During UCI’s Spring Break, from March 22nd to March 28th, Professor Silva, Professor Acosta, and graduate student, Melissa DePierro, led a group of eager students on a trip to visit New York and Boston. The trip was focused primarily on the subject areas of the classes they had taught in Fall and Winter: AH 198, From Dig to Museum, and AH 107, Ancient Death Art. Many of the students were new to traveling and had never gone to see museums as famous as the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) in person before. This trip not only gave the students the opportunity to experience well known artwork first-hand, but also helped them get to know one another better and bond as Art History majors.
After arriving Sunday night and getting their first taste of New York’s delicious pizza, the group started off Monday by visiting the Met Museum. The students met with the Curator of Egyptian Art, Niv Allon, for a tour of Egyptian galleries and then got a tour of the Egyptian archives with Associate Archivist, Andrea Kutsenkow. Later in the day, the students took a tour of Greco-Egyptian funerary art with Bothmer Fellow, Helen Wong, and then had the chance to explore the Met on their own. Many students expressed that they enjoyed both the structured parts of the trip and the free time where they could discover things on their own. At night, the group assembled for a delightful dinner at an Italian restaurant called Carmine’s.
On Tuesday, half the group visited the Met Cloisters Museum with Professor Acosta, and half of them checked out the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) with Professor Silva. At the IFA, students got to meet with Professor Laurel Bestock, the current Executive Director of the Abydos excavations, and to look through archival material they had worked on during class. In the afternoon, they went to the Morgan Library and met with the Curator of Ancient Western Asian Seals and Tablets, Pinar Durgun, for a tour of the Mesopotamia gallery.. That evening, the group sampled some yummy food from Chelsea Market, and walked the High Line, which shows great views of the city.
On Day 3 of the trip, the group took the subway to the Brooklyn Museum for a tour of Egyptian galleries and the Wilbour Library with Assistant Curator for Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Near Eastern Art, Morgan Moroney. In the afternoon, the students were able to pick a museum of choice to explore. Students visited the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Frick Collection. Students shared that picking a museum to visit on their own was a particularly memorable part of the trip since they got to learn about the Art History topics they were especially passionate about.
Thursday morning, the group took Amtrak from New York to Boston, checked into the hotel, and then spent most of the day at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where they got to see a variety of well known artwork.
On Friday, the group got the chance to see the highly anticipated Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). They got the opportunity to handle actual Egyptian objects that had been taken out of storage for this purpose, as well as archival excavation records, by a Research Associate of the Egyptian Department, Brooke Norton. The students then had the opportunity to explore the Egyptian galleries. After lunch and a tour of the Greek and Roman galleries led by Professor Acosta, the students had the opportunity to see other MFA galleries at their own pace.
On the last day of the trip, some students went on the Freedom Trail with Professor Acosta, while others opted to visit the Harvard Art Museums on their own.
This trip was a whirlwind of excitement, from visiting famous museums, to hearing from art historians and archaeologists, to experiencing the variety of cultural phenomena in New York and Boston. The students got to take what they learned in class and apply it in the real world, which is a very powerful educational experience. Trips like this one wouldn’t be possible without generous funding from the Steckler Family Institute of Art History, which has sponsored a plethora of amazing student field trips the past few years. For more information on past trips, please check out the SFIAH Experiential Learning Page on the website.