Elizabeth Johns, History of Art

Elizabeth Bennett Johns, a professor emerita of record of artwork in the College of Arts & Sciences, died peacefully on September 12.

Born in Dallas, Texas, Dr. Johns received her BA from Birmingham-Southern College, wherever she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She then went on to generate an MA from the University of California at Berkeley and her PhD from Emory University. Prior to and all through her PhD research, she held positions in English and Humanities at Albany Condition University, Clayton Local community College or university, and Savannah Point out School, all in Ga. In 1975, she approved an appointment in the section of art historical past at the University of Maryland, College or university Park. Twelve years afterwards, she became the Andrew Mellon Professor of Great Arts and Background at the University of Pittsburgh and in 1989, she joined the Penn faculty as the Silfen Time period Professor of the Record of Artwork. She remained in this posture right until 2001, when she retired from educating and took emerita status during the 1990s, she also served as the undergraduate chair of record of artwork.

Dr. Johns contributed a terrific offer to art scholarship. Her first e-book, Eakins: The Heroism of Contemporary Lifestyle (1983), won the Mitchell Prize for the most promising very first book in the background of artwork. Dr. John then wrote American Genre Painting: The Politics of Each day Life (1991), funded by fellowships from the Guggenheim Basis and the Woodrow Wilson Middle. Winslow Homer: The Character of Observation (2002) was awarded the Charles Eldredge Prize from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. She also wrote catalogs for the reveals New Worlds from Outdated: 19th Century Australian and American Landscapes and Paths to Impressionism: French and American Landscape Paintings in the Worcester Artwork Museum. In 1996, Dr. Johns obtained a Lindback Award for Distinguished Training from Penn (Almanac April 23, 1996). The award citation observed that Dr. Johns not only “has a talent for asking thoughts that encourage college students to locate the solutions them selves,” but also “frequently provides up pedagogical problems in her graduate seminars and routinely discusses educating approaches with her TAs…the teaching knowledge will become a understanding experience.”

Just after retiring from Penn, Dr. Johns served for a few many years as the Lilly Vocation Fellow at the Center for Religion, Ethics and Lifestyle at the University of the Holy Cross and as the museum scholar at the Washington County Museum of Great Arts in Hagerstown, Maryland. She was an avid member of the Haven Lutheran Church of Hagerstown and served as chaplain at the Hospice of Washington County, Maryland.

Dr. Johns is survived by her brother, Sam Bennett sister-in-regulation, Elizabeth Dreyer Bennett little ones Alan Butsch (Melissa), Nancy Wersick, and Tatiana Johns (Branden Defriece) her late husband Don Evason’s children, David and Cathy Evason and by her grandchildren, Morgan and Emily Butsch, Dallas and Korben Defriece, Adam and Ethan Caulk, and Madalyn Evason.

A celebration of lifestyle was held on October 30. In lieu of bouquets, the family members asks that donations be designed to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, or to a charity of the donor’s option. Dr. John was a potent supporter of the Southern Poverty Law Heart, Habitat for Humanity, MercyCorps, Medical professionals With out Borders, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of The united states reduction plans.

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