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Northwestern University Department of Art History presents the Warnock Lecture Series.

"First Art: Gardens of Eden and the Human Condition"

Mariët Westermann, former executive Vice President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, joined New York University Abu Dhabi as Vice Chancellor and Professor of Arts and Humanities in August 2019. During her nine years at Mellon, Westermann oversaw the Foundation's annual grantmaking and research portfolio. She reenvisioned the Foundation's strategy, launching initiatives that promote higher education, the humanities and the arts, strengthen liberal arts curricula and graduate education, reinforce community colleges, renew preservation of cultural heritage, and support scholars and artists at risk. From 2002 to 2010 she was at NYU, first as director and professor the Institute of Fine Arts and then as the first provost of NYU Abu Dhabi, where she created a start up team to set up the campus and recruit faculty and students. A widely published historian of Netherlandish art, she began her professorial career at Rutgers University.

Mariët received her undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from Williams College, and earned her Masters and PhD at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts. She serves on the boards of the Scholar Rescue Fund and ALIPH - the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Zones.

Images: Upper Rhenish Master, Small Paradise Garden, c. 1410/20, from Historisches Museum Frankfurt (left). Bagh-I Fin, Kashan, Iran, 19th century. Photo courtesy of Amirpashaei, Creative Commons Attribution License (right).