Cathleen Hoeniger
Professor
Department of Art History and Art Conservation
Teaching and Research Interests
In the last eight years at Queen’s University, I have introduced undergraduate courses and graduate seminars in the field of cultural heritage preservation, which examine the impact of military conflicts, looting or theft, natural disasters, climate change and other factors on the survival of monuments and works of art at a global level. In these courses, the development of legal, institutional and organizational approaches to the preservation of stationary and portable cultural heritage is also investigated from national and international perspectives. Case studies are drawn from the ancient world to the present day, from Ancient Mesopotamia to the ongoing civil war in Syria. My personal research and publishing in this area focuses on Italian art and the destructive impact of war, examining both the Napoleonic period (c. 1800) and World War Two.
I also have carried out research for many years in the fields of Italian Painting from the 13th-16th centuries (Tuscany, Umbria, Rome), and the eventful history of the restoration and conservation of Italian paintings. These are primary fields that I teach at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The two books I have written consider Italian paintings as physical objects that have been transformed in various ways over the centuries by damage and restoration. My second book, The Afterlife of Raphael’s Paintings (2011), examines many of Raphael’s works as they journeyed through over 500 years of history. In addition, I am knowledgeable about the History of Science and Medicine in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern era, particularly medical and botanical imagery.
Fields of Graduate Supervision at the MA and PhD Levels
- Italian Late Medieval and Renaissance Painting; Raphael of Urbino and the Artist’s Reception.
- Cultural Heritage Preservation in Europe from 1794 to the Present (Napoleonic Wars, WWI and WWII, The Balkans Conflict, Impact of Military Conflict and Natural Disasters on Artistic Heritage, Rise of UNESCO, Cultural Heritage Legislation).
- The History and Theory of Art Restoration/Conservation.
- Art, Science and Medicine in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Courses Taught
Undergraduate
- ARTH 214 Renaissance Art and Architecture before 1500
- ARTH 260 Culture and Conflict
- ARTH 312 Quattrocento Painting
- ARTH 405 Cultural Heritage Preservation
Graduate
- ARTH 811: Museums, Collecting and Culture
- ARTH 840: Studies in Italian Renaissance Art
- ARTH 860/ 861: Cultural Heritage Preservation
Recent Publications
This lecture was presented on November 3, 2022, as part of The Churches Conservation Trust's Lunchtime Lectures.
This talk focuses on the plight of historic churches and their ornamentation in Italy during World War Two. Drawing on documents and war photographs, Cathleen will feature a few specific churches, and explore three stages in the preservation process. These are the establishment of anti-aerial protection for churches and their art, the ‘first response’ to churches that had suffered ruin, and the restoration of two church portals and one frescoed chapel in the aftermath of the conflict. The work of both the Italian heritage staff and the Allied Monuments officers will be included.
"Protecting Portable Heritage during War: A Comparative Examination of the Approaches in Italy during World War Two and in Ukraine during the Russian Invasion of 2022," Text & Image: Essential Problems in Art History, (online) 1/13 (2022), Special Issue: Preservation of Cultural Heritage, pp. 31-42. DOI: 10.17721/2519-4801.2022.1.03
“Invention as a Necessity: The Salvage of Italian Frescoes during World War II,” in Histories of Conservation and Art History in Modern Europe, eds. S. Dupré and J. Boulboullé (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2022), chapter 13.
"The Art Requisitions by the French under Napoléon and the Detachment of Frescoes in Rome, with an Emphasis on Raphael," CeROArt—Conservation, exposition, restauration d’objets d’arts, 8 (2012), pp. 1-25.
The Afterlife of Raphael’s Paintings (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
"The Restoration of the Early Italian 'Primitives' during the Twentieth Century: Valuing Art and Its Consequences," The Journal of the American Institute for Conservation, 38/2 (1999), pp. 144-161.