Who We Are
Caroline Fowler
Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program
Caroline Fowler is Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute and a lecturer in Art History at Williams College. She is a scholar of early-modern art, focused on the intertwined worlds of drawing, printmaking, and natural philosophy. She is particularly interested in histories of the body and the formation of selves, tracing the failures, conversion, and translation of personhood, bodies, and selves across the early-modern world, from the introduction of paper to artistic practice and the concomitant rise of the author to the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the art market, speculation, and the creation of mythologies of selfhood, freedom, and free markets. Her current book Beyond Figuration: Dutch Painting and the Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (forthcoming, Duke University Press), examines the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the Dutch art market, arguing that the impossibility of figuring the transubstantiation of life into a commodity structured the rise of certain genres, such as maritime painting and monuments. Her other books include The Art of Paper: From the Holy Land to the Americas (Yale University Press, 2020), and Drawing and the Senses: An Early Modern History (Brepols, 2018). She is also co-editor of the series Art/Work with Princeton University Press, which presents thought-provoking essays on intersections between the practice of conservation and art history. She has hosted the podcast In the Foreground: Conversations on Art & Writing, and she is also currently Chair of ARIAH (Association of Research Institutes in Art History). Her work has been supported by the Center for Advanced Study, the Getty Research Institute, the Renaissance Society of America, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Historians of Netherlandish Art.
Curriculum Vitae
Caitlin Woolsey
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC PROGRAM
Caitlin Woolsey is an art historian who focuses on the historical confluence of visual art, media, and performance in the twentieth century. Her current book project examines how the integration of sound transformed intermedia artistic practices in the decades following the Second World War, focusing on the experimental sound poet Henri Chopin. Caitlin received her PhD from Yale University and holds an MA in Philosophy and the Arts from Stony Brook University. She has previously held positions at the Guggenheim Museum, National Gallery of Art, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, and the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, where she helped curate the exhibition Beyond Words: Experimental Poetry & the Avant-garde (2019). Her scholarly and critical writing has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Asymptote, Venti, Jadaliyya, the Nasher, and Continental Philosophy Review, among others. At the Clark Caitlin produces and co-hosts the podcasts In the Foreground: Conversations on Art & Writing and Object Studies, serves as editor of the digital publication Dialogue & New Directions, and organizes scholarly programs. She also teaches in the Williams Graduate Program in the History of Art and works closely with graduate student interns.
MAGGIE O'CONNOR
PROGRAM ADMINISTRATOR OF THE RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC PROGRAM
Maggie O’Connor previously held the position of vice president, appraisals director in the Trusts, Estates, and Appraisals Department at Christie’s New York, where she enjoyed a 14+ year career. From 2012–2021, Maggie oversaw the team responsible for producing appraisals and valuations for museum, non-profit, private, and corporate clients in North America and South America. Boasting an average of 2,100 valuations and 160,000 objects each year, the appraisals produced were for financial planning, insurance, and various tax purposes. Maggie received her BA in Studio Art from Allegheny College, where she focused on photography and installation art. Outside of the Clark, she enjoys photographing family portraits, nature, and daily life, while exploring the Berkshires with her family.
SARA HOUGHTELING
ASSISTANT IN THE RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC PROGRAM
Sara Houghteling is the author of the novel Pictures at an Exhibition (Knopf, 2009), a New York Times Editors’ Choice Book. Her work has been recognized with an NEA grant, a French Fulbright, the Narrative Prize, a John Steinbeck Fellowship, and residency at the Camargo Foundation. Sara’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, Narrative Magazine, and the San Francisco Chronicle. A former lecturer in the Stanford English Department, she also currently teaches fiction with the Williams College Winter Study Program. At the Clark, she assists on a range of writing, podcasting, and archival projects.
Annie Jun
ASSISTANT IN THE RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC PROGRAM
Annie Jun is the assistant in the Research and Academic Program and assistant editor in the Publications Department at the Clark.