Author: Liam Otten

Eric P. Mumford, the Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, has been named a 2026 Distinguished Professor by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ASCA).

New home construction is a major source of carbon emissions. Over the last three semesters, Hongxi Yin and Sam Fox School students helped develop a pavilion made entirely from salvaged materials. Now on view in Chicago’s Millennium Park, the project sequestered more carbon than it released.

Celebrated editor, publisher and art collector Larry Warsh recently gifted 56 works of Chinese photography to the Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis. This spring, the museum will publicly display 43 of those works, all made between 1993 and 2006, for the first time in “Looking Back Toward the Future: Contemporary Photography from China.”

Architectural historian Mary McLeod, conceptual photographer Wang Qingsong and multimedia artist Clarissa Tossin will discuss their work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts spring Public Lecture Series.

Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo is “a perfect musician” (Le Monde), at once “vocally brilliant and dramatically fearless” (New York Times). On Jan. 25, Costanzo will launch WashU’s 2026 Great Artists Series.

Ron Himes, the Henry E. Hampton Jr. Artist-in-Residence in Arts & Sciences and founder of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company, has won a Lifetime Achievement Award from New York theater group AUDELCO.

Influential collector Komal Shah discusses “Making Their Mark.” Currently on view at WashU’s Kemper Art Museum, the exhibition places work by renowned figures such as Howardena Pindell, Joan Mitchell and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith in dialogue with contemporary practitioners such as Katharina Grosse, Lorna Simpson, Sarah Sze and Mary Weatherford.

Robert E. Hegel, in Arts & Sciences, has won the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize from the Modern Language Association of America for his translation of “The Heroic Adventures of Qin Shubao,” from “Forgotten Tales of the Sui” by Chinese dramatist and writer Yuan Yuling (1599–1674).

In his new book “Look Out: The Delight and Danger of Taking the Long View,” WashU’s Edward McPherson explores the human desire for “big picture” perspectives — and how such perspectives cultivate both awe and arrogance.

WashU’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present “Silent Sky,” which explores the life and work of celebrated astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre Nov. 20-23.