William Wallace


Barbara Murphy Bryant Distinguished Professor of Art History

Contact Information
Media Contact

Wallace is an internationally recognized authority on Michelangelo and his contemporaries. In addition to more than forty articles (as well as two works of fiction), he is the author and editor of four books on Michelangelo: Michelangelo at San Lorenzo: The Genius as Entrepreneur (Cambridge 1994); Michelangelo: Selected Scholarship in English (Garland, 1996), Michelangelo: The Complete Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture (Hugh Lauter Levin, 1998), and most recently, Michelangelo: Selected Scholarship in English (Garland 1999). He is currently writing a new biography of Michelangelo.

In the media

A God Takes a Break From Mischief

“Reclining Pan” (c.1535) is “the most important Renaissance sculpture in America.” So argues William E. Wallace, the Barbara Murphy Bryant Distinguished Professor of Art History, in a new appreciation for the Wall Street Journal.

Creatures Great and Small

William E. Wallace, director of undergraduate studies in Art History and Archaeology, says the Frick Collection’s move to Madison Avenue gives viewers the chance to see Giovanni Bellini’s ‘St. Francis in the Desert’ in a new light—literally

A Burial Beneath Beauty

William E. Wallace, professor of art history in Arts & Sciences, discusses a statue of Moses that dominates the scene in Michelangelo’s Tomb of Pope Julius II.

A Structural Resurrection

So, are you thinking of retiring? Just because you are in your 70s? Michelangelo was just entering the busiest and most creative years of his life. And look what he accomplished 52 years after completing the Sistine Chapel, writes William Wallace.

Stories

A Structural Resurrection

A Structural Resurrection

So, are you thinking of retiring? Just because you are in your 70s? Michelangelo was just entering the busiest and most creative years of his life. And look what he accomplished 52 years after completing the Sistine Chapel.

Roediger, Wallace receive Arts & Sciences faculty awards

Henry L. “Roddy” Roediger III, PhD, received the Arts & Sciences Distinguished Leadership Award and William E. Wallace, PhD, received the David Hadas Teaching Award during Arts & Sciences’ annual faculty reception. Gary S. Wihl, PhD, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, presented the awards and introduced new faculty at the reception, which also recognized the start of the new academic year.

Campus Author: William Wallace, Ph.D. ‘Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man, and his Times’

While the story of Michelangelo’s artistic genius has been told many times, the story of his social ambitions has been told scarcely at all. Indeed, scholars have largely dismissed the artist’s claims to noble birth. Yet it was precisely that belief that propelled Michelangelo’s lifelong quest not only to improve his family’s financial position, but to improve the very social standing of artists. So argues art historian William Wallace in the new biography “Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man, and his Times.”