Congress that aims to revisit the themes of Robert Smith’s work, expanding its dimension in an interdisciplinary and contemporary context. Deadline: 30 June 15 July 2022

 

Artistic Confluences in Ibero-American Culture

The world of Robert C. Smith (1912-1975)

 

 

This year marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of Robert C. Smith (1912-1975), the North American art historian who devoted much of his academic life to the study of Ibero-American art and culture of the 17th and 18th centuries. To mark this event the International Conference “Artistic Confluences in Ibero-American Culture. The world of Robert C. Smith (1912-1975)” was launched.
​
This congress aims to revisit the themes of Robert Smith’s work, expanding its dimension in an interdisciplinary and contemporary context. His published and unpublished work currently constitutes a scientifically relevant legacy for the research that is developed around the chosen theme. Reflecting on and problematizing his legacy, inserting it in the broader field of Iberoamerican cultural studies, recovering minor themes and objects in the light of the new art historiography and projecting new paths for its study and dissemination are the broad objectives of this international event.

The congress will be live streamed online.

 

>> 🔗 Official webpage for the congress <<

 

>> 📎 Final Programme <<

 

 

Call for papers

 

Robert Chester Smith, an American art historian, dedicated most of his academic life to studying architecture and Decorative Arts from the Baroque and late Baroque in Ibero-America, namely Brazil and Portugal. Smith graduated from Harvard University in 1936 and was part of a pioneering group in academia devoted to Latin American art and culture.

Learned societies devoted to Hispanic studies like the Hispanic Society of America, founded in 1904 by the scholar and collector Archer Milton Huntington (1870-1955), began to thrive in the early 20th century. The Hispanic Society was the first to amass a collection of prints, rare books, maps, photographs, paintings, and decorative art objects. The curiosity embedded in the spirits of these first collectors and scholars stemmed from the re-discovery of a nearby world such as Latin American countries that remained partly alien to their cultural codes.

The role of Robert Smith as vice-director of the Hispanic Division at the Library of Congress in Washington helped to sanction his research and the publishing of his Ibero-American studies in Portugal, Brazil and elsewhere in various media, from local newspapers to scientific journals and books. His studies, dedicated to Baroque art in Portugal and colonial Brazil, were mainly sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation through scholarships and other fellowships. His gratitude is mirrored in his will by bequeathing all of his professional documents to this Portuguese cultural institution.

This congress aims to consider and re-contextualize the world and the working methods of Robert Smith, anchored in photographic campaigns of objects, archival and bibliographical research, the comparative approach and methodologies in social sciences, the importance of research field trips and the establishment of academic networks. How can we, with new tools at our reach, compare and connect personal research experiences, rethink and reassess his legacy, put in value and think about the challenges that this field of studies still holds today?

To better foster a methodological and interdisciplinary dialogue, possible topics include but are not limited to:

• The legacy of Robert C. Smith: challenges for future research
• Political and religious agendas: desire, production, and consumption of cultural goods
• Cultural encounters in the Ibero-American arts: continuities and disruptions
• Beyond nationhood: transnationality as cultural and social practice
• The afterlife of objects: new usages and resignifications
• Rethinking the archive: new readings and interpretations of old documents
• In the absence of the archive: anonymous objects of art and new avenues of research
• Diaspora: impacts in production, consumption and meaning of art objects
• Art and propaganda in the Portuguese (1936-1975) and Brazilian (1937-1945) Estados Novos: the role of the media
• Visual and material heritage: interdisciplinary approaches to the knowledge and management of cultural goods
• Virtual reconstruction, or recreation of lost or destroyed objects: from photogrammetry to 3D scanning

 

We welcome proposals for 20-minute presentations in English, Portuguese or Spanish which should include:

Title of the proposal;
Applicant’s identification (name, institutional affiliation, country and email);
Abstract (up to 300 words);
Short curriculum vitae (up to 200 words).

Proposals must be sent in Word format (.docx) by email to congresso.robertsmith@gmail.com until 30 June 15 July 2022.

A selection of papers will be published in a peer reviewed digital journal.

 

 

Keynote speakers

 

Josiah Blackmore

Josiah Blackmore is Nancy Clark Smith Professor of the Language and Literature of Portugal in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Harvard (USA), professorship established by testamentary disposition of the American art historian Robert C. Smith, in honour of his mother. He specializes in the literature and culture of medieval and early modern Portugal, with an emphasis on the writings of maritime expansion. He also does work in medieval manuscript studies and the history of the book. He has lectured in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and South Africa, and has served as Visiting Professor at Harvard and the Univ. of Chicago. Prior to Harvard, he was on the faculty of the University of Toronto. Josiah Blackmore is the author of Moorings: Portuguese Expansion and the Writing of Africa (2009, selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title) and Manifest Perdition: Shipwreck Narrative and the Disruption of Empire (2002). He co-edited Queer Iberia (1999) and edited the re-release of Charles R. Boxer’s The Tragic History of the Sea (2001) and the Songs of António Botto (2010) in the English translations of Fernando Pessoa. He has published many articles and book chapters on medieval Galician-Portuguese poetry, historiography, Camões, shipwreck theory and literature, and other topics on Portuguese literary culture through the twentieth century.

 

António Filipe Pimentel

Director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum since 2021. Having graduated in History (1985), specialising in History of Art, from the University of Coimbra, António Filipe Pimentel obtained his Master’s Degree in Cultural and Political History of the Modern Period (1991), with the dissertation Architecture and Power, the Royal Building of Mafra (2nd ed., Lisboa, Livros Horizonte, 2002), from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra and doctorate in History, speciality of History of Art, from the University of Coimbra (2003), with the dissertation A Morada da Sabedoria. I – The Royal Palace of Coimbra: from its origins to the establishment of the University (Coimbra, Almedina, 2005). He is assistant professor in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities from the same university and was Director of the university’s Art History Institute (2005-2009), which he combined with the position of Pro-Rector for Heritage and Tourism (2007-2009). In 2009/10, he took on the role of Director of the Grão Vasco Museum, in Viseu, and between 2010 and 2019 he was Director of the National Museum of Ancient Art (Lisbon), as well as being Deputy General Director for Cultural Heritage. He was also scientific coordinator of the University of Coimbra’s candidacy for UNESCO’s World Heritage Site status. Awarded the Gulbenkian Prize for History of Art 1992/94, for the work Arquitectura e Poder, o Real Edifício de Mafra (Architecture and Power, the Royal Building of Mafra), he is a national corresponding academic member of the National Academy of Fine Arts, a corresponding academic member of the Naval Academy and a member of the Scientific Society of the Portuguese Catholic University. He has published more than three hundred titles, in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Brazil.

 

 

Registration (🔗 see this link)

 

Mandatory registration for all interested in attending the Congress, via e-mail to: congresso.robertsmith@gmail.com

Standard fee for authors/speakers – 14 and 15 November – € 70
General public fee – 14 and 15 November – € 50
Student fee – 14 and 15 November – € 10
Social programme fee (open for all participants) – 16 November – € 15 only referring to lunch; participants may opt out of the provided lunch and only take part in the remaining activities. In that case, the social programme will be FREE OF CHARGE.

Deadline for registration 15 October

 

 

Organising Committee

 

Sílvia Ferreira (IHA — NOVA FCSH)
Filomena Serra (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)
Dalton Sala (investigador independente-comissário da exposição Robert C. Smith (1912-1975). A investigação em História da Arte, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1999)