Olivia Armandroff is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the department of Art History at the University of Southern California and a recipient of the Visual Studies Graduate Certificate. She works on twentieth-century American art, with research interests that include the proliferation and exchange of imagery, instances of collaborative production, and questions of space and place in relation to the natural and built environments. She holds a B.A. in the History of Art and History from Yale University and an M.A. in American Material Culture from the Winterthur Program.
Research
DOCTORAL DISSERTATION
Volcanic Matter: Land Formation and Artistic Creation
My dissertation
examines how Hawai‘i's volcanoes,
as geological process, material trace, and Indigenous
cosmology, have animated diverse artistic engagements with land and landscape from
the islands’ pre-contact era to the present day. Its five chapters comprise a visual ecology oriented
around active volcanoes’ ever-evolving states—molten lava, fire, hardened Earth, loose stones or pōhaku, and petroglyph
inscriptions or ki‘i pōhaku—evidencing intersections between Indigenous lifeways and histories of science, tourism, and colonialism.
MASTER'S THESIS
Drawing for an Audience of One:
Art in Muriel Draper’s Archives
I analyzed of the impact of early-twentieth-century salon host Muriel Draper on the New York City art world based upon her papers at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library which include her writings about her aesthetic principles and her interior designs, as well as her correspondence with influential collectors and artists, including Mark Tobey, Walker Evans, Max Ewing, Raymond Edward Francis Larsson, and Carl Van Vechten.
UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
The Bookplate in its Golden Age:
A Mark of Ownership Becomes an Advertisement for the Middle Class
Using the case study of W. F. Hopson, who worked in New Haven in the Golden Age of the bookplate, I investigated how middle class consumers were voicing their personal identity through their commissions of individualized prints as bookplates. My research was based on primary materials—artwork and artist’s papers—in Yale special collections.
Teaching Experience
--Research Assistant, CORE 101: Images Out of Time, How Museums Represent “The Other,” University of Southern California, instructor of record: Nancy Lutkehaus, Spring Semester, 2024, Guest speaker: “Grace Nicholson—From the Treasure House to the USC Pacific Asia Museum,” January 12, 2024; “How to Write Exhibition Text and Interpretive Materials,” February 16, 2024
--Instructor of Record, AHS 023: Introduction to American Art, University of California, Riverside, Winter Quarter, 2024
--Instructor of Record, AHIS 364: Myths, Arts, Realities: Visual Culture in California, 1849 to the Present, University of Southern California, Spring Semester, 2023
--Teaching Assistant, AHIS 370: Modern Art III: 1940 to the Present, University of Southern California, instructor of record: Suzanne Hudson, Fall Semester, 2022, Guest lecture: “European Neo-Avant-Gardes,” September 6, 2022
--Teaching Assistant, AHIS 121: Art and Society: Renaissance to Modern, University of Southern California, instructor of record: Amy Ogata, Spring Semester, 2022, Guest lecture: “American Art and Architecture,” April 14, 2022
--Teaching Assistant, AHIS 255: Culture Wars: Art and Social Conflict in the Modern World, University of Southern California, instructor of record: Grant Johnson, Fall Semester, 2021, Guest lecture: “Outsiders and Outliers,” October 28, 2021
Recognition and Funding
Fellowships
--National Stereoscopic Association Research Fellowship, Library of Congress, 2025
--George Gurney Predoctoral Fellowship and Smithsonian Institution Predoctoral Fellowship, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2024–25
--Gold Family Fellowship, University of Southern California, Summer 2024
--Thompson Fellowship, Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation (formerly the Classical American Homes and Preservation Trust), 2023
--Davidson Family Fellowship, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 2023
--Adolf Fassbender Travel Fellowship Award, Center for Creative Photography, 2023
--Mentored Teaching Fellowship, Center for Excellence in Teaching, University of Southern California, 2022–23
--Scholar in Residence Fellowship, The Gamble House, 2022–23
--NEH/VSRI Seminar Graduate Fellowship, Images Out of Time NEH Humanities Initiative, Visual Studies Research Institute, University of Southern California, 2022–23
--White House Historical Association-Winterthur Fellowship in the Decorative Arts, 2020–21
--Delaware Public Humanities Institute Summer Fellowship, University of Delaware, Summer 2019
External Grants, Scholarships, and Funding
--Residential Scholar Award, Yale Center for British Art, 2026
--Doris Duke Foundation Travel Grant, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University, 2024–25
--Research Stipend, Rockefeller Archive Center, 2024
--Summer Research Grant, Decorative Arts Trust, 2022
--William J. Hill Texas Artisans and Artists Archive Research Award, Kitty King Powell Library and Study Center, Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, Spring 2020
--Gulnar Bosch Student Travel Assistance Grant, SECAC, Fall 2019
Awards and Honors
--Emerging Scholar Award, Victorian Society New York, Spring 2020
--Montgomery Competition Prize, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, Fall 2019
--John Addison Porter Prize in American History, Yale University, 2017
--Richard Hegel Prize, History Department, Yale University, 2017
--Ketcham Prize, Berkeley College, Yale University, 2017
--Canadian Studies Prize, Yale University, 2016
Curatorial Work
PHOTOGRAPHY INTERN
In the summer of 2022, wrote exhibition material for Time's Relentless Melt, August 20 – November 6, 2022, and
acquisition reports for to new collecting initiatives
Princeton
University
Art
Museum
Los Angeles
County
Museum of Art
RESEARCH ASSISTANT
In the summer of 2021, contributed to the exhibition, City of Cinema: Paris 1850–1907, February 20 – July 10, 2022, by performing object research and work compiling film reels
Metropolitan
Museum
of Art
MUSE INTERN, AMERICAN WING
In the fall of 2020, worked on the curation of the exhibition, Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents, April 11 – July 31, 2022, related to the American painter's Caribbean work, especially The Gulf Stream, and focused on local perspective in the Bahamas
Historical
Museum
Curated the fall 2020 exhibit, Around the World: The Global Curiosities of Carl Otto Lindberg, October 3, 2020 – May 1, 2021, featuring a loaned collection of material—family photographs, diplomatic gifts, souvenirs, and sketches—belonging to an early- to mid-twentieth century mining expert who traveled the world; responsibilities beyond research and label writing included exhibit design and graphics done in Photoshop
American
Swedish
Delaware Art
Museum
ALFRED APPEL CURATORIAL FELLOWSHIP
Curated Julio daCunha: Modernizing Myths, February 29 – November 1, 2020, part of the Distinguished Artist Series dedicated to significant local artists: Studied the written record of daCunha’s career; recorded oral histories with his friends, colleagues, gallerists, and patrons; inventoried his personal collection of 135 paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs; identified artwork in fourteen private and three public collections; created exhibit checklist, design, and label text; wrote twelve-page accompanying pamphlet
Winterthur Downs Collections
Curated the spring 2020 library case exhibit, Bricolage of Butterflies; the fall 2019 library case exhibit, Wall Coverings: A World of Options in the 1930s, juxtaposing wallpaper and photomurals options; and the spring 2019 library case exhibit, Edna Cooke Shoemaker: A Mid-Twentieth-Century Marionette Maker, featuring stage backdrops, theater scripts, photographs, newspaper reviews, and correspondence related to the twentieth-century illustrator's retirement pursuits with the Rose Tree Marionettes
National Gallery of Art
DEPARTMENT OF MODERN AND AMERICAN PRINTS AND DRAWINGS
Examined archival records and wrote material for website feature dedicated to the 18,000 watercolors from the WPA’s The Index of American Design held by in the National Gallery
DEPARTMENT OF AMERICAN AND BRITISH PAINTINGS
Researched exhibition objects and authored loan requests for The Woman in White: Joanna Hiffernan and James McNeill Whistler, July 3 – October 10, 2022, prepared for catalog essays with archival inquiries about Whistler's American followers (Rudolf Eickemeyer, Alfred Stieglitz, Romaine Brooks), and studied literary parallels to Wilkie Collins
Yale University Art Gallery
Curator of focus exhibition: Accumulation and Abstraction: The Collages of Louise Nevelson and Anne Ryan, June 21 – October 15, 2017
Team member conceptualizing the American Gallery's 2017 rehang, including developing themes and selecting objects
Label writing for exhibition on the Ashcan School, It Was a New Century: Reflections on Modern America, December 23, 2016 – June 25, 2017
Identified and researched objects then engaged in exhibit design of Yosemite: Exploring the Incomparable Valley, October 7 – December 31, 2016
Sterling Library, Yale University
Selected by library committee as curator for end-of-year exhibit based on a senior thesis: Constructing a Pictorial Identity: Bookplates in the Golden Age of Collecting, May 15 – October 6, 2017
Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas
Studied the history, technique, and cultural influence of Goya’s prints for Goya: Mad Reason,
June 19 – September 25, 2016
Public Speaking
CONFERENCES AND SYMPOSIA
--“Volcanic Surfaces: Whether Rocks in Motion Can be Frozen,” Down to Earth: A Geological Turn in Art History?, Matter Materiality: 2024 Comite International d'Histoire de I'Art World Congress, Lyon, France, June 24, 2024
--“The Mauna Kea Beach Hotel: Balancing Historic Preservation and Modernism,” Architecture and Coastal Tourism (1960-1980): Fragility Between Historical Studies and New Scenarios, Politecnico di Milano, ABC - Department of Architecture, Built environment and Construction engineering, Mantua, Italy, May 21, 2024
--“Petroglyphs as Marks of Identity in Hawai‘i and the American West,” Geographic Place & Conceptual Place: Approaches to the Study of Art of the American West, Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West and the School of Visual Arts at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, April 4–6, 2024
--“Paper Houses: Defying the Victorian Era’s Gendered Expectations for the Domestic,” USC Graduate Research Symposium, March 24, 2023
--Panelist, The White House and Popular Culture Colloquium, Library of Congress, November 4, 2022
--“Tiling a Life: Henry Chapman Mercer and His Fonthill Castle,” A Home and Studio of One's Own, Grant Wood Symposium, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, April 9, 2022
--“Art Young’s Inferno and the Hell of Capitalism,” In Excess: Opulence, Splendor, Surplus, and Glut across Time and Space, RASC/a Art History Graduate Student Conference, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, April 2, 2022
--“Isamu Noguchi’s Weathervanes: An Artist Animates the Wind,” Points of Interest: New Approaches to American Weathervanes, Elizabeth and Irwin Warren Folk Art Symposium, American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY, October 24, 2021
--“William J. Frederich’s Scrapbook: A Palimpsest of the Visual Landscape of a Galveston Man in the 1880s,” The Power of Place: Defining Material Culture in Pre-1900 Texas, the Lower South, and the Southwest, David B. Warren Symposium, Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, Houston, TX, February 27, 2021
--“A Woman's Voice: Leila Mechlin and Art Criticism in the Early Twentieth Century,” Women in the Arts: Ambitious Patrons, Strategic Promoters, and Skilled Producers, SECAC, Richmond, VA, December 10, 2020
--“The Index of American Design Revives New York’s Historic Gardens,” The College Art Association, Chicago, IL, February 14, 2020
--“Teaching Lithography through the Colorado Landscape,” Rethinking Regionalism: Twentieth-Century Art and Visual Culture in the American West, Colorado Springs, CO, December 7, 2019
--“Anne Ryan and Her Collages: An Artist with a Layered Biography,” SECAC, Chattanooga, TN, October 18, 2019
--“The White-Collar Worker’s Principal Concern: Cleanliness,” Popular Culture & American Culture Association Conference, Washington, D.C., April 19, 2019
--"The Bookplate in its Golden Age: A Mark of Ownership Becomes an Advertisement for the Middle Class," Yale History Department Senior Essay Symposium, New Haven, CT, April 21, 2017
MUSEUM TALKS
--“The Technical and Compositional Challenges of Photographing Hawai‘i's Lava Rock Land,” Davidson Fellow Presentation, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX, December 7, 2023
--“Depth: Max Weber’s Slide Lecture at the Metropolitan Museum,” Career Insights, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, November 14, 2020
--“Exhibit Opening: Around the World: The Global Curiosities of Carl Otto Lindberg,” American Swedish Historical Museum, Philadelphia, PA, October 3, 2020
--“Edna Cooke Shoemaker and the Rose Tree Marionettes,” Art at Noon, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, August 19, 2020
--“Introduction to the Exhibition: Modernizing Myths: Julio da Cunha,” Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, March 1, 2020
--“Inside Look Series: Angela Fraleigh,” Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, February 23 and 28, 2020
GALLERY PRESENTATIONS
NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
Led Evening at the Edge pop-up talks and Gallery Talks on: Ray Johnson’s Letterbox, Roger Brown and the Chicago Imagists’ collecting practices, Louis Lozowick’s Machine Ornaments, Richard Artschwager and Claes Oldenburg’s appreciation of music, and Roy Lichtenstein’s portrayal of architecture
YALE UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
--Angles on Art Gallery Guide: Developed and led tour on theme of cultural appropriation
--Highlights Tour Guide Program: Led interactive tours of the Gallery’s history, architecture, and collections
--Special Exhibition Guide Program: Led tours in temporary exhibitions
