Shelley's Bio & CV
Shelley Perlove is highly esteemed as a scholar, teacher, and public speaker. Dr. Perlove (Ph.D. 1984, University of Michigan) is Full Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, where she taught since 1982. Since retiring in 2012, Shelley has continued teaching and in residence at UM-Ann Arbor in History of Art and in Judaic Studies as Visiting Professor Emerita. Dr. Perlove has devoted more than 40 years to the research, publication, and teaching of Early Modern art in Italy, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, as well as the History of Photography, The Holy Land and Visual Art, Art and the Nazis, and Biblical Narrative in Art. Shelley is the recipient of an Outstanding Research Award, and two Distinguished Faculty awards for teaching on her campus.
Professor Perlove has written 40 articles, chapters, and reviews appearing in prestigious international journals and books in France, Sweden, the Netherlands, England, Austria, Germany, Canada, and of course, the United States. She has authored 8 books and exhibition catalogues on various 16th and 17th century artists including Piranesi, Dürer, Bernini, Guercino, Jacques Callot, Heemskerk, and Rembrandt. Her exhibition, “Pursuit of Faith: Etchings by Rembrandt in the Thrivent Collection,” received extremely high praise. The book, Bernini and the Idealization of Death; The Blessed Ludovica Albertoni and the Altieri Chapel published by Penn State Press was recognized by the Gustav Arlt Humanities Book Award. In 2009 the book, Rembrandt’s Faith: Church and Temple in the Dutch Golden Age, co-authored with Larry Silver, won the following awards: the prestigious Bainton Prize of the Sixteenth Century Society; a finalist for the highly competitive Charles Rufus Morey College Art Association book award; and the Brown-Weiss Newberry Library award for Best Book in the Humanities. Other more recent books include: Drawings in Midwest Collections: The Age of Bernini, Rembrandt, and Poussin, published by Notre Dame University Press, co-edited with George Keyes; and Visual Typology in Early Modern Europe: Continuity and Expansion with Dagmar Eichberger, published by Brepols Press.
Shelley was consultant to the show at the Detroit Institute of Arts, “Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus”, and contributed to the catalog. Her voice may seem familiar to you if you heard the audio tour at the DIA. Maybe you even detected her New York accent? She also wrote an essay for the exhibition, Rembrandt through Jewish Eyes, scheduled for Moscow, but now postponed because of the political situation.
Dr. Perlove has many irons in the fire. Shelley is presently doing research on a book on Rembrandt’s circle on their treatment of themes from the Old Testament. She is also working on the myth of Enoch and the Fallen Angels in Art; Images of Africans in Western Art; The Holy Land in the Visual Arts; and the Material Culture of Colonial Commodities.
Shelley Perlove has served as President and on the Board of the Midwest Art History Society and on the Board of Directors of the Historians of Netherlandish Art. Dr. Perlove also leads art history study tours to Europe every May, which she has been doing for the past 30+ years. Click links below for CV and additional resources.