Catherine Walsh

Catherine Walsh is an associate professor of art. Within the Art Department, she also manages the art collection and sponsors the Student Art Association. Walsh received the B.A. in English and in Fine Art from Vanderbilt University in 2000; the M.A. in Art History from Boston University in 2002; and the Ph.D. in History of Art and Architecture from Boston University in 2015. She was Mellon Fellow in Digital Humanities at Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in 2017, and a member of the 2014 cohort of the Getty/UCLA Summer Institute in Digital Art History. From 2002-2005 she was the founding curator at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University.

Engaging the spatial humanities and environmental humanities, Walsh has published ecocritical studies of Renaissance monuments in Artl@s and Journal 18. She is currently working on a book-length study, Working Earth, Figuring Nature, and Moving Things: Ecologies of Italian Renaissance Art. In tandem with this study, Walsh is developing a digital mapping project, Mapping Sculpture, which traces the materials used in Italian Renaissance sculptures from their origins to installation sites and museum collections. She also works on local topics, researching the Alabama College alumna, former professor of art, and experimental printmaker Virginia Barnes, and collaborating with Professor Collin Williams on the Swamp Baselines project, which explores Ebenezer Swamp.

With an emphasis on experiential learning, Walsh teaches courses spanning the history of art from antiquity to the eighteenth century, Topics in Environmental Art History, and Caring for Art Collections. Professor Walsh and her students curate exhibitions and maintain a digital catalogue of the university’s art collection.  More information can be found at carmichaeldigitalprojects.org/blochart.