The life and work of Annetta Alexandridis (1968-2026), associate professor of history of art and visual studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, will be commemorated Oct. 31 in the Guerlac Room, A.D. White House, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.; colleagues and former students will speak about her contributions to classical art and archaeology. A concert in her memory will be held in Sage Chapel at 2 p.m., followed by a reception at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Members of the Cornell community are welcome; an RSVP is requested, and those wishing to take part online can sign up for a Zoom link.
In addition, a new display of four female figures from Cornell’s Plaster Cast Collection, which Alexandridis had co-curated, will be installed in her honor this month in Goldwin Smith Hall. Restored by local conservator Kasia Maroney, the four figures represent different stylistic approaches to the draped female figure at four different moments in time, said Verity Platt, professor of classics and history of art (A&S).
“Annetta was very interested in depictions of women in the ancient world and in textiles in antiquity,” said Platt, co-curator of the collection. “Her thesis and first monograph were about portraits of imperial women.”
The figures will be positioned against a backdrop photograph of Sardis, Türkiye, where Alexandridis was an associate director of the long-running Harvard-Cornell Exploration of Ancient Sardis. She studied the city’s Roman funerary culture and was conducting a survey of all its cemeteries in collaboration with Susanne Ebbinghaus, curator of ancient art at the Harvard Art Museums, and Leyla Uğurer, doctoral candidate in history of art.
“The backdrop photo shows the temple of Artemis, which is an appropriate setting for these sculptures,” Platt said. “Behind the temple, you see a mountain rising behind which is where the necropolis is located. It speaks directly to Annetta’s excavation project.”
An expert in the art of ancient Greece and Rome with a particular interest in gender studies, animal studies and the media of archaeology, Alexandridis had connections with many departments and programs at Cornell including the Department of German Studies, the Department of Classics and the Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies.
She was also a pianist and supporter of music programs at Cornell, including concerts and Mayfest, Cornell’s international chamber music festival. The Oct. 31 concert, organized by Annette Richards, the Given Foundation Professor in the Humanities and University Organist (A&S), will feature performances by Cornell music faculty, including a series of piano variations for four hands, one of which was composed in memory of Alexandridis by Roger Moseley, associate professor of music (A&S). He will perform the composition along with Alexandridis’ former piano teacher, Sezi Seskir, D.M.A. ’11, the Ellen P. Williams Professor in Music at Bucknell University.
Following the concert, there will be a reception in the Johnson Museum, where one of Alexandridis’ favorite objects in the collection will be on display: a Roman brick.
“It’s a very humble object but she showed how important it was for understanding the Roman built environment and Roman ideas about power, materiality, and labor,” Platt said. “It was a big part of how she taught.”
