President Barry Mills and Dean for Academic Affairs Cristle Collins Judd have announced that Stephen Perkinson has been named Peter M. Small Associate Professor of Art History. Perkinson, who serves as chair of the art department as well as director of its art history division, has taught at the College since 2002.

With varied research interests including art of the late medieval courts of northern Europe, the history of portraiture in late medieval and early modern Europe, and the artistic interactions between Christians, Muslims and Jews in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Perkinson teaches a wide range of courses in the art history of Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe.

The author of Likeness of the King: A Prehistory of Portraiture in Late Medieval France (University of Chicago Press, 2009) which received the Morris D. Forkosch Prize For The Best First Book in Intellectual History from the Journal of History of Ideas, Perkinson also received an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Grant, and was a scholar-in-Residence at the Niederländisches Forum, Freie Universität Berlin, both in the summer of 2010.

Perkinson has also contributed essays to a catalogue for a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and to the catalogue of a touring exhibition curated by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Perkinson earned his B.A. at Colgate University and a Ph.D. at Northwestern, teaching at Skidmore College and the University of Denver prior to coming to Bowdoin.

Former chair of the board of trustees, Peter M. Small of the Class of 1964 established this professorship in 2007.  The chair may support a faculty member in any discipline.

“The Peter M. Small Chair provides the College with a wonderful resource to support timely promotion from associate to full professor with research funds and important recognition of outstanding teaching and scholarly accomplishment,” says Dean Judd. “Steve Perkinson is a leader on many fronts within and beyond the College and an important partner on initiatives at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.  I am delighted that his appointment to the Peter M. Small Chair provides much-deserved recognition of his many accomplishments.”