Media, Art and Design Electronic Theses and Dissertations (UMKC)
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The items in this collection are the theses and dissertations written by students of the Department of Media, Art and Design. Some items may be viewed only by members of the University of Missouri System and/or University of Missouri-Kansas City. Click on one of the browse buttons above for a complete listing of the works.
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Item Mutterrecht to Mauerfall: Cassandra and Penthesilea in 1980s east German art(2023) Baxter, Deborah Joanne; Albu, CristinaTwo important mythological figures emerged in East German art in the 1980s: Cassandra, the Trojan prophetess, and Penthesilea, the Amazon warrior queen. Christa Wolf’s 1983 novel, Cassandra, exerted a profound influence on the pacifist movement and enhanced women’s gender consciousness during this period. The 1986 Dresden production of Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea (1808) was another significant influence, extensively impacting the countercultural scene. This thesis will establish connections between literary productions and visual artworks focused on the figures of Cassandra and Penthesilea in the context of the Cold War. It offers iconological and feminist analyses of the illustrations, paintings, lithographs, and sculptures of East German artists Heidrun Hegewald, Angela Hampel, Nuria Quevedo, Annemirl Bauer, Regine Richter, Christine Schlegel, and Gabriele Koerbl, among others. Tracing a longer iconographic history of Penthesilea and Cassandra in Ancient Greek, Neoclassical, and modern art, it addresses how GDR artists of the 1980s subverted conventional modes of depicting women in art. Relying on symbolism, figure duplication, and visual ambiguity, they created densely layered artworks which underscore women’s differences, subjectivity, and autonomy, condemn war and sexual violence, and encourage a persistent search for alternative modes of identity and community construction in the midst of the polarizing system of the Cold War period. GDR artists’ works reinterpreting ancient myths also engage with the concept of das Mutterrecht, a primitive form of matriarchy which informed foundational socialist ideology on women. This ideology bears interesting connections with the myths in which Cassandra and Penthesilea originate. In addition to advancing the understanding of gender representation in the GDR art of the 1980s, this thesis aims to amend the exclusion of female artists, particularly figurative painters, from English scholarship on the art of the GDR.Item From Pan to Plate: Cased Images of the California Gold Rush, 1849-1865(University of Missouri -- Kansas City, 2019) Aspinwall, Jane Lee, 1967-; Dunbar, Burton L. (Burton Lewis)After President Polk’s announcement in December 1848 of the gold discovery in California, thousands flocked to the region. Lured by the ready market of potential customers, daguerreotypists also made their way. The daguerreotype quickly became an important component of the gold rush experience. Using a personal research database comprised of over 500 daguerreotypes and ambrotypes made in California from 1849 to 1865, this dissertation reveals previously unrecognized patterns in overall production. Informed by this wealth of data, the following chapters incorporate primary and secondary source materials that seek to identify or support patterns uncovered through the database analysis. The first chapter provides an overview of the earliest daguerreian projects completed in California by Robert H. Vance and J. Wesley Jones. The second chapter surveys the notable California daguerreotypist working outside the studio in the gold fields. The evolution of mining technology from individuals with a pickaxe, shovel, and pan; to groups of men with rockers, long toms, and sluices; to large companies engaged in river diversion and hydraulic mining is the subject of the third chapter. The fourth chapter explores the mining contributions of American Indian, Chinese, and black (enslaved and free) miners and considers reasons for the lack of pictorial representation. California gold towns, the subject of the fifth chapter, examines images of street views, housing, cemeteries, and distant views, and investigates the population of those towns, including women. Miner studio portraits with men in mining attire often holding a pickaxe, shovel, knife, or gold nugget are the topic of the final chapter. California gold rush daguerreotypes offer more than a simple documentation of a major cultural and historical event. These images provide an extraordinary glimpse into the transformation of the American West: a mass migration led to a complex mix of peoples and culture, gold towns arose almost overnight, and mining technology altered the landscape. While daguerreotypists found many ways to explore the reality of the gold rush, existing images do not fully convey the experience. This dissertation focuses on what is visually represented in California gold rush daguerreotypes, while addressing what tended to be ignoredItem Frank Overton Colbert: A Study in Trans-Customary Indigenous Modern Art(2021) Hearn, Brian L.; Albu, CristinaAs the art historical canon makes a turn toward decolonization in the 21st century, art historians have an opportunity to rediscover and recognize long marginalized artists whose contributions expand, complicate, and enhance the conventional narrative that has most often privileged the work of white male artists. When we look at the development of American modernism in fine art, particularly at the period between the Armory Show of 1913 and the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, artists fervently desired to create a distinctively American visual culture which moved beyond European academic or avant-garde influences. In the midst of this tumultuous period of American experimentation, a cosmopolitan, Chickasaw artist named Frank Overton Colbert emerged on the New York art scene. He produced an innovative body of work which has largely been forgotten since its initial display. Colbert’s artistic production, consisting of more than seventy paintings produced between 1920 and 1923, was emblematic of the modernist zeitgeist while being concomitantly rooted in Native American tribal cultures. Colbert’s small paintings of pan-indigenous “gods” and “folklore,” accompanied by narrative texts and performative actions, became an art world sensation, albeit brief, when Colbert began exhibiting in New York. In this study of Frank Overton Colbert’s few surviving works, I describe the aesthetic qualities and influences on his artistic practice and contextualize the diverse indigenous subject matter he painted. I also review the exhibition history and critical reception of his practice. Through these means, I aim to cast light on Colbert’s larger project as a trans-customary artist, a trans-cultural interpreter, and a significant indigenous presence within the evolving canons of both Native North American modernism and American modernist painting.Item Pictographic dress: decoloniality in the performance of memory(2020) Link, Linda Joy; Hartman, Joseph R.My thesis examines pictographic War Honor Dresses collaboratively hand-sewn and painted in North America, attributed to the final decade of the eighteenth century. As a natural progression of the centuries-long Indigenous pictographic tradition and due to changes fueled by a dynamic ideological climate, the Lakota were forced to adapt cultural practices according to their changing social and political climate. Art Historian Emil Her Many Horses describes Native Women’s dresses as “aesthetic expressions of tribal culture and personal identity.” Building on that observation, I argue that embodied War Honor Dresses bridge the metaphysical elements with the utilitarian and the aesthetic with the spiritual. Constructed for public spaces, they provide a means by which a community remains connected with a deceased member of their community and serve as early embodied agents of decoloniality. These dresses ultimately inform and influence the work of contemporary artists wishing to form the future by reimaging the past in creative and innovative ways. Comparative analyses of extant War Honor Dresses establish their multiple functions as mobile sacred spaces, mnemonic devices, and time machines. Engaging issues of self-determination and sovereignty, what at first appears to function primarily as a garment, instead visually adheres to historic practices dispersed by the Lakota, as well as concomitant concepts circulated by American Indian historians and artists such as Vine Deloria, Jr. and Rhonda Holy Bear. In a return to tradition, these dresses enable commemoration of the future.Item Evelyn Gleeson and The Dun Emer Guild: Redefining a Woman’s Place in the Arts(2020) Brightwell-Gray, Abigail; Connelly, Frances S.This thesis will explore a myriad of topics not often analyzed within the art historical academic field. It adds to recent endeavors to understand the role of women as artists in the early twentieth century by highlighting the contributions of specific women who revolutionized Irish art. The thesis emphasizes aspects of art often omitted from art history, including “domestic” pieces such as weaving, embroidery, clothing, and fabrics. During the late nineteenth century, the English Arts and Crafts Movement stimulated a revival of craft practices throughout Europe. In Ireland, this artistic movement was particularly significant as the nation was simultaneously trying to gain independence from England. One way to break from colonialist structures was to revive artistic practices upheld in western Ireland which was noted for preserving “true” Irish identity. The revival of Irish industries such as weaving and embroidery, composed from native materials, was thereby essential to nationalist discourse. Guilds and societies were formed, each specializing in a form of Irish craft or industry. One woman and guild in particular form the subjects of my study: Evelyn Gleeson and the Dun Emer Guild. Gleeson was an advocate for three things: the revival of decorative craft practices, Irish nationalism, and the suffragist movement. From these three subjects, I examine how Gleeson, and the Dun Emer Guild wove these themes into one another and utilized each one to promote the visual representation and agency for women in Irish society. During a time in Ireland that was based on extremes, the Dun Emer Guild found a middle ground to ensure a lasting legacy for Irish handmade goods, still appreciated today. The Dun Emer Guild is surprisingly absent from modern discussions in the Arts and Crafts Movement. This thesis will provide an argument for Evelyn Gleeson and the Dun Emer Guild’s artistic legacy to inspire a continued appreciation of women in the arts.