Irene J. Winter

Irene J. Winter is an art historian and former William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts, working primarily on archaeological materials of the ancient Near East. Winter received an A.B. (1960) from Barnard College, an M.A. (1967) from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. (1973) from Columbia University. She taught previously at Queens College of the City University of New York and at the University of Pennsylvania. Her interdisciplinary research has focused on the cultural and historical contexts in which art is produced, and the role of art as a medium for social and ideological forces.  While studying the art, architecture, and aesthetics of ancient Mesopotamia, she explores the intersection of non-Western and Western art history.  Winter has done fieldwork in the course of her extensive travels to sites in the Middle East, and has done ethnoarchaeological work in India on temple ritual there and in the ancient Near East.