Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

Pedro Pitarch has won the 2016-17 James Harrison Steedman Memorial Fellowship in Architecture. The $50,000 grant, which supports international travel for research, is one of the largest such architecture awards in the United States. Pitarch, who was chosen from a field of 100 applicants, will use the grant to explore the intersection of public and private spaces in cities across Europe, Asia and the United States.

In the last year, dozens of books by university faculty and alumni hit the shelves. Here we share just a small selection of the noteworthy tomes that are making an impact on literature, research and best-seller lists.

Rod Barnett, chair of the Master of Landscape Architecture program in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, has received a $20,000 grant from the Whitaker Foundation to support the St. Louis Parks Project.

“Higher Ground: Honoring Washington Park Cemetery, Its People and Place” will open March 3 at the Sheldon Art Galleries. The exhibition includes works by artists Jennifer Colten, Denise Ward-Brown and Dail Chambers. All three will discuss their projects during a gallery talk April 7 and in a panel discussion at the Missouri History Museum May 24, among other events.

Chicago-based artists Amanda Williams and Andres L. Hernandez, winners of the PXSTL competition, will discuss the project in a public lecture March 8. The free talk will launch the Sam Fox School’s spring Public Lecture Series.

At the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees meeting Dec. 2, several faculty members were appointed, appointed with tenure or promoted with tenure.

For Parisians at the end of the 19th century, to attend the opera, the ballet or the Moulin Rouge was to see but also to be seen. This spring the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present “Spectacle and Leisure in Paris: Degas to Mucha.” Featuring a broad selection of prints, posters, photographs and film, the exhibition will explore how visual artists at once documented, promoted and participated in the distinctive entertainment cultures that defined the Belle Époque.

A kiss. A punch. A body braced for impact. The paintings of Rosalyn Drexler exude uncanny stillness, anticipation and, frequently, the dread of imminent violence. This spring the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will present “Rosalyn Drexler: Who Does She Think She Is?,” the first full-career retrospective for the multitalented artist.

The sharing economy is revolutionizing how consumers engage services and utilize resources. Could it also help solve the problem of hunger?

James M. Kemper Jr., the former chairman of Commerce Bancshares and a major supporter of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis, died Thursday, Dec. 15. He was 95.