Lisa Pon

Professor of Art History
Lisa Pon

Research & Practice Areas

Renaissance art, architecture, and visual culture; temporality and the material object; transmedial images in motion; implications of sensory input beyond the visual; the phenomenology of ritual

Biography

     Lisa Pon specializes in early modern European art, architecture, and material culture, focusing on the mobilities of art, artistic authority and collaboration, and the Renaissance concept of copia or abundance.  Her first book, Raphael, Dürer and Marcantoni Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print, was published with Yale University Press in 2004; Cambridge University Press published her most recent monograph, Printed Icon: Forlì’s Madonna of the Fire, in 2015; and she is co-editor or co-author of three additional volumes.  Her articles have appeared in venues including Art Bulletin, Art History, Word & Image, Print Quarterly, Renaissance Studies, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Boletín del Museo del Prado, and Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
     Currently Pon is working on two book projects. One book manuscript examines fears about contagion, both biological and moral, in early modern Venice.  The other project explores artistic collaboration in the Renaissance, especially across media. Forthcoming essays draw on these projects, as well as her interest in color in religious ritual, partnerships in print media, and ancient literature published in Renaissance books.  She also heads the collective Collaborations in History, Art, Religion, and Music (CHARM), and led the 2019-2023 USC Early Modern Studies Institute seminar, Paper and Other Early Modern Media Platforms.
     With co-directors Tracy Cosgriff, Curtis Fletcher, Andreas Kratky and Erik Loyer, Pon heads the interdisciplinary research project to digitally reconstruct the library of Julius II, virtually returning the experience of Julius’ books to their intended site in the Vatican Palace, the Stanza della Segnatura.  This project has been awarded a National Endowment of the Humanities Digital Humanities Advancement grant for 2021-23.
     Pon was the 2022-23 Mellon Faculty Fellow in Humanities and the University of the Future, and has also been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, the Renaissance Society of America; the College Art Association; the American Council of Learned Societies; the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Spain’s Ministry of Culture; the John Rylands Research Institute, Manchester, UK; the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation; the New York City Public Library; the American Philosophical Society; the Bibliographical Society of America; the Warburg Institute, London; and the Getty Research Institute.  
 

Education

  • Ph.D. History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University, 1999
  • M.A. Art History and Archaeology, Washington University in St. Louis, 1992
  • A.B. Biochemical Sciences, Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges, 1987
    • Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow, History of Science, Harvard University, 2002-2004
    • Residential Scholar, Getty Research Institute, 2000-2002
  • Tenure Track Appointments

    • Professor of Art History, University of Southern California, 2019 –
    • Professor of Art History (2016-19), Associate Professor (2009-16), Assistant Professor (2005-9), Southern Methodist University, 2005 – 2019

    Research, Teaching, Practice, and Clinical Appointments

    • Lecturer in Art History, Tufts University, 2003-2004
    • Lecturer in Art History, University of Massachusetts/Boston, Spring 2000

    Visiting and Temporary Appointments

    • Visiting Professor, Rinascimento Conteso Seminar, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz/Max Planck Institut, 11/2016
    • Visiting Assistant Professor in History, Theory and Criticism (Department of Architecture), Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

    Other Employment

    • Associate Curator of Academic Programs, Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, 2003-2004
  • Book

    • Pon, L. (2022). A Printed Icon in Early Modern Italy: Forlì’s Madonna of the Fire (paperback edition). Cambridge University Press.
    • Pon, L. (2021). Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print (A&AePortal). A&AePortal.
    • Pon, L. (2015). A Printed Icon in Early Modern Italy: Forlì’s Madonna of the Fire. Cambridge University Press.
    • Pon, Lisa and Kallendorf, Craig (Ed.). (2008). The Books of Venice/Il Libro Veneziano. (Vol. XX, Miscellanea Marciana and Oak Knoll Press.
    • Pon, L. (2004). Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print. Yale University Press.
    • Pon, Lisa and Larkin, Graham (Ed.). (2001). Printing Matters: The Materiality of Print in Early Modern Europe. (Vol. 17, Word & Image.
    • Dean, C., Fairbanks, T., Pon, L. (1999). Changing Impressions: Marcantonio Raimondi and Sixteenth-Century Print Connoisseurship. Yale University Art Gallery.
    • Art Journal Open, “The Quarantine Question,” a collaborative project co-curated with Dana Katz, for Art Journal Open, an online publication of the College Art Association. http://artjournal.collegeart.org/?p=16055, 2021-2022