30

Nov

Cairo Lecture: “Conserving Coptic Heritage: An Historic Egyptian-American Partnership 1993-2022”

Presented by: Dr. Elizabeth Bolman

  • 6:00 PM Cairo Time
  • In PersonARCE Cairo Center
    2 Midan Simon Bolivar
    Garden City Cairo Governorate 11461
    Egypt
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Lecture Information

The last three decades have witnessed the transformation of our understanding of Coptic art, specifically architecture and wall paintings. The American Research Center in Egypt, with funding from the United States Agency for International Devlopment, has partnered with the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to document, conserve, study, and publish three major monuments of world cultural heritage. In this talk, Professor Bolman will present the major findings of many years of collaborative endeavors at the Red Monastery, the Monastery of St. Anthony, and the Monastery of St. Paul, with a special focus on the work of an exceptional team of Italian conservators. 

Speaker Bio

Elizabeth S. Bolman engages with the visual culture of the eastern Mediterranean in the late antique and Byzantine periods. She is best known for her work in Egypt, in which she has demonstrated the vitality of Christian Egyptian art and presented new understandings of the nature of artistic production in the early Byzantine and Medieval periods. She edited and was the principal contributor to the award-winning Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St. Anthony at the Red Sea (Yale University Press and ARCE, 2002) and to the Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt (Yale University Press and ARCE 2016). She is the Elsie B. Smith Professor in the Liberal Arts and Chair of the Department of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The College Art Association has recognized her expertise with its Heritage Preservation Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Preservation. She is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, Fulbright program, National Endowment for the Humanities, Dumbarton Oaks, ARCE, and the United States Agency for International Development, among others.