Carol Duncan


Carol Duncan is a Marxist-feminist scholar known as a pioneer of ‘new art history’, a social-political approach to art, who is recognized for her work in the field of Museum Studies, particularly her inquiries into the role that museums play in defining cultural identity.

Education

Carol Duncan earned a BA from University of Chicago, a MA from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Teaching

Carol Duncan served as a faculty member in the Ramapo College School of Contemporary Arts from 1972 until she retired in 2005. She is Professor Emerita at Ramapo College.

Work

Duncan's work examines the critical role that museums play in defining cultural identity.
In the 1970s Duncan and fellow feminist art historians, Linda Nochlin and Lise Vogel, first questioned formerly hallowed principals such as the idea of quality in art, the cannon of great artists and art and artistic genius.
Her 1975 essay titled "When Greatness is a Box of Wheaties" is considered a key text of feminist art history, articulating the feminist critique of genius in art.
Duncan's well known 1989 essay "The MoMA's Hot Mamas" explores the social implications of representations of women in paintings arguing that two renowned paintings of women by men in the Museum of Modern Art, de Kooning's Woman I and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, emphasize the 'monstrosity' of the female, creating a gender based cultural division that parallels the division of pornography, in which the woman is made into a vision/object by the male creator. She can only view a version of woman that is defined by the male creator, but is denied the role of creator and thus denied entry to "the central arena of high culture".

Books and essay contributions

Carol Duncan is the author of many books and essays, including the following.

Books

The Carol Duncan Scholarship, is a scholarship endowment created by Duncan to benefit students of the Visual Arts.