This year Washington University celebrates 150 years. Founded in 1853, we are fairly old as American institutions go. But actually the “university” is part of a venerable thousand-year tradition that started with Bologna (c. 1150-1200), followed by Oxford (1190s) and Paris (c. 1200). Since the Middle Ages, universities have been a place of inspiration of the best and brightest.

“Treasuring the Past. Shaping the Future” is the motto for this celebratory year. As art historians, we are in the business of preserving and celebrating the past- attempting forever to make it relevant to our students. In an age that moves with lightening speed towards the future, it is a challenge to make students – so intent on shaping a future – pay attention to the equally important past. To many of them, 1950 seems like the Middle Ages: 1500AD and 1500 BC belong to eras so ancient as to be virtually indistinguishable. We can teach our students to treasure the past, but we look to them to shape our future. As we celebrate the University’s birthday, it is well to reflect on our own past which is helping to shape our promising future.

The Department of Art History and Archaeology was established largely through the energy and devotion of the great classical archaeologist, George Mylonas, whose achievement and memory are honored each year in a commemorative lecture. Mylonas excavated at the city of Mycenae, celebrated by Homer, home of Agamemnon, and leader in the war against fabled Troy. Mylonas helped put our department on the international map. He inspired a whole generation of students to pursue archaeology, and thousands more to take an active interest in that enticing and important discipline (we remain one of the few departments in the country that combine art history and archaeology).

Mylonas was joined in the 1940s by H.W. Janson who wrote History of Art, one of the most popular and successful textbooks of all time. Janson also was responsible for buying many fine art works for the Gallery of Art, thereby establishing a truly distinguished collection of early modernist art at Washington University. He was followed by other “giants,” including Otto Brendel, the great Roman archaeologist; Richard Edwards, a renowned scholar of Chinese paintings; and Frederick Hartt, who wrote what is still considered the best textbook on Italian Renaissance Art, and whose pink typewriter – a relic of a bygone technology – graces my office as a departmental relic.

Norris K. Smith, Nelson Wu, and Lawrence Steefel were other internationally acclaimed writers and teachers who helped build the department and its reputation. All three were legendary teachers who instilled a love of art in students and many members of the community. It is sometimes daunting to think that we follow in such notable footsteps, but this [website] – reporting on the current activities and many impressive achievements of today’s faculty, students, and alumni-shows that we are building on our distinguished past towards a very bright future.