by Jon Lackman | 4 December 2006 | Journals
From CAA News: “Richard J. Powell … received his PhD in the history of art at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1988, with a dissertation on the American artist William H. Johnson … He has been at Duke since 1989, where he teaches American art, the arts of the African diaspora, and contemporary visual studies. Powell has written extensively on topics ranging from primitivism to postmodernism … Powell writes, ‘After I was nominated for editor-in-chief, I started reviewing my back issues of the journal … at the articles I had found useful, valuable, or just plain interesting as a barometer for what I might accomplish as editor. The earliest issue in my recollection is dated June 1983 and contains Frederick Lamp’s fascinating article on fifteenth-century commemorative stone sculptures in Sierra Leone—a topic and regional focus I had never seen covered in the journal. Another coveted issue was that of June 1988, featuring Wanda Corn’s survey of American art scholarship (part of the informative ‘state of the discipline’ series initiated by the editor Richard E. Spear). The December 1990 issue, which included Patricia Leighten’s article on Picasso, primitivism, and anticolonialism, represented a real turning point, opening the journal to sociopolitical currents that enriched and problematized more conventional interpretations of art.’”
