Laura Tillery
Assistant Professor of Art History
Laura Tillery is a specialist in late medieval and early modern European visual culture.
At Hamilton, Tillery teaches a diverse range of medieval and early modern courses in Art History and Medieval and Renaissance Studies. In her classes, students often engage with object-based learning that use on-campus collections at the Wellin Museum of Art and the Michael Lang ’67 Special Collections and Archives. Tillery is passionate about mentoring students and helping them pursue their goals at, and after, Hamilton.
Tillery’s current research concentrates on issues of trade and mobility in northern European art. Her book project, Art of the Hanse: The Transcultural Altarpiece from the Baltic Sea to the Arctic North, examines the movement of painted and sculpted devotional art following the mercantile trade routes of the Hanse network. Her other research projects involve the first edited anthology in English on medieval Scandinavian art and architecture from the Vikings to the Reformation, as well as publications in progress on intermedial workshop collaboration and the iconography of Baltic saints. She also serves as the contributing editor of northern European medieval art on Smarthistory.
Recent Courses Taught
Visual Culture of the Medieval World
Intersections in Global Art
Northern Renaissance Art
Race and Racism in the Middle Ages
A World of Art (History)
Art without Borders
Distinctions
Wellin Museum of Art Innovation Grant 2022
Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2019-2021
Carl Zigrosser Fellowship, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2016-2017
Fulbright-Germany, 2015-2016
Select Publications
The Medieval Scandinavian Art Reader, contributor and co-editor with Margrethe C. Stang (Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, 2023)
“Late medieval multimedia and devotion,” in Reframing Art History, ed. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank (Smarthistory, The Center for Public Art History, 2022).
“Hanse Cultural Geography and Communal Identity in Late-Medieval City Views of Lübeck” Journal of Urban History (May 2020) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0096144220917933
The Role of the Workshop in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Professional Affiliations
- College Art Association
- Historians of Netherlandish Art
- International Center of Medieval Art
- Medieval Academy of America
- Renaissance Society of America
Appointed to the Faculty
2021Educational Background
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
M.A., Tufts University
B.A., McGill University
