College Art Association Honors Haxthausen of Williams College
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. - Charles W. ("Mark") Haxthausen, the Robert Sterling Clark Professor of Art History and former director of the Graduate Program in Art History at Williams College, has been awarded the prestigious Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award from the College Art Association (CAA).In announcing the award, the CAA sited Haxthausen for having "provided long, transformative, and inspiring leadership to one of the most important master's degree programs in art history in the United States. As Robert Sterling Clark Professor of Art History at Williams College and director of the Graduate Program from 1993 to 2007, he has served as an enthusiastic and energetic intellectual model, with his love of scholarship and carefully crafted and innovative pedagogy creating a degree program that in turn has produced numerous leading scholars, teachers, and curators in art history." Haxthausen will be formally recognized at an award ceremony during CAA's 97th Annual Conference on February 25 in Los Angeles.
Since coming to Williams from the University of Minnesota in 1993, Haxthausen's teaching repertory has included courses on art-historical method, European modernism, post-1960 art in Germany, and, most recently, silent film.
He is editor of "The Two Art Histories: The Museum and the University" (Yale/Clark Art Institute, 2002) and co-editor of "Berlin: Culture and Metropolis" (Minnesota, 1990). His essays have appeared in books, exhibition catalogues, and journals in Europe and North America. Current and recent research interests include: the theory and criticism of Carl Einstein; the Bauhaus, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner; Paul Klee; Sigmar Polke, and Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
Haxthausen received his B.A. from the University of St. Thomas, Houston, in 1966, and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1976. He began his teaching career at Indiana University in 1970, moving on to Harvard in 1975, where he also served as curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum for eight years. Subsequently he taught at Minnesota before accepting the directorship of the Williams Graduate Program.
The College Art Association's award, established in 1977, annually honors the career of an art history teaching professional. Winners are selected for a multiplicity of criteria: their ability and magnitude in inspiring student pursuit of humanistic studies; rigorous intellectual standards and success in scholarly and lecture presentation; contribution to the advancement of knowledge and methodology in art history; interdisciplinary advancement of historical knowledge; and aid to students in developing their careers. The late Whitney Stoddard, who taught in the Williams Art Department from 1945-1976, was co-recipient of the CAA's distinguished teaching award in 1989.
