Art History Students Deepen Exploration With Visit to Brooklyn Museum

5/7/2025

Upper school students in Cheryl Hajjar’s Global Art History: Baroque to Brooklyn course have been spending the semester studying art-making in civilizations throughout time and across the globe — and lucky for them, they simply had to hop on the train to take in one of the country’s most renowned and expansive collections of artwork.

On April 25, students spent the day exploring the Brooklyn Museum, which contains more than 140,000 objects representing cultures across the globe and from over 6,000 years of history.

“The focus of our course is to make connections between the works of artists and architects from non-Western cultures and the ones that we all know (from the Western Canon),” Hajjar explained. “On this particular trip, the students chose themes and then found six works in the museum that represented those themes. For a final project, they will use these themes to create and design a museum that represents that theme and populate it with the pieces that they chose from the Brooklyn Museum while adding 14 more from any place that they can source the work.”

Sasha Williams ’27, who selected the theme art and gender, was particularly struck by “The Dinner Table” by Judy Chicago. The art installation is comprised of a large triangular table with 39 place settings, each commemorating an important woman from history.

“I’m hoping to talk about it in my final project,” Williams said. She also enjoyed exploring the pieces on fashion, because “Fashion is a big topic within art and gender.”

A photographer, Noa Benerofe ’25 said she has “always been into self-expression and showing that in different ways,” so the topic was a natural choice for her final project.

One of the pieces that spoke to her most was by American photographer Tina Barney: “Jill and Polly in the Bathroom.” Benerofe was “drawn to the color” (the photograph shows two women in pink bathrobes in a pink bathroom). “It’s part of Barney’s exploration of the lives of affluent families,” Benerofe explained.

For Benerofe, the course is expanding her passion for photography: “I’ve been into art my whole life, I’m going to college for it. I wanted to have another aspect of art in my curriculum.”