- Sarah Louise Cowan's research focuses on modern and contemporary art of the Americas with a particular focus on the intersection of visual art and activism. Her current book project examines how contemporary art engenders forms of mourning foreclosed by public memorials. It looks specifically at artworks commemorating people whose lives were touched by state-condoned violence.
- Cowan's first book, Howardena Pindell: Reclaiming Abstraction (Yale University Press, Nov. 2022), is the first book-length scholarly publication about any aspects of the multifaceted career of artist, activist, curator and writer Howardena Pindell (b. 1943). The book develops the concept of Black feminist modernisms. It interrogates the history and reception of abstraction in the U.S., particularly how Black artists since 1960 have reclaimed abstract art by rerouting its dominant associations with Euro-American modernisms. The book received a 2021 Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant.
Statement on Scholarly or Artistic Work
Educational Background
- Ph.D. in History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
- M.A. in History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
- B.A. in History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
Teaching Interests
- Modern and Contemporary Art of the Americas; African-American Art and Art of the African Diaspora; U.S. American Art; Queer and Feminist Art History; Latinx and Chicanx Art; Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art; Global Contemporary Art Courses Regularly Taught
- ARTH 136A Histories of American Art (Power, Privilege and Diversity course)
- ARTH 190 Black American Art Histories
- ARTH 281A Histories of Performance Art (Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies)
- ARTH 282A Art + Liberation: The United States Since 1960 (Africana Studies; Power, Privilege, and Diversity course)
- ARTH 290 Contemporary Queer and Feminist Art
- ARTH 381 Histories of Photography (Film Studies; Power, Privilege, and Diversity course)
Research, Scholarly, Creative Work
Selected Publications:
- Book - Howardena Pindell: Reclaiming Abstraction (Yale University Press, 2022
- Review of book - Blake Oetting, caa.reviews
- Peer-review journals - “To Touch Time: U.S. Black Feminist Modernist Sculpture in the 1970s and 1980s,” Arts 13, no. 1 (February 2024) (cover story). “Texturing Abstraction: Howardena Pindell’s Cut and Sewn Paintings,” Art Journal 79, no. 4 (Winter 2020): 26–43.
- Exhibition texts - “On the Dance Floor: Copresence and the Problem of Artistic Influence,” in Tales of Brave Ulysses: Al Loving, Howardena Pindell, Alan Shields, Richard Van Buren, Garth Greenan Gallery, Van Doren Waxter, New York, 2023. “Clearly Seen: A Chronology,” in Howardena Pindell: What Remains to Be Seen, eds., Naomi Beckwith and Valerie Cassel Oliver, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2018.
- Reviews - Double review of “Dragging Away: Queer Abstraction in Contemporary Art” and “Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing,” Woman’s Art Journal 44, no. 2 (fall/winter 2023): 43–46. "Review of Feminist Subjectivies in Fiber Art and Craft: Shadows and Affect by John Corso-Esquivel," Journal of Modern Craft 14, no. 2 (July 2021): 199-201. "Outliers and American Vanguard Art," caa.reviews, 2018
Awards and Honors
- 2022–2023 Tyson Scholar of American Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
- 2021 Wyeth Foundation for American Art Publication Grant, College Art Association
- 2020 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend
- 2018–2019 Mellon-ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship
- 2017–2018 Smithsonian American Art Museum Predoctoral Fellowship
- 2017–2018 Getty Library Research Grant