathedral portals decorated with images of the works. In addition, we invite contributions that investigate how the new outlook on work that the images promote might have influenced the creative efforts that characterise this period. In particular, we are interested to see how the transformation of the symbol par excellence of humanity’s fall – i.e., the physical labour required of Adam (Gen. 3.19) – into a testimony of one’s contribution to the cosmic order established by God inspired the creative efforts of this period. Ultimately, this session invites us to ponder whether the development and dissemination of the Gothic style would have been possible without a changed perspective on work, given that Suger’s St. Denis already contained the representation of the monthly labours.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: ICMA News Editor (2026, 2027, and 2028), 3-year term

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: ICMA News Editor (2026, 2027, and 2028), 3-year term

 

The ICMA seeks applications for the Editor position of our triannual ICMA newsletter, ICMA News. This is a three-year appointment, starting in September 2025 and the first issue under the new editor will be released in March 2026. The editor is an ex-officio member of the ICMA Publications Committee and the Board of Directors.

ICMA News is a primary channel for communicating with membership, and the position of editor is therefore vital in the life of the organization. Released triannually (Summer, Winter, Spring), the newsletter provides reports, news, and content regarding the activities and scholarship of ICMA members, the ICMA organization, and the medieval art community more broadly. The editor collaborates regularly with ICMA officers, and interacts with ICMA members around the world. The editor also oversees the position of Assistant Editor for Events and Exhibitions, typically held by a graduate student. Note that the editor is not responsible for the graphic design or distribution of the newsletter (as these specialized tasks are handled by a design assistant and the ICMA’s Executive Director respectively).

The editorship requires creativity, initiative, detail-oriented attention, demonstrated ability to meet deadlines, and a deep involvement in the field. The editor invites and edits short feature articles for the newsletter, which are of interest to members and reflect current issues in the field, and, in consultation with ICMA officers, shapes each issue to reflect the current priorities of the ICMA. The editor also solicits reports, photographs, and other content from the President, Vice President, and Executive Director of the ICMA, as well as from committee chairs.

If you are interested, please upload a brief statement of interest and current CV HERE by Thursday 25 September 2025, 6pm ET. Applicants will be notified shortly thereafter for further discussions on the position.

DEADLINE EXTENDED! ICMA-Kress Research and Publication Grants, due Wednesday 15 October 2025

The ICMA-Kress Research and Publication grants ($3,500) are now available to scholars who are ICMA members at any stage past the PhD.

Due Wednesday 15 October 2025. Upload application HERE.

With the field of medieval art history expanding in exciting ways, it is crucial that the ICMA continue to encourage innovative research that will bring new investigations to broad audiences. These grants are open to scholars at all phases of their careers. Priority will be given to proposals with a clear path toward publication.

If travel is a facet of your application, please include an itinerary and be specific about costs for all anticipated expenses (travel, lodging, per diem, and other details). If you aim to inspect extremely rare materials or sites with restricted access, please be as clear as possible about prior experience or contacts already made with custodians.

If your application is for funds that will support the production of a book, please include a copy of the contract from your publisher, the publisher’s request for a subvention, and/or specifics on costs for images and permissions.

Preference will be given to applicants who have not received an ICMA-Kress grant in the past.

Please submit these documents for your application:

1) A detailed overview of the project (no more than three pages, single spaced). Please also confirm that your ICMA membership is active and specify whether or not you have been awarded an ICMA-Kress grant previously.

2) A full cv.

3) A full budget.

4) Supporting materials – an itinerary (for applications involving travel), a contract and schedule of costs (if a press requires a subvention), or table of anticipated fees for image permissions (if applicable).

Please note: If you are applying for funds to support the production of a book, please do not upload the entire typescript or portions of the text.

The application should be submitted electronically HERE. Recipients will be notified in December 2025.

Questions can be addressed to Ryan Frisinger, Executive Director, at awards@medievalart.org.

Failure to include all required materials adversely affects the review process.

Participate in the ICMA: Leadership and committees, nominations and self-nominations due 20 August 2025

PARTICIPATE IN THE ICMA
Leadership and committees 

  • Call for nominations and self-nominations: Secretary, Board of Directors, Associates, and Nominating Committee

  • Volunteer for a committee 

Put simply, the ICMA is able to do its work thanks to the members who volunteer their time, energy, and ideas to the organization. As everyone knows, this is a critical moment for our organization and for the arts and humanities more broadly. We are seeking members who are willing to help guide the ICMA in supporting our intellectual community.

How can you help? By offering to stand for election to the ICMA Board of Directors or in another leadership capacity, or by volunteering to serve on a committee. 

Several leadership roles available in 2026: Secretary, membership on the Board of Directors, membership as an Associate, and membership on the Nominating Committee. Full descriptions of these positions can be found in our bylaws, available HERE. To nominate yourself or a colleague for one of these positions, see the links below.

We also are seeking volunteers to staff our committees. You can offer your service to any of our committees (those noted with asterisks * are new this year), with service starting this fall: 

  • 75th Anniversary Committee (beginning the planning for our anniversary which will occur in 2031) * 

  • Advocacy

  • Audit

  • Development (formerly Friends of the ICMA) 

  • Digital Resources

  • Finance

  • Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA)

  • International Engagement *

  • Membership

  • Programs and Lectures

  • Publications

  • Social Media Working Group*

  • Website Task Force *

For more details on the roles of these committees, or to volunteer for one of them, please see below for descriptions and time commitment.  

The ICMA is an inclusive organization. We seek participation from members at every career stage, with a broad range of research specialties, and from diverse professional and geographic origins. In addition to traditional research strengths, we also seek participation from scholars who query the “edges” of our discipline and who engage in the theorization of our methods and objects of study. We are brought together by a shared commitment, in the words of our Mission Statement, to “the study, understanding, and preservation of visual and material cultures produced primarily between ca. 300 CE and ca. 1500 CE in every corner of the medieval world.”


LEADERSHIP ROLES
Nominations due 20 August 2025


We seek nominees (and self-nominees) for the following posts:

Secretary (3-year term, 2026-29)

  • Part of the Executive Committee, Required to attend two annual board meetings, three annual Finance Committee meetings, plus 1-2 Publications Committee meetings. Must create and edit minutes for each meeting.

  • Estimated time commitment: 30 hours per year


Board of Directors (3-year term, 2026-29)

  • Required to attend two annual meetings and committee meetings (all Directors serve on a committee). The Board of Directors shall establish policy for the ICMA, supervise activities of the ICMA, and approve the annual budget. International members are encouraged to self-nominate.

  • Estimated time commitment: 6-10 hours per year

Associates (3-year term, 2026-29) 

  • Lend expertise to the ICMA and will help further the goals of the organization. Associates are invited to attend meetings of the Board without vote. Individuals residing anywhere in the world who engage with medieval art and architecture, but who may not view themselves as an art or architectural historian, are encouraged to self-nominate. 

  • Estimated time commitment: 6-10 hours per year

Nominating Committee (1-year term, 2026)

  • In charge of creating the slate of leadership candidates for the annual election

  • Estimated time commitment: 10 hours per year

 

HOW TO SUGGEST CANDIDATES (OR YOURSELF) FOR A LEADERSHIP ROLE:

  • Nominate a colleague HERE
    You will be asked to provide your name and email in the first stage; for the second stage, you will be asked to provide nominees’ name, email, post (can be multiple), and information to share with the Nominating Committee. The Nominating Committee will follow up with the nominee.
     

  • Self-nominate HERE
    You will be asked to provide your name, email, and country along with a brief statement on why you would like to be a candidate. A CV and short biography is required.
     

If you have any questions, please contact our 2025 Nominating Committee Chair, Andrea Myers Achi at Andrea.Achi@metmuseum.org.


COMMITTEE ROLES
Nominations due 20 August 2025


(new committees marked with an asterisk *)

75th Anniversary Committee *

  • This is a newly formed committee to begin envisioning a celebration of the ICMA’s 75th Anniversary in 2031.

  • Estimated time commitment: 10 hours annually

Advocacy Committee

  • Devises ways to prepare ICMA members to advocate for the field of medieval art history and more broadly for the arts and humanities.

  • Estimated time commitment: 20 hours annually

Audit Committee

  • Oversees the annual financial review or audit (the latter occurring every third year), including approval of results from the previous year’s review/audit. The committee meets twice annually.

  • Estimated time commitment: 6 hours annually

Development Committee * (formerly Friends of the ICMA)

  • Tasked with high-level donor relations and securing funding for ICMA programming. This includes follow-up with specific individuals and being able to engage with donors who believe in ICMA’s mission.

  • Estimated time commitment: 10 hours annually

Digital Resources Committee

  • Creates online programming to benefit ICMA members, including “Mining the Collection” (at least once each year in conjunction with the ICMS/Kalamazoo conference) and “Medieval Coming Attractions” (twice each year).

  • Estimated time commitment: 20 hours annually

Finance Committee

  • Oversees the ICMA’s financial needs, budget, and endowment performance. The committee meets three times annually and recommends endowment draws and budgets for a board vote.

  • Estimated time commitment: 10 hours annually

IDEA Committee

  • Works to create useful programming and resources for ICMA members to enhance the inclusivity, diversity, equity, and accessibility of their professional spaces (classrooms, museums, etc). Advises the Executive Committee on issues that arise which might inspire the ICMA to contact others outside of our membership circles to advocate on behalf of the organization on a matter of professional concern to the membership. Members also audit the ICMA’s activities to ensure our values are met.  

  • Estimated time commitment: 15 hours annually

International Engagement Committee *

  • Offers suggestions on how best to engage with and serve our members outside of North America. In 2025-26, this committee will continue the development of a lecture series to take place in Europe.

  • Estimated time commitment: 15 hours annually

Membership Committee

  • Oversees member activities, engagement, benefits, and recruitment.

  • Estimated time commitment: 15 hours annually

Programs and Lectures Committee

  • Sends out Calls for Proposals and selects our sponsored sessions at conferences, as well as working to organize the Forsyth and Stahl Lectures.

  • Estimated time commitment: 20 hours annually

Publications Committee

  • Meets once (and occasionally twice) each year to oversee our current publications: Gesta, the Viewpoints series, and ICMA News.

  • Estimated time commitment: 5-10 hours annually 

Social Media Working Group *

  • Will consider a social media strategy for the ICMA, specifically examining ways that the organization could produce what might be called “micro-learning” productions for dissemination online. 

  • Estimated time commitment: 30-50 hours annually

Website Task Force *

  • During the 2025-26 year, will carefully review our website, clarifying its navigation and working with the ICMA’s Coordinator for Digital Engagement to edit and update portions of it as necessary.

  • Estimated time commitment: 20 hours annually

 

HOW TO VOLUNTEER FOR A COMMITTEE:

To volunteer your service, use the form that you can find HERE. You will be asked to submit your CV and a brief paragraph describing your interest in the committee(s) you select. The staffing of committees is coordinated between the Executive Committee and Committee Chairs. We strongly encourage you to consider multiple committees, and to express an interest in serving where you are most needed if we are unable to accommodate your top choice.

If you have any questions, please contact our Executive Director, Ryan Frisinger, at icma@medievalart.org

ICMA Pop-Up: Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Wednesday 27 August 2025 at 14:00

ICMA Pop-Up
Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry
Wednesday 27 August 2025, 14:00
Château de Chantilly
In-person

REGISTER HERE

ICMA members are invited to visit the exhibition Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry with other ICMA members. Exhibition curator Matthieu Deldicque, will give a 10 minute introduction. Afterwards, members are invited to a nearby café for an apéro.

Attendees are responsible for the their own ticket to the exhibition and for transportation to the Jeu de Paume at Château de Chantilly.

______

Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is the most famous manuscript in the world. Described as the ‘Mona Lisa’ of manuscripts, this collection of offices and prayers made especially for the Duke of Berry, brother of King Charles V of France, is a testament to the splendour and artistic refinement of the late Middle Ages.

Produced throughout the 15th century, this exceptional work was illuminated by the Limbourg brothers, distinguished artists affiliated with the courts of Burgundy and Berry, whose work profoundly transformed the course of art history. Consisting of 121 miniatures, Les Très Riches Heures capture the imagination with their depictions of historic castles, noble scenes and seasonal work in the fields that have shaped our perception of the Middle Ages.

To celebrate the restoration of this masterpiece, which has only been shown to the public twice since the end of the 19th century, an international exhibition has been set up, featuring almost 150 exhibits from all over the world. The exhibition provides visitors with an insight into each stage of the creation of the Très Riches Heures over almost a century and explains why the manuscript is still so popular.

The exhibition focuses particularly on the figure of Jean de Berry, his lavish patronage and his taste for books. For the first time since the prince’s death in 1416, all his books of hours known to date have been collected in one place. Manuscripts, sculptures, paintings and valuable works of art provide a comprehensive overview of the context behind the creation and dissemination of the Duke’s most ambitious work.

For more information about the exhibition, click HERE.

Call for Papers for ICMA-Sponsored Panel: 'The Archival Art Historian', College Art Association Conference, Chicago (18-21 Feb. 2026), Due by 29 Aug. 2025


Call for Papers
ICMA Sponsored Session
The Archival Art Historian

College Art Association Annual Conference 
Chicago, 18-21 February 2026

Due 29 August 2025

Art historians of the medieval past are often required to conduct research within varied archives that were not designed for art historical research: libraries, historical museums, private collections, cathedral crypts, parish churches or graveyards. Databases such as the Digital Index for Medieval Art, the Warburg Institute’s Iconographic Database and the ICMA Image Database are gradually revolutionising the study of medieval art. However, art historians of the medieval past must still frequently contend with generations of afterlives, layers of bureaucracy and confounding archival systems which rarely prioritise the visual. Working within these spaces presents both challenges and exciting opportunities for original interventions. This panel invites papers that reflect on the experience of conducting art historical research in archives that were not designed with art historians in mind.

This session aims to foster a productive discussion about the intricacies of art historical research and the position of archives therein. The 90-minute session will consist of five 10-minute presentations, followed by a round table discussion and Q&A. We therefore invite 10-minute presentations that reflect on: a single archival encounter, object, institution or methodological problem.

Papers should raise issues which may form the basis of a generative broader conversation between panellists and with the audience. Possible topics may include: discussion of working with unillustrated catalogues, the challenges of studying material that is still ‘active’ in a working context or the complexities which surround the creation of digital archives. We welcome papers which consider medieval archives and objects from across periods and geographies and we define ‘archive’ in the broadest possible terms, to include both digital and physical collections.

Submission guidelines
Please submit a 250-word abstract by Friday 29 August 2025, via CAA’s dedicated submission portal on the conference website.

To submit an abstract and for more information, visit https://caa.confex.com/caa/2026/webprogrampreliminary/Session16076.html

This panel is sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA). If your paper is accepted and you are not already a member of the ICMA, you will be required to join by February 2026. Some funding to assist with the cost of attending the conference may be available to speakers through the ICMA Kress Travel Grant Fund.


Contributing panelists will have the opportunity to submit their paper for publication in a special issue of the open-access journal Different Visions, titled ‘Points of Friction’, and co-edited by Dr Millie Horton-Insch (hortonim@tcd.ie) and Dr Lauren Rozenberg (l.rozenberg@uea.ac.uk).

NEW VIDEO! FRIENDS OF THE ICMA PRESENTS MEDIEVAL COMING ATTRACTIONS 2025-2026

NEW VIDEO

FRIENDS OF THE ICMA PRESENTS MEDIEVAL COMING ATTRACTIONS 2025-2026

Wednesday 21 May 2025, 11am ET (15:00 CET)

The Friends of the ICMA held the latest in a series of special online events on Wednesday 21 May 2025, 11am ET (15:00 CET). The hour-long program previeweed three medieval exhibitions, each introduced by its curator.

Mathieu Deldicque, Director of the Château de Chantilly, presented on the exhibition that he curated, “Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry Musée Condé”, which is running from 7 June 2025 to 5 October 2025.

Melanie Holcomb (Manager of Collection Strategy at The Met Cloisters) and Nancy Thebaut, (Associate Professor in the History of Art at the University of Oxford), both Curators of “Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages”, introduced the exhibition, which will be at the MET Cloisters from 16 October 2025 to 29 March 2026.

Michael Rief, Assistant Director of the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen and Custodian of the Collection, and Till-Holger Borchert, Director of the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen, spoke on the exhibition, “Praymobil. mittelalterliche kunst in bewegung”, which will run from 29 November 2025 to 15 March 2026

The panel was introduced and moderated by Stephen Perkinson, Professor of Art History, Bowdoin College, President of the ICMA.

To watch the video, visit the Special Online Lectures section of the ICMA website.

ICMA News, Summer 2025 now available online

ICMA News               

summer 2025
Melanie Hanan, Editor

Click here to read.
Also available on www.medievalart.org

INSIDE

SPECIAL FEATURES

Report and Resource
Medieval Art Embodied: Performing the York Mystery Cycle at Brooklyn College, The Met Cloisters, and the University of Toronto
, By Lauren Mancia

Research and Teaching Tools from the Making and Knowing Project, By Pamela H. Smith


Exhibition Reports 
Medieval Women: In Their Own Words
, By Gabriela Chitwood

Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350 (National Gallery, London), By Judith Steinhoff


EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES


The deadline for the next issue of ICMA News is 15 October 2025. Please send information to newsletter@medievalart.org 

If you would like your upcoming conference, CFP, or exhibition included in the newsletter please email the information to EventsExhibitions@medievalart.org.

ICMA at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds 2025: Sponsored Sessions + Reception, Wednesday 9 July 2025

ICMA at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds 

ICMA Sponsored Session
International Medieval Congress, Leeds
Viewing the Invisible: Multi-Sensory Approaches to the Divine in East and West, I & II
I: Wednesday 9 July 2025, 14.15-15.45
II: Wednesday 9 July 2025, 16.30-18.00
Esther Simpson Building, Room 2.12


ICMA Reception 
International Medieval Congress, Leeds
The Dry Dock
Wednesday 9 July 2025, 19:30-21:30
Student Meet and Greet at 19:00
All are welcome! Invite a colleague! 

Register HERE to help us know how many to expect at the reception.

Dream of Constantine and the Battle of the Milvian Bridge

ICMA Sponsored Session
International Medieval Congress, Leeds
Viewing the Invisible: Multi-Sensory Approaches to the Divine in East and West I

Wednesday 9 July 2025, 14.15-15.45
Esther Simpson Building, Room 2.12
Session 1202


Organiser & Moderator: Ioanna Christoforaki, Research Centre for Byzantine & Post-Byzantine Art, Academy of Athens
 
Multi-Sensory Experiences of Water and Water Motifs in Early Byzantium
Evan Freeman, Department of Global Humanities / Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Centre for Hellenic Studies, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia

Liturgical Visions in the Life of Nephon (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca 1371z)
Vasileios Marinis, Yale Divinity School, Yale University

Looking at Relics, Seeking the Sacred
Cynthia Hahn, Department of Art & Art History, Hunter College, New York

Smelling the Divine: Multi-Sensory Devotion within the Cult of St Demetrios
Lucie Schwarz, Department of Art History, University of Pennsylvania


ICMA Sponsored Session
International Medieval Congress, Leeds
Viewing the Invisible: Multi-Sensory Approaches to the Divine in East and West II

Wednesday 9 July 2025, 16.30-18.00
Esther Simpson Building, Room 2.12
Session 1302


Organiser & Moderator: Ioanna Christoforaki, Research Centre for Byzantine & Post-Byzantine Art, Academy of Athens
 
Hierotopy and Singers 'on the Step': The Effect of Greek Liturgical Singing on Siculo-Norman Domes Joseph Williams, School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation,University of Maryland

Beyond Vision: Christians, Muslims, and Miracles at the Monastery of Our Lady of Saydnaya, 12th-13th Centuries
Pelia Werth, Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, Johns Hopkins University

Unveiling the Sacred: The Late Medieval Practice of Covering Altarpieces and Devotional Images
Ralf van Bühren, Facoltà di Comunicazione Sociale Istituzionale,Pontificia Università della Santa Croce, Roma

 


ICMA Reception 
International Medieval Congress, Leeds
The Dry Dock
Wednesday 9 July 2025, 19:30-21:30

Student Meet and Greet, 19:00
Reception, 19:30


All are welcome! Invite a colleague! 
Please register HERE, to help us know how many to expect (non-committal)


Join fellow ICMA members for a special off-site reception at The Dry Dock on Wednesday 9 July 2025 from 19:30-21:30. Students are invited to join early at 19:00 to meet other student colleagues. Complimentary drinks and small bites will be provided. Food is available for purchase.

The Dry Dock is about a 10 minute walk from the University of Leeds campus, en route to central Leeds. 

The Dry Dock
Woodhouse Lane
Leeds LS2 3AX


https://www.socialpubandkitchen.co.uk/dry-dock-leeds

ICMA in Budapest: exhibition tour of "Master MS and his age" on Friday 20 June 2025. Register today!

ICMA in Budapest
Exhibiton tour of Master MS and his age

with Emese Sarkadi Nagy (curator) and Éva Galambos (restorer)
 
Friday 20 June 2025
3pm CET

Museum of Fine Arts, Heroes’ Square, Budapest

In person only

Register HERE

The Visitation. Master M.S. (Michel Schröter?), active ca. 1506. Lindenwood, oil-egg tempera, gilt;140 × 94.5 cm. 2151. Old Hungarian Collection; Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.

ICMA members are invited to attend an exhibition tour of Master MS and his age at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, with one of the exhibition’s curators Emese Sarkadi Nagy and restorer Éva Galambos. A general introduction to the exhibition will be provided by Zsombor Jékely

The exhibition showcases one of the most significant yet enigmatic figures of medieval Hungarian art, known as Master MS. At the heart of the monographic exhibition is Master MS’s most famous work: the former high altarpiece of Saint Catherine’s Church in Selmecbánya (now Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia), dated to 1506. The seven surviving panel paintings of this monumental masterpiece of late medieval art have never before been brought together in a single exhibition.

Drinks to follow at 5pm.

More information about the exhibition: https://www.mfab.hu/exhibitions/master-ms-and-his-age/

This event was organized by Zsombor Jékely (Budapest). The event is open to current ICMA members as well as to art history students. This gathering is informal. Attendees are responsible for their own travel bookings and accommodation, if needed.
 
Click HERE to register.

MEDIEVAL COMING ATTRACTIONS, 2025-26 - Wednesday 21 May 2025 online via Zoom

MEDIEVAL COMING ATTRACTIONS, 2025-26
Register HERE

Please join the Friends of the ICMA for the latest in a series of special online events on WEDNESDAY 21 MAY 2025 at 11am ET (17:00 CET). The hour-long program will preview three medieval exhibitions, each introduced by its curator.

Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry  (Musée Condé at the Château de Chantilly, 7 June -5 October 2025Curator: Mathieu Deldicque

Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages (The Met Cloisters, 16 October 2025– 29 March 2026) Curators: Melanie Holcomb and Nancy Thebaut

Praymobil. mittelalterliche kunst in bewegung (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen, 29 November 2025 - 15 March 2026) Curator: Michael Rief

Please feel free to notify colleagues and friends who may not be ICMA members about this event. 

For questions, please contact icma@medievalart.org

Call for Proposals: VIII Forum Medieval Art in Bochum, 23-26 September 2026, due Friday 23 May 2025

Call for Proposals
ICMA at the VIII Forum Medieval Art
Bochum, 23-26 September 2026
due Friday 23 May 2025

Work: Traces, Constellations, Valuations
(Ulrich Rehm, Ruhr-Universität Bochum in cooperation with Kirsten Lee Bierbaum, Technische Universität Dortmund)

The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) seeks proposals for sessions to be held under the organization’s sponsorship at the VIII Forum Medieval Art (Bochum, 23-26 September 2026) for which the theme will be “Work: Traces, Constellations, Valuations.” Session organizers and speakers must be ICMA members. 

Proposals to the ICMA must include a session abstract of 350 words and a CV of the organizer(s). A list of speakers is not required at the time of application. There is to be one session chair and a maximum of three speakers per section. The sessions will be officially selected in July 2025 by the conference organizers and the calls for papers for all sessions will be sent out in August.

Upload your proposals HERE by 23 May 2025.

Please direct all inquiries to the Chair of the Programs Committee: Alice I. Sullivan, Tufts University, USA, alice.sullivan@tufts.edu

The ICMA Programs and Lectures committee will select a session to sponsor and will notify the successful organizer(s) by 29 May 2025. The organizer(s) will then submit the ICMA-sponsored proposal to the conference organizers by 1 June 2025.

https://www.dvfk-berlin.de/en/kdm-call-for-sessions-2/


A note about Kress Travel Grants
Thanks to a generous grant from the Kress Foundation, funds may be available to defray travel costs of speakers in ICMA sponsored sessions up to a maximum of $600 for domestic travel and of $1200 for overseas travel. If a conference meets in person, the Kress funds are allocated for travel and hotel only. If a presenter is attending a conference virtually, Kress funding will cover virtual conference registration fees.
 
Click HERE for more information. 

Call for Proposals: International Congress on Medieval Studies 2026, due Friday 23 May 2025

Call for Proposals
International Congress on Medieval Studies 2026
Kalamazoo, 14–16 May 2026
due Friday 23 May 2025
 

The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) seeks proposals for sessions to be held under the organization’s sponsorship at the International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS) at Kalamazoo. Session organizers and speakers must be ICMA members.  
 
Proposals to the ICMA must include a session abstract and a CV of the organizer(s). A list of speakers is not required at the time of application. Organizers will have the opportunity to send out a call for papers after the session is selected by the ICMA and has been approved by the Congress Committee in July.
 
Upload your proposals HERE by 23 May 2025. 
 
Please direct all inquiries to the Chair of the Programs & Lectures Committee: Alice I. Sullivan, Tufts University, USA, alice.sullivan@tufts.edu 
 
The ICMA Programs & Lectures committee will select a session to sponsor and will notify the successful organizer(s) by 29 May 2025. The organizer(s) will then submit the ICMA-sponsored proposal to the ICMS by 1 June 2025.


A note about Kress Travel Grants
Thanks to a generous grant from the Kress Foundation, funds may be available to defray travel costs of speakers in ICMA sponsored sessions up to a maximum of $600 for domestic travel and of $1200 for overseas travel. If a conference meets in person, the Kress funds are allocated for travel and hotel only. If a presenter is attending a conference virtually, Kress funding will cover virtual conference registration fees.
 
Click HERE for more information. 

New Video! ICMA Annual Lecture, Word/Play: Interiority, Performance, and Reading in Late Medieval Flanders, Alexa Sand

New Video

ICMA Annual Lecture

Word/Play: Interiority, Performance, and Reading in Late Medieval Flanders

Alexa Sand

Professor of Art History and Associate Vice President for Research at Utah State University

14 May 2025

The link to the video is on the Courtauld Lecture page of the ICMA website.

A small group of devotional, literary, and spiritually instructional texts from late thirteenth and early fourteenth century Flanders and Northern France contain a remarkable array of marginalia depicting performance practices and play, ranging from puppet shows to violent ball sports. In the environment that produced these books, reading, especially in a devotional vein, was not merely transactional or functional, and the books are part of a performance culture in which engaging in various outward behaviours, especially those associated with “play” in all its aspects was critical to creating the awareness of and experience of inwardness, including a heightened sense of one’s spiritual visibility to the divine. Drawing on scholarship in dance history, performance studies, and the history of sports, and responding to recent work by fellow art historians focusing on the nexus of sensory experiences – haptic, visual, aural, gustatory, and olfactory – that constitute what is sometimes characterised as “medieval somaesthetics,” this work situates the illuminated manuscripts and the acts of reading they engendered as indices of a much larger realm of experience and practice that constituted the prima materia of late medieval selfhood. Understanding how these particular objects, images, and performances constituted the field of its enactment, is pertinent to twenty-first-century phenomena of self-formation and self-perception within the relentlessly performative realm of media culture.

Alexa Sand is Professor of Art History and Associate Vice President for Research at Utah State University, where she has taught since 2004. She earned her Ph.D. in art history from UC Berkeley, with an emphasis on medieval French art and literature. Her book, Vision, Devotion, and Self-Representation in Late Medieval Art appeared with Cambridge University Press in 2014. Her most recent work has focused on medieval puppetry, including her 2021 essay in Gesta, “Puppets, Manuscripts, and Gendered Performance in the Hortus deliciarum.” She is cohost of the podcast Real Fantastic Beasts.

Organised by Dr Jessica Barker, Senior Lecturer in Medieval Art History, The Courtauld. This event is kindly supported by the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA), and the drinks reception sponsored by Sam Fogg. This Series made possible through the generosity of William M. Voelkle.

Call for Proposals: ICMA Forsyth Lecture, due 15 May 2025

Call for Proposals
ICMA Forsyth Lecture
due 15 May 2025

 

INVITE AN EXPERT TO YOUR CAMPUS!

The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) seeks proposals for an in-person Forsyth Lecture Series (with a virtual component) to be held at 2-3 venues in 2025-2026. Forsyth Lectures are to be co-sponsored by the ICMA and colleges, universities, or museums located east of the Mississippi River, or the Greater Midwest. We are interested in proposals that include in-person engagement between students, speakers, and the general public – and can include non-lecture events like seminars or object handling sessions in addition to at least one lecture. For example, Venue 1 hosts a lecture (both in person and online), Venue 2 hosts a seminar with students or a hands-on museum experience, Venue 3 hosts a lecture and student-focused discussion with the speaker. Proposals are open to suggestions and types of events at each venue as long as at least two venues participate and one lecture is presented. Lectures at all venues are also acceptable for the proposal but they need to be accompanied by a student-focused gathering. International exchange of scholarship is encouraged, though not required.

 

A lead organizer at an institution must work with 1-2 local organizers at other institutions to create the series of events. The first step will be aligning a potential speaker and interested institutions. The ICMA contributes $3,500 (total) toward the events, flexible dependent on the specific needs of the institutions and institutional budgets. Joint proposals—of two or more institutions—are welcome, as traditionally, lecturers are expected to speak at more than one venue. The hosts assume the responsibility of organizing the event, ideally working in conjunction with colleagues at other institutions; for publishing the details in advance on the ICMA website and ICMA News (the newsletter); and for reporting on the event after it is over.

 

In the application, please suggest the name(s) of appropriate speakers and indicate your willingness to host the event at your institution. Please indicate the format of the event and, if applicable, whether your college or university has the infrastructure for a Zoom (or other) webinar and the tech support to launch and troubleshoot a virtual component to the events.

 

For the Forsyth Lecture, please submit your CV and the CV of the proposed speaker, as well as a brief proposal/preliminary itinerary by clicking HERE.

 

Please direct any inquiries to the Chair of the ICMA Programs & Lectures Committee: Alice Isabella Sullivan (alice.sullivan@tufts.edu).

 

The deadline for the nominations is 15 May 2025 for lectures to be planned during the 2025-2026 academic year. 

Call for applications: Assistant Editor for ICMA News, due 23 May 2025

Call for applications
Assistant Editor for ICMA News
due 23 May 2025

 
The ICMA/ICMA Publications Committee seeks an Assistant Editor for the Events and Exhibitions section of the triannual newsletter, ICMA News. This position, to be held by a current graduate student, will run a two-year term. Working closely with the newsletter Editor, the Assistant Editor for Events and Exhibitions will be responsible for gathering and managing relevant information on upcoming symposia, calls for papers, and exhibitions for publication in the newsletter.The Events and Exhibitions section is international in scope, and is a regular section of each issue. In addition, the Assistant Editor works with the Editor to identify graduate students to write exhibition reports for each issue. The Assistant Editor also helps the Editor edit the newsletter copy and final proofs before publication. An annual stipend of US$750 is provided.

For consideration, please send a brief letter of interest and current CV to Melanie HananICMA News Editor, at newsletter@medievalart.orgby 23 May 2025.

ICMA in Boston: "Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World" Wednesday 2 April 2025, 3pm ET - Register today!

ICMA in Boston
Tour of Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World
with exhibition curator Ladan Akbarnia

 

Wednesday 2 April 2025, 3pm ET
McMullen Museum of Art at Boston COLLEGE
In-person only


Register HERE

Star map depicting the northern and southern celestial hemispheres (with constellations inscribed in Devanagari). India, Jaipur, ca. 1780. Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper. Pritzker Collection, Chicago. Photo: Michael Tropea.

ICMA members are invited to attend an exhibition tour of Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College with exhibition curator Ladan Akbarnia (The San Diego Museum of Art). 

Using wonder as a vehicle, Wonders of Creation illuminates the global impact of science and artistic production from the Islamic world and its diverse geographies and multifaceted visual cultures. Over 170 works, including illustrated manuscripts and paintings, maps, scientific instruments, magic bowls, luster dishes, architectural elements, and contemporary art, evoke wonder through a visual journey.

Drinks to follow at 5pm at an offsite location. 

Click HERE for exhibition and museum info.

Click HERE to register.

ICMA-Kress Exhibition Development Grant - due Wednesday 19 March 2025

ICMA-KRESS EXHIBITION DEVELOPMENT GRANT
Deadline for applications: WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH 2025, 11:59pm ET

Upload materials HERE

Thanks to the generosity of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, ICMA members are eligible to apply for an ICMA-Kress Exhibition Development Grant of $10,000 to support research and/or interpretive programming for a major exhibition at an institution that otherwise could not provide such financial support. Members from all geographic areas are welcome to apply.

As an organization, the ICMA encourages scholars to think expansively, exploring art and society in “every corner of the medieval world,” as characterized in our mission statement. With this grant, we hope to encourage colleagues to develop innovative exhibition themes or bring little-known objects before new audiences. We also aim to enhance the impact of exhibitions by supporting related lectures or symposia.

ICMA-Kress Exhibition Development Grant can be used to fund travel in the research and preparation stages of an exhibition and/or to underwrite public programming once a show is installed. This grant is designed to assist with an exhibition already in the pipeline and scheduled by the host museum.

We ask applicants to upload to the ICMA submission site:

  • Applicant’s cv

  • Description of the exhibition and its goals, including an overview of the structure of the exhibition – themes and estimated number of objects in each section of the show – and dates of the exhibition

  • Statement of other sources of funding both secured and provisional, with specifics on the amounts already awarded and expenses to be covered by secured and provisional funding

  • Sample wall panel for a subsection of the exhibition and sample labels for 3-4 examples of works in the show

  • If the applicant seeks funds to travel to see objects for inclusion in the exhibition, a list of institutions to be visited, names of contacts at each, and key objects (with accession numbers) to be inspected

  • If the applicant seeks funds for exhibition programming, specific information on gallery talks, public lectures, or symposium, with anticipated names of speakers and estimated dates

  • Letter of support from the Museum Director or Curator with whom the applicant is working, confirming that the exhibition will be mounted

  • If funds will be used toward a lecture or symposium connected to an exhibition, letter of support from institutional administrator/s (Dean, Provost, or Museum/Gallery Director) confirming that space at the organizer’s institution will be made available for the event/s

Applications will be reviewed by the ICMA Grants & Awards Committee and approved by the ICMA Executive Committee. The recipient will be announced in May 2025. An update report from the recipient will be due in late Summer 2025.

Questions can be addressed to Ryan Frisinger, Executive Director, at awards@medievalart.org

Upload materials HERE

STUDENT RESEARCH GRANT - DUE WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH 2025

Student Research Grant
due WEDNESDAY 19 March 2025, 11:59pm ET

 

Upload materials HERE

This grant of $500 is intended to encourage an early-stage graduate student (someone enrolled in a post-baccalaureate graduate program, who may have received a MA or MPhil, or who is otherwise pre-ABD) to pursue research on cross-cultural visual connections involving art produced in parts of the medieval world that until recently have been studied separately. To be eligible, applicants must be involved in research on the connections between art of at least two of the following broadly-defined regions:  

  • Africa

  • Asia

  • Europe and Byzantium

  • North Africa, the Middle East, and the Near East

Funds awarded could be used to defray expenses of attending or presenting at a conference or visiting a museum, archive, or site. Applicants must be members of the ICMA (information on memberships can be found here).
 
We are grateful to Robert E. Jamison, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Clemson University, for underwriting this grant. The grant recipient is to send their winning application directly to Robert E. Jamison as soon as the award is announced.

The deadline for submission is WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH 2025, 11:59pm ET.
  The winners will be announced at the Spring Board Meeting. Recipients will be asked to forward their winning application to Robert E. Jamison.

 
Applicants must submit: 

  1. Description of the project to be undertaken, in 400 words or less.

  2. Proposed budget.  Please be precise and realistic: if the budget exceeds $500, state how you will cover the remaining portion of the cost.

  3. A curriculum vitae.            

NOTE ON FILE SUBMISSION: Please submit PDF files when appropriate with the file named as LAST NAME first, then the item. Example: SMITHdescription.pdf, SMITHbudget.pdf, SMITHcv.pdf


All applicants must be ICMA members.
All submissions are to be uploaded HERE.


A parallel grant is available via The Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Technology, Science, and Art (AVISTA).  Students may apply for both the ICMA and the AVISTA grants but would be eligible to receive only one of the awards. 

Email questions to Ryan Frisinger at awards@medievalart.org. The winning application will be chosen by members of the ICMA Grants and Awards Committee, which is chaired by our Vice-President.


Map of the world; with windfaces along upper and lower edge; stencil-coloured illustration to Ptolemy, 'Cosmographia', Ulm: Leonhard Holl, 1482. Coloured woodcut. © The Trustees of the British Museum Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.

ICMA Graduate Student Essay Award - due Wednesday 19 March 2025

GRADUATE STUDENT ESSAY AWARDS
due WEDNESDAY 19 March 2025, 11:59 PM ET

Upload materials HERE

The International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) wishes to announce its annual Graduate Student Essay Award for the best essay by a student member of the ICMA.  The theme or subject of the essay may be any aspect of medieval art, and can be drawn from current research.  Eligible essays must be produced while a student is in coursework.  The work must be original and should not have been published elsewhere.  We are pleased to offer First Prize ($400), Second Prize ($200), and Third Prize ($100).

We are grateful to an anonymous donor for underwriting the Student Essay Award competition. This member particularly encourages submissions that consider themes of intercultural contact — for instance, between Latin Christendom and the Byzantine realm; among Jews, Muslims, and Christians; or the dynamics of encounters connecting Europe, Africa, and Asia. These are not requirements, however, and the awards will be granted based on quality of the papers, regardless of topic.

The deadline for submission is WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH 2025, 11:59pm ET. The winners will be announced at the Spring Board Meeting in May. Recipients will be asked to forward their winning essay to the donor that underwrites the Student Essay Award competition.

Applicants must submit:

  1. An article-length paper (maximum 30 pages, double-spaced, not including footnotes) following the editorial guidelines of our journal Gesta. A title page with essay title, author name, contact information, and affiliation must be included.

  2. Each submission must also include a 250-word abstract written in English regardless of the language of the rest of the paper.

  3. A curriculum vitae.

NOTE ON FILE SUBMISSION: Please submit PDF files when appropriate with the file named as LAST NAME first, then the item. Example: SMITHabstract.pdf, SMITHessay.pdf, SMITHcv.pdf

All applicants must be ICMA members.
All submissions are to be uploaded HERE.

Email questions to Ryan Frisinger at awards@medievalart.org. The winning essay will be chosen by members of the ICMA Grants and Awards Committee, which is chaired by our Vice-President.