Janetta Rebold Benton, Ph.D. 
Email: JBenton@pace.edu
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janetta_Rebold_Benton

Two Recent Books
The History of Western Art, Art Essentials series, Thames & Hudson, London , 2023 (176 pages, 117 illustrations).

How to Understand Art, Art Essentials series, Thames & Hudson, London, 2021 (176 pages, 101 illustrations).

Book Forthcoming
What Makes Great Art?  Abeville Press, NY September 2026

Upcoming Lecture Series:
♦ 92NY (92nd Street Y), New York, NY, Roundtable
Great Castles of Great Britain: From William the Conqueror to Elizabeth I
Four Fridays, September 5, 12, 19, 26, 2025, noon – 1:00 pm EST, on Zoom
Click for detail

Frida Kahlo
7:00-8:00 pm EST, Wednesday, December 10, 2025, on Zoom
Click for detail

♦ Smithsonian Associates, Washington, DC
Masterpieces of the Middle Ages, Part One: Romanesque Reawakening (Part Two: Gothic Grandeur, will be offered on two Saturdays in February 2026.)
Four lectures on two Saturdays, November 1 and 8, 2025, 1:00-3:30 pm EST, on Zoom.
Click for detail

Winslow Homer: Portraits of American Life
7:00-8:15 pm EST, Tuesday, December 16, 2025, on Zoom
Click for detail

Upcoming Tours
♦ Southern Italy and Sicily, May 20-June 3, 2026

♦ Normandy: A One-Week Stay in France, August 22-30, 2026
Click for detail

Somerset House, London, interview for podcast, April 11, 2024, in the series The Process, The Darker Side of Cute, conversation with the artist Sean-Kierre Lyons about their work in CUTE: An Exhibition Exploring the  Irresistible Force of Cuteness in Contemporary Culture, Somerset House, London, January 25-April 14, 2024. https://channel.somersethouse.org.uk/podcasts/process/the-darker-side-of-cute

CBS News Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley, interviewed by Faith Salie, for program about gargoyles, October 27, 2019, available on the following links:  
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/this-week-on-sunday-morning-october-27-2019/#    
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RmaBnm3qoU
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gargoyles-and-grotesques-get-their-closeup/

Fulbright Scholar Awards: 
♦ Graduate School of Art History, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China, spring 2018 

♦ Graduate School of Art History, European University, St. Petersburg, Russia, fall 2012

Smithsonian Associates, Washington, DC

Masterpieces of the Middle Ages, Part One: Romanesque Reawakening
(Part Two: Gothic Grandeur, will be offered on two Saturdays in February 2026.),
Four lectures on two Saturdays, November 1 and 8, 2025, 1:00-3:30 pm EST, on Zoom.
Contrary to popular predictions, the world did not end in the year 1000. Having survived the dreaded day, artists responded with a burst of creative activity, especially in 11th- and 12th-century France. Journey along the medieval pilgrimage routes, visiting cathedrals, churches, cloisters, and monasteries. Here, the artists’ decoration was primarily didactic, stories told through distorted contorted figures and fantastic fauna. Dr. Benton is the author of Art of the Middle Ages, published by Thames & Hudson in the acclaimed World of Art series. Link to Smithsonian website

Winslow Homer: Portraits of American Life
7:00-8:15 pm EST, Tuesday, December 16, 2025, on Zoom

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) focused his art largely on the ordinary daily life of his time in the United States—not the lives of the fanciest folks but of the middle-class, depicted with factual details to be a good, wholesome life. He frequently recorded the sea, less as a source of recreational pleasure than as a challenge. Homer never married and, although he visited Paris and England, lived much of his life in relative isolation at his home, which we will visit, overlooking the ocean in Prouts Neck, Maine.

Link to Smithsonian website

92NY (92nd Street Y), New York, NY, Roundtable

Great Castles of Great Britain: From William the Conqueror to Elizabeth I
Four Fridays, September 5, 12, 19, 26, 2025, noon – 1:00 pm ET, on Zoom
From forbidding fortresses to captivating castles, these extraordinary buildings were the locations of some of the extremes of history, ranging from the viciously vindictive—as the grotesque murder of Edward II at Berkeley Castle, to glamorously amorous—as the adventures of Bess of Hardwick Hall, ever richer with each of her four marriages. Dr. Benton’s lectures, examining architectural styles, structures, and splendid settings, take you on a vicarious visit to castle life in early England.

Link to Roundtable website

Frida Kahlo
7:00-8:00 pm EST, Wednesday, December 10, 2025, on Zoom
Paintings by Frida Kahlo (1907-54) focused on a single subject: herself. Extremely personal paintings display all aspects of her short, physically and emotionally torturous life. After contracting polio as a child, a devasting trolley accident as a teen left her in chronic pain, unresolved by many surgeries. She said there were two great accidents in her life: One was the trolley and the other her marriage to the unfaithful Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. “Diego was by far the worst,” she noted.

Link to Roundtable website

Smithsonian Journeys, Washington, DC

I will serve as the Smithsonian Expert Lecturer on the following trips:

♦Southern Italy and Sicily, May 20-June 3, 2026

Link to Smithsonian Journeys website

♦Normandy: A One-Week Stay in France, August 22-30, 2026

Link to Smithsonian Journeys website

Lectures in China
American Embassy, Beijing, Art and Environment in America, public lecture with translators, April 20, 2022, online.

American Embassy, Beijing, Public Art in America, public lecture with translators, May 13, 2021, online.

Hangzhou: China Academy of Art, public lectures with translators: 1) Animals in the Art of the Middle Ages, 2) Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings, 2018.

Beijing: Tsinghua University, Broadcast of my lecture on Andy Warhol, watched by more than 3,600 people, 讲座回顾 | “波普教皇”安迪·沃霍尔的一生, 2018.
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/h-2bsou72YW26O85biwNtQ

Shanghai: Shanghai University, Winslow Homer; American Consulate, Winslow Homer, 2018.

Nanjing: Nanjing University, 1) Georgia O’Keeffe, 2) Andy Warhol, 2018.

Conference Papers
Invited keynote speaker, “Extreme Architecture around the World,” Fulbright Annual Symposium, Yale University, New Haven, December 3, 2023.

Invited plenary speaker, "Medieval Mischief: Wit and Humor in the Art of the Middle Ages," International Society of Humor Studies Conference, University of Texas - Austin, June 26, 2019.

                                                                                                                                      BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Janetta Rebold Benton is the Distinguished Professor of Art History at Pace University, NY. The recipient of two Fulbright Scholar Awards, in 2018 she was visiting professor in the graduate school of Art History, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China; in 2012 she was visiting professor in the graduate school of Art History, European University, St. Petersburg, Russia. Dr. Benton regularly presents subscription seminars for the Smithsonian Associates, Washington, DC and the 92NY in Manhattan. She presented subscription lecture series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, every season 1988-2011, and has lectured at The Met Cloisters, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach; the Schimmel Center for the Arts, NY, and elsewhere in America and abroad. She serves as the Expert Lecturer on Smithsonian Journeys and Metropolitan Museum of Art trips throughout the world. A former resident of Paris, she taught art history courses at the American Embassy.

Dr. Benton’s eleventh book, What Makes Great Art? is forthcoming from Abbeville Press, NY, September 2026. Her book, The History of Western Art, was published by Thames & Hudson, London, 2022/23 and translated into Latvian (Jāna Rozes apgāds, Riga), German (Midas Verlag, Zurich), Spanish (Arte Blume, Barcelona) and Canadian French (Editions Hurtubise, Montreal). Her How to Understand Art was published by Thames & Hudson in 2021 and translated into French (Flammarion, Paris), Italian (24 Ore Cultura, Milan), German (Midas Verlag, Zurich), Latvian (Jāna Rozes apgāds, Riga), Spanish (Art Blume, Barcelona), Taiwanese (Domain Publishing Company, Taiwan) and Vietnamese (Omega Books, Hanoi).

Her other books include Handbook for the Humanities (Robert DiYanni co-author), Pearson/Prentice Hall, NJ, 2014, published in paperback, as an E-book, and in Chinese translation, 2019, 2016. Arts and Culture: An Introduction to the Humanities (Robert DiYanni co-author), was published by Pearson/Prentice Hall, NJ, two volumes and combined volume, fourth edition, 2012, and Chinese translation of second edition, 2011. Dr. Benton’s Materials, Methods, and Masterpieces of Medieval Art is published in the Praeger Series on the Middle Ages, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, CA, 2009, in hardcover and as an E-book. Medieval Mischief: Wit and Humour in the Art of the Middle Ages, The History Press, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2004, examines an engaging aspect of medieval culture. Art of the Middle Ages published in the World of Art series, Thames & Hudson, London, 2002, offers a complete overview of the art and architecture of medieval Western Europe. Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings, Abbeville Press, NY, 1997, is also published in French as Saintes Terreurs: Les Gargouilles dans l’Architecture Médiévale (Flammarion, Paris), 2000. The Medieval Menagerie: Animals in the Art of the Middle Ages, Abbeville Press, NY, 1992, a Book of the Month Club selection, is also published in French as Bestiaire Médiéval: Les Animaux dans l’Art du Moyen Age (Flammarion, Paris), 1992. Dr. Benton was the guest curator and catalog author for the 1995 exhibition Medieval Monsters: Dragons and Fantastic Creatures at the Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY.

Articles and reviews written by Dr. Benton appear in the Periodical of Tsinghua University Art Museum (清华大学艺术博物馆馆刊), Beijing, 2020; IKON, Center for Iconographic Studies, University of Rijeka, Croatia, 2017; Proceedings of the International Conference, State Hermitage Museum Publishers, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2017 and 2015; Encyclopedia of Humor Studies, Sage Reference, Los Angeles, CA, 2014; Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, exhibition catalog, 2007; as well as in scholarly journals including Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, Poitiers, 1998; Arte Medievale, Rome, 1993; Artibus et Historiae, Vienna, 1989; and Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, Munich, 1985.

Dr. Benton was educated at Harvard University, Graduate School of Education, MDP diploma; earned her Ph.D. in Art History at Brown University; Master's degree in Art History at George Washington University; and Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at Cornell University.