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. 

Read the full story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.