CofC Faces to Know: Rebekah Compton

Name: Rebekah Compton

Hometown: Fountain Inn, South Carolina

Education/Background: Undergraduate degrees in English and history from Clemson University; master’s degree in art history from Washington University St. Louis; Ph.D. in art history from University of California, Berkeley; Andrew W. Mellon Lecturer and Postdoctoral Fellow, Columbia University, Art History; Rush H. Kress Fellow, Villa I Tatti at The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies

Job title: Associate Professor of Renaissance and Baroque Art History, Department of Art and Architectural History; affiliate program: Italian studies

How long have you worked at the College? 12 years

What are your job responsibilities? I teach courses: Every semester I teach a course, Introduction to Western Art: Renaissance to Modern, with 70 students. I have an experiential, active class with the demonstration of historical materials and techniques, such as Fra Angelico’s ultramarine blue, Renoir’s Prussian blue, Degas’ cobalt blue pastel and Warhol’s blue Indian ink. Students keep a color card throughout the semester filled with samples of pigments. I then teach courses on early and late Renaissance art; seminars on art in Florence, the body in Renaissance art, and Materials and Techniques of Renaissance Art; as well as an FYE course, The Life of the Senses.

I advise students, including in bachelor’s essays for the Honors College and independent studies. I help students find internships and apply to graduate school. Many of my students have received funding for traditional master’s and Ph.D. programs. Others continue in museum studies programs, law school and even in medical fields.

I am currently the chair of the Faculty Advisory Committee to the President, and my job includes service to the College and community, such as lectures in nearby middle and elementary schools.

My job also includes research. I write articles on Renaissance art, and currently two are in the process of proofs and publication, including one on Raphael’s Archangel Michael in the Louvre and another about St. Romuald’s liturgy in the illuminated choral books of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Florence. I am also completing my second book, titled Divine Design: Renaissance Art and Architecture of the Camaldolese Order, 1350-1550.

What do you like most about your job? I love being able to teach what I am passionate about, which is the history of art. It took a long time to complete the Ph.D. at Berkeley and land a job in art history. I am grateful to be here in Charleston. It is fun teaching in the new Simons Center for the Arts, too. Another great part of my job – which takes hours and hours of work in terms of applications, grants, planning and budgeting – is traveling to Italy to see and research art. I speak in Italian an hour per week to keep my language skills up, as they are necessary for setting up the viewing of rare objects and entering into spaces under renovation or closed to the public.

What question do you get asked most in your job and what’s your typical answer? Who is your favorite artist? What city in Italy do you like best? What is going to be on the exam? Does spelling count on art history tests?

What’s your favorite location on campus and why? The dappled sunlight walkway between the Simons Center and the library – old part of campus, flowers, plants, shade, often students walking or talking after class, beautiful houses and iron work: It feels like the heart of campus.

What are your hobbies? Golf, gardening, needlepointing

What personal and/or professional accomplishment are you most proud of? Personal: two kids – West and Grace Compton, 10 and 14 years old; breaking 100 in golf; practicing the Divine Office for six days at the Fontebuono Monastery, Camaldoli. Professional:

• Book: Venus and the Arts of Love in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
• Villa I Tatti Fellowship: spending a year and taking kids to Italy for a year (with au pair that was a student at CofC)
• Recently being asked to be a scholarly adviser and play a role in the design of the exhibition, Venice and the World, which will be held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and at the Correr Museum in Venice in 2029
• Recent Environmental Art History Article: “Forest Ecology: The Silver Fir Trees of Camaldoli in Fra Filippo Lippi’s Uffizi and Berlin Adoration of the Child paintings”
• Being asked to write an entry in an exhibition catalogue dedicated to Sandro Botticelli
• The Gladys Krieble Delmas, Henry A. Millon Award for Art and Architecture: being able to research in Italy and Croatia for five weeks in summer of 2023

Name a creative work (book, movie, performance, etc.) you enjoyed recently and why? Christoph Buchel’s “Monte di Pieta” is an installation artwork that I saw in Venice during the 2024 Biennale. The artwork included thousands of objects that were placed in Ca Corner della Regina. Buchel created so many interesting, layered relationships with the objects and rooms in relation to the function of the building itself. The Monte di Pietà, or Bank of Pity, was a charitable institution that provided loans to the poor at low interest rates. These banks could become corrupt, and, in this artwork, Buchel explores notions of debt. The rooms were wonderful and included a bitcoin lab illuminated with blue screens and a refrigerator full of Red Bull and a pawn shop filled with knockoff portraits, Prada jackets and copies of Medici bank documents. It was so cool to step into such a layered history in a building that actually was the Monte di Pietà (meaning) of Venice from 1834 to 1969.

What was your favorite TV show growing up? Kid: Smurfs; Youth: Nickelodeon’s Double Dare; Teen: Beverly Hills 90210

What’s next on your bucket list? I look forward to taking students on a study abroad trip for spring break, either to Florence or Venice, Italy. I would also love to play golf at St. Andrews in Scotland. Probably, the most far out thing on my list would be to go to Australia and hold a koala bear – lol!

What is something your campus colleagues would be surprised to know about you? I guess that I play golf once or twice a week. Or that I speak Italian once a week for an hour on Zoom with my tutor, Roberto, from Livorno, Italy.

What was your first job? I worked at a dress shop in downtown Fountain Inn on Saturdays during my sophomore year of high school to earn enough money to join a cheerleading trip to London to cheer at the Lord Mayor’s Day parade. The shop was owned by my grandmother’s friends (who also smoked in the back – lol), and I pressed wool suits with the steam presser. It was tough!

What’s your favorite Lowcountry restaurant? Royal Tern on Johns Island

Describe your perfect day: Wake up and have breakfast, coffee and a croissant, maybe an egg. Go see some art in the morning or read a book. Have lunch then play afternoon golf, followed by dinner with friends.

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