Marjorie Och
Professor, Art and Art History | University of Mary Washington
Fredericksburg, VA, UNITED STATES
Professor of Art and Art History, Specialization in Baroque and Renaissance Artists
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Biography
Marjorie Och, Professor of Art History, earned a Ph.D. (1993) in art history from Bryn Mawr College, after having received an M.A. (1989) in art history from the University of Delaware and a B.A. (1981) in medieval and Renaissance studies from Towson University (Maryland). Her publications include contributions to Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons in Renaissance Italy, Women as Sites of Culture: Women’s Roles in Cultural Formation From the Renaissance to the 20th Century, The Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women, The Dictionary of Art, The International Dictionary of Architects and Architecture, and Wives, Widows, Mistresses, and Nuns in Early Modern Italy. She has a forthcoming article in The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari . In addition, Dr. Och recently served as chair for a session on technology and collaboration in the art history classroom at the annual meeting of the College Art Association in New York City.
She is currently working on a critical study of biographies of Renaissance artists. Among her awards are Mary Washington Faculty Development Grants for Research, a Kress Foundation Grant for Dissertation Research and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Most recently, Dr. Och was awarded a 2011-2012 Mary Washington Faculty Development Grant for the project “Community and Friendship in the Letters and Portraits of Vittoria Colonna.” Dr. Och’s research and teaching interests include art patronage; monographic approaches to 15th-, 16th- and 17th-century artists; medieval, Renaissance and Baroque architecture in Italy; and feminist approaches and studies in art history. She serves as president of the national society Art Historians Interested in Pedagogy and Technology.
Areas of Expertise (7)
Renaissance Art
Baroque Art
Art Patronage
16th Century Art
17th Century Art
Giorgio Vasari
Women in Art
Accomplishments (1)
Mary Washington Faculty Development Grants for Research (professional)
2012-01-01
For the project “Community and Friendship in the Letters and Portraits of Vittoria Colonna.”
Education (3)
Bryn Mawr College: Ph.D., Art History 1993
University of Delaware: M.A., Art History 1989
Towson University (Maryland): B.A., Medieval and Renaissance Studies 1981
Affiliations (1)
- College Art Association in New York City
Links (2)
Media Appearances (3)
Fredericksburg-Este Association to offer free talk on 16th-century Venetian painter
fredericksburg.com online
2019-04-12
Fredericksburg-Este Association to offer free talk on 16th-century Venetian painter (fredericksburg.com) Marjorie Och, a University of Mary Washington art history professor, will give the talk, which is timed to coincide with “Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. That exhibit is in honor of the artist’s 500th birthday anniversary, and runs through July 7.
Free lecture on Pompeii, history and art of ancient Roman city buried in ash from Vesuvius explosion in 79AD
patch.com online
2017-11-03
A free lecture on Pompeii will be delivered by Dr. Marjorie Och, professor of Art History at University of Mary Washington, on Friday, November 10, at St. George's Church, 905 Princess Anne Street.
Och Publishes Review of “Violence and Virtue”
Eagle Eye online
2014-09-30
Marjorie Och’s review of the exhibition “Violence and Virtue: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes” and the exhibition’s accompanying catalogue (Yale University Press, 2014) will appear in the fall/winter issue of The Woman’s Art Journal...
Courses (4)
303– METHODS OF ART HISTORY (3)
Prerequisite: Sophomore Art History majors; permission of department chair and instructor Philosophies of art historical methodologies and summation of principles and historic development of the discipline.
460 – SEMINAR: WOMEN & WESTERN ART (3)
Prerequisites: ARTH 114, 115, and 303 This course examines the roles women have played in the visual arts in Western traditions, as well as the literature by and about these women. Focus is on the work of women artists, the commissions of women patrons, the responses of audiences to these works, meanings placed on the feminine form, and the work of male artists which has as its subject the female form. Also looks at contemporary issues to examine the role of feminist art as an art that critiques and creates society.
470 – SEMINAR: SPECIAL STUDIES IN ART HISTORY (3)
Gen Ed.: Global Inquiry ATC: WI (Dabb & Och) Prerequisites: ARTH 114, 115, and 303; for Art History majors and other qualified students permission of instructor Concentration in seminar format on an individual artist, specific problem, limited time period, or theme.
491, 492- INDIVIDUAL STUDY IN ART HISTORY (3, 3)
ATC: WI (Och, Dabb) Prerequisites: ARTH 114 and 115, and at least three Art History courses in three different chronological periods; for Art History majors only. Faculty-approved research project, oral presentation, and major paper. Vehicle for those seeking Honors in Art History. Available on a competitive basis. Permission of department Chair and instructor required.
Articles (3)
Victims and Villains in Vasari's Lives (review)
Renaissance Quarterly2008 ABSTRACT: Andrew Ladis's Victims and Villains in Vasari's Lives presents an account of "the downtrodden, the rebellious, the lazy, the half-defeated, the self-delusional, the victimized, and the villainous" (x) in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists (1550, 1568). The Lives of such antiheroes as Buonamico Buffalmaco, Andrea del Castagno, and Baccio Bandinelli, as related by Vasari, offer a literary counterpoint —a narrative tension —necessary for highlighting the accomplishments of the heroes of Vasari's work, and Ladis focuses here on Giotto, Domenico Veneziano, and Michelangelo. These six artists, and numerous others, are paired by Ladis as a way of understanding Vasari's message about the production and appreciation of art, and most poignantly that those who make art are very human and subject to human drives, ambitions, virtues, and vices...
Art as Existence: The Artist's Monograph and Its Project (review)
Renaissance Quarterly2007 ABSTRACT: The monograph has become synonymous with the study of an artist's life and his or her oeuvre. Significantly, for much of the twentieth century a monographic study was considered an appropriate model for the dissertation. With the greater focus on historical approaches to art and the advent of critical methodologies adapted from other disciplines, the monograph came to be associated most closely with museum-based scholarship. Indeed, one might now say that the monograph exemplifies the division within the discipline of art history between object-based research and studies of visual culture. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a study of the monograph becomes a study of the history of our discipline.
Italian Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque, National Museum of Women in the Arts (Exhibition Review)
Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal2007 ABSTRACT: To celebrate its twentieth anniversary, the National Museum of Women inthe Arts in Washington, D. C., has organized Italian Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque, an exhibit that is visually stunning and intellectually stimulating...
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