Heather Sale Holian
Assistant Professor
Art History
B. A. cum laude, University of Arizona
M. A., Ph. D. University of Indiana
In 2001 Heather Sale Holian received her Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance Art History with minors in Medieval and Roman Art. She joined the UNCG Art Department faculty in the Fall of 2003 as a Visiting Assistant Professor. In the Fall semester of 2006, Professor Holian began her new position as Assistant Professor of Ancient and Medieval art history.
In her classroom and scholarship, Professor Holian explores art through the methodologies of social, cultural, formalist and feminist art history. Her scholarship is focused on sixteenth-century Italian court portraiture, and particularly that of the Medici in Florence. An expanded study deriving from her dissertation, "Defining the Florentine Mannerist Portrait: Its Origins, Development and Cultural Environment," appeared in the journal Renaissance Papers in the Spring of 2006. Her current work explores the function of jewelry as dynastic "marker" upon female wearers of the Medici family, and the issues related to the social function of women and their gendered role as dynastic commodity during the Renaissance, as communicated through portraiture. An article entitled, "The Clues are in the Jewels: A Case for Companion Portraits of Francesco I and Lucrezia de' Medici," to be published in the SECAC Review during the Fall of 2006 investigates some of these scholarly concerns.
In addition, Professor Holian has also published on Giotto's Arena Chapel, and presented conference papers at international, national, and regional conferences on a diverse array of topics related to the portraiture of the Renaissance.
In 2005-06 she was nominated for the UNCG College of Arts and Sciences outstanding teaching award, and is currently serving as co-faculty advisor to the Student Art League, the Art Department's student organization.
