Professor Don Denny Endowed Graduate Research Award in Art History

The Dr. Lawrence Spielberger and Dr. Greta Spanierman Family Foundation generously established the Professor Don Denny Endowed Graduate Research Award in Art History in December 2022. It is named for the late Professor Emeritus Don Denny, in light of his commitment to service, academic excellence and scholarship, mentorship of students, and promotion of diversity. The fund supports graduate students in the Department of Art History and Archaeology in the College of Arts and Humanities, and may be used for research expenses associated with the completion of their dissertation and/or degree program. Recipients will be selected for the purpose of enhancing diversity in all manners in the arts, with preference given to graduate students specializing in Medieval Art, with a secondary focus on Modern Art. Second preference will be given to graduate students specializing in Modern Art.

Professor Don Denny (August 19, 1926 - November 29, 2023) was committed to service, academic excellence and scholarship, mentorship of students and the promotion of diversity. Dr. Denny served honorably in WWII, before studying at the Art Students League of New York as a recipient of the GI Bill. He earned his Ph.D. in Western Medieval Art from The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and joined the faculty at UMD in 1966. Dr. Denny specialized in the medieval art of western Europe, frequently with an emphasis on iconographical problems. An example is his The Annunciation from the Right (1977), which examines a single iconographical motif. He held grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Philosophical Society. His articles have been seen in Pantheon, the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, The Art Bulletin, Speculum, the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, the Revue Belge d'Archéologie et d'Histoire de l'Art, Viator, Gesta and Studies in Iconography. Before retiring in 1997, he taught seminars in his field to a broad cadre of Ph.D. candidates. He was also directly involved in hiring the first African American female professor, Dr. Sharon Patton, at UMD. This foundation set the course for an increasingly diverse faculty body within ARTH today.