Oct 18 2024

Dr. Andrew J. Hamilton, “The Royal Inca Tunic: A Biography of an Ancient Andean Masterpiece”

Department of Art History Colloquium

October 18, 2024

4:00 PM - 6:00 PM America/Chicago

Red, black, and yellow patchwork textile

Location

106 Henry Hall

Address

935 W. Harrison St, Chicago, IL

Calendar

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The most famous work of Andean art in the world is an enigmatic tunic in the collection of Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC. Thought to be the only surviving royal vestment of the Inca Empire, it has spawned controversial theories that its intricate patterns are a long-lost writing system. For over a decade, Andrew James Hamilton has conducted careful physical studies of this rare, royal, and radiant object. In this talk, he will offer an entirely new understanding of the familiar object by piecing together its remarkable life history: from its arduous facture some 500 years ago, to its reappearance in the mid-twentieth century, and its cultural significance in the present day. Sharing insights from his new book of the same name, published by Princeton University Press in 2024, Hamilton reveals for the first time that the extraordinary textile is an unfinished masterpiece that was likely being woven by two women on the eve of the Spanish invasion. An eyewitness to the horrors of colonialism and a testament to the highest echelon of Indigenous art of the Americas, the tunic has earned an important place in the canon of art history.

Andrew James Hamilton is associate curator of Arts of the Americas at the Art Institute of Chicago and a lecturer in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago. He is the author and illustrator of Scale & the Incas, published by Princeton University Press in 2018, and The Royal Inca Tunic: A Biography of an Andean Masterpiece, published by Princeton University Press in 2024. His research has been supported by Dumbarton Oaks, the Getty, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fondation Fyssen, the Musée du Quai Branly, the Sainsbury Research Unit, and the Fulbright-Hays Program. He was previously a member of the Princeton Society of Fellows, a lecturer at Princeton University, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Collège du de France. He received his PhD and MA from Harvard University and his BA from Yale University.

This lecture is sponsored by the David M. Sokol Fund for Art of the Americas.

Contact

Catherine Becker

cathbeck@uic.edu

Date posted

Sep 16, 2024

Date updated

Oct 2, 2024