Henry McMahon

Advisor: Gordon Hughes

Dissertation Title: Perfecting Terror: Jean Fautrier, Asger Jorn, and the Appeal to Everyday Language in Postwar French Painting


Henry McMahon is a Ph.D candidate in the history of modern art with a focus on interwar and postwar French painting. His dissertation, "Perfecting Terror: Jean Paulhan and modernist painting in postwar France," reexamines the role of graphic commonplaces in the work of Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier, and Asger Jorn, painters widely considered to have begun painting anew in the aftermath of World War II. Henry has served as a Fellow at the Menil Collection and in various Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant roles at Rice. In 2023 he began teaching the history of modern art at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where he will continue to teach during the 2024-25 academic year. In addition to projects related to his dissertation he is also developing articles on nineteenth-century American topics.

Research Areas

Modern Art

Education

BA, English, New York University, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, 2004

Honors & Awards

2023 Humanities Research Center Marilyn Marrs Gillet International Travel Fellowship

2022 Amici di via Gabina Fellowship

2021, Rice University Department of Art History Summer Research Award

2020-21 John and Dominique de Menil Fellowship, Menil Collection, Houston, TX

2020, Rice University Department of Art History Summer Research Fellow

Body

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