Jeffrey Fontana received his B.A. from Oberlin College, and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in art history at Boston University.  Before coming to Austin College he taught at institutions including Colgate University, Vassar College, and Florida State University, and taught summer courses for Boston College in Florence, Italy.  He was a Straus Intern in the drawing department at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, where he curated the 1999 exhibition "Timeless Beauty: Representing the Ideal in Neoclassical Drawing."

Professor Fontana's research reflects his interests in issues of patronage and the intersection of artistic theory and practice. He has focused on the career of Federico Barocci (c. 1535-1612), on whom he wrote his dissertation, “Federico Barocci: Imitation and the Formation of Artistic Identity.”  In this study he examined Barocci's early paintings, and the way the painter self-consciously shaped his style according to sixteenth-century practices and theoretical concepts of imitation. Fontana finds artists' sketches and preparatory studies especially rich in potential insights, and has published articles on drawings by Barocci and by Fra Bartolommeo in The Burlington Magazine and Master Drawings.  Other projects with which he is currently involved include the Italian response to Netherlandish painting from ca. 1470-1510, and the significance of Italian Renaissance art in the United States and France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Murphy/Jahn, United Airlines Terminal Pedestrian Tunnel, O'Hare Airport, Chicago, 1982-1988

January Term, 2004: Building New York City

Selected Images of Sites Visited

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