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From Guild to Genius traces shifting conceptions of “the artist” in the Western world from the medieval era, through the Renaissance, until today. These changes were informed, in part, by the publication of Giorgio Vasari’s (1511-1574) The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550 and 1568). This collection of artist biographies represented a fundamentally different approach to defining the status of artists, who had previously been viewed as highly trained but relatively anonymous craftspeople. Instead, Vasari’s text celebrated the supposed genius of individual Renaissance “masters” like Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo, creating the foundation that allowed these masters and others to achieve celebrity-like reverence that extends up to the present. This exhibition demonstrates how this view of the artist as a singular, mythologized figure has shaped societal expectations about creative originality, promoted gender ideologies that privileged male artists, and obscured the collaborative realities of artmaking.

Featuring work by artists such as Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), John Smibert (1688–1751), Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Elise Ansel (born 1961), and Reza Aramesh (born 1970), this exhibition explores the legacy of “the artist.” In asking how and when individual creative genius came to be prized—and protected—From Guild to Genuis explores just how long-standing paradigms have influenced the names that are remembered in the historical record today and what recognizing these historical forces might mean for the future.

This exhibition is curated by Marianna Zingone ’26. Financial support is provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowment.