Navigation

Art History possesses a category of critical literature dedicated to late-life: The "late style" or “late career” study, which emerged along with the discipline of art history in the 19th century. These studies tend to contrast the artist’s late work with his/her overall oeuvre; “late style” can be assessed in a formalist void without recourse to the biological, social, and historical situation of the aging artist, or it can rely too heavily on biographical or medical readings of the aged body.

This panel seeks to reinvigorate the study of advanced age or late-life production in art and visual culture as a historical, theoretical problem, and not merely as subject or theme. How does the study of old age advance/challenge our understanding of raced, classed or gendered identities? What methods might we use to study late-life output as part of a complex social and historical fabric? How have concepts like “originality” or “de-skilling” shaped and been shaped by conceptions of the aging mind? How have artists sited biological aging in their own work? We welcome papers from a wide range of area specialties.