Gough, Maria 1961–

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Gough, Maria 1961–

PERSONAL:

Born November 23, 1961. Education: Johns Hopkins University, M.A., 1991; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1997.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Stanford University, Department of Art & Art History, Nathan Cummings Art Bldg., Stanford, CA 94305. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Professor and writer. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, assistant professor of art history; Stanford University, Stanford, CA, associate professor of art history, 2003—.

WRITINGS:

(With Melissa Hefferlin) Tradition Rediscovered: The Finley Collection of Russian Art, CommonPlace Pub. (New Canaan, CT), 1998.

The Artist as Producer: Russian Constructivism in Revolution, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2005.

Contributor of essays to various academic journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Maria Gough is an associate professor of art history at Stanford University in Stanford, CA, where she has worked since 2003. Gough received her M.A. from Johns Hopkins University in 1991 and her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1997. Prior to teaching at Stanford, she taught art history at the University of Michigan. Her academic interests include twentieth-century European art and theory with a special focus on Russian and French art, postwar American art, and feminist art and theory. She has written essays on her area of expertise for various academic journals. Gough cowrote a coffee-table book about Russian painting, Tradition Rediscovered: The Finley Collection of Russian Art, with Melissa Hefferlin. Tradition Rediscovered, published in 1998, profiles forty-two of the top Soviet artists working from the 1950s to the 1990s.

Her debut work as lone author is 2005's The Artist as Producer: Russian Constructivism in Revolution. The book takes a look at Russian Constructivism, a modern art movement that originated in Moscow in the early twentieth century and involved a group of Russian artists who rejected the idea of "art for art's sake" and sought to extend the use of abstract art to practical design work. Gough's book "navigates a new space for studies on Russian Constructivism," K. Andrea Rusnock wrote in her review of The Artist as Producer for the Canadian Journal of History. She added that the book intends to "present the complexities of Constructivism from a theoretical perspective, one the author asserts has been missing in the literature." To achieve this, the author uses the works of Constructivist artist Karl Ioganson and his interaction with the Institute of Artistic Culture to illustrate the theoretical issues involved in the rise of Constructivism. The book is divided into two parts: the first explores laboratory art while the second gives insight into the ways in which Constructivists transformed themselves into Productivists. "Rich in visual imagery, The Artist as Producer contains over ninety illustrations, some of well-known works and photographs as well as more rarely seen objects and documentary photographs, all of which highlight the salient points Gough is making. … Gough's well-researched and expertly documented theoretical paradigm of Constructivism, as well as her conceptual analysis of the works, brings to light a new way to look at this vital period in Soviet art," noted critic Rusnock.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Canadian Journal of History, spring-summer, 2007, K. Andrea Rusnock, review of The Artist as Producer: Russian Constructivism in Revolution, p. 42.

Modernism/Modernity, April, 2006, Charlotte Douglas, review of The Artist as Producer, p. 385.

Russian Review, January, 2006, review of The Artist as Producer, p. 65.

Slavic and East European Journal, summer, 2007, Douglas Greenfield, review of The Artist as Producer, p. 429.

Slavic Review, summer, 2007, Patricia Railing, review of The Artist as Producer, p. 367.