It gives me great pleasure to introduce the sixth issue of PART: A Journal of Art Histories and Visuality, an on-line publication brought to you by the students of the Ph.D. program in Art History at the CUNY Graduate School and University Center.

The past few months have brought both the sadness of departure and the pleasure of new faces and fresh ideas to this journal. Although this is the sixth issue of PART, it is its first issue completely under the direction of a new editor and designer. This past spring, Alan Moore and John Angeline, the founding editors of PART, decided to move on and asked me to take over as managing editor. Alan and John had entrusted me with a project that they had built from scratch, and I immersed myself wholeheartedly into the production of the current issue. Obviously in the beginning I had reservations, having never been involved in an e-journal or its production, but the experience has been a rewarding and educational one. Alan has been especially supportive and helpful, and also put me in contact with someone interested in redesigning the website, Emily Pugh. I feel truly fortunate to have Emily, a brilliant young art historian and talented web designer, on my editorial staff -- Emily revamped the look of PART beginning with this issue. She had the patience to deal the constant flow of material for uploading to the site, with various hold-ups and deadline extensions, and with my often less-than-perfect understanding of HTML.

I originally proposed this issue to Alan and John more than a year ago after hearing a lecture on Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller given by Stacey Williams in a graduate Sculpture seminar at the Graduate Center. Fuller, who studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the Académie Colarossi, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and privately under Rodin, was an important early twentieth century sculptor and feminist at the height of the Harlem Renaissance (unfortunately most of Fuller's early work was destroyed in a fire in 1910). Stacey's work on Fuller inspired me to gather articles on other important but lesser-known sculptors so that their work and contributions to the history of art could be more widely understood and explored. From Stacey's acceptance of my invitation to submit her piece on Fuller, other equally fascinating essays followed:

Stacy Easterday's essay on the significant sculptor Hélène Bertaux, founder of the Union des Femmes des Peintres et Sculpteurs and the major catalyst for the opening of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris to women in 1896, is the most recent publication on this artist to date. Her analysis of the ways in which Bertaux marketed herself and her own sculpture in her early years is a significant contribution to feminist discourse.

Josephine Murphy's tribute piece to the sculptor James Novelli is an attempt to correct the omissions of recent New York newspaper articles which surfaced when, in April of this year, Novelli's Victory was destroyed by two rogues in Brooklyn. Many sculpture historians were distressed by the unsettling news of the sculpture's disappearance, and then its later discovery in a scrap metal shop. Novelli's Victory, although not necessarily famous, was a part of American sculpture history and its loss is greatly felt. Its destruction makes many of us fear the loss of our other public treasures and question the city's ability to protect them.

"Ghiberti and Manzù: Alternative Means of 'Piercing' the Flat" is Raphy Sarkissian's second contribution to PART. His essay imparts a refreshing and modern analysis on perspective in the works of Lorenzo Ghiberti (in his Gates of Paradise) and Giacomo Manzù (in his Gates of Death). The physical act of piercing, slashing, and puncturing the surface of an object is investigated in relation to a complete body of theoretical writings, giving the idea of perspective in sculpture a renewed depth.

Zachary Ross deals with the issue of Brancusi's legacy in his article, "Peasant Wisdom: An Analysis of Brancusi's Rumanian Heritage." Rarely explored in Brancusi studies is the affect that the artist's youth in Rumania became a source of inspiration for his later works; thus Zachary attempts to correct this omission.

Brian Edward Hack's essay is an absorbing account of the underlying theme of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, held in San Francisco. The American interest in Eugenics and Social Darwinism at the very moment of the Exposition gave rise to an abundance of sculptures promoting the idea of human biological perfection. It is both fascinating and frightening to learn of the interest in the übermensch in America, and its stalwart promoters in art and science, years before the advent of the Second World War.

Two essays in our Reviews section deal with recent exhibitions or installations. Robin Clark's review of Robert Smithson's drawings from the early 1960s is based on a recent exhibition held at Cohan Gallery this past spring. It is a pleasure to publish a piece on the output of a sculptor in another medium; most sculptors produce excellent drawings which are often ignored by scholars. Dana Pilson offered to review the recent completion of the second phase of the Greek galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Although many of us have visited the newly renovated rooms, it is wonderful to have a current account of the project and information about its final phase.

Our Practice section features articles which deal specifically with recent ideas in teaching, museum work, process notes and field research. For this issue we have received contributions from Elena Kemelman, Herbert Hartel and Betti-Sue Hertz. Two are concerned with sculptures on CUNY campuses. Elena's process notes on the Hall of Fame For Great Americans, located on the scenic campus of CUNY's Bronx Community College, is the most complete account of the sculpture program to be published to date. Her lists of artists and figures represented and related websites will be vital resource for anyone working on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American sculpture. Herb's piece on John Crawford's Queens College Marker is a discussion of one of a series of Crawford's 'markers', and relates the sculpture convincingly to Richard Serra's Tilted Arc. Betti-Sue Hertz has contributed a review which was originally published in the catalogue for Transposed: Analogs of Built Space, an exhibition she curated at the Sculpture Center last spring.

Finally, I want to thank all who contributed new ideas, suggestions, comments and even criticisms, in the hopes of reshaping and improving the journal: Jennifer Farrell, Karen Lemmey, Mele Mauala, Margaret Stenz, Lisa-Jaye Young, and Raul Zamudio.

I would like to invite our readers to bookmark our site and visit often for updates. Our new features include author's bios and direct links to all author's email addresses; a masthead complete with a mission statement and submission guidelines; more links and hypertext for all of the articles; and a special page of websites with direct links to other e-journals. We would also like to encourage serious letters to the editor for publication in the subsequent issue. You may e-mail the letters to me at caterina@erols.com. (Please include your full name and e-mail address. Anonymous letters cannot be published.)

Currently we are accepting submissions for future issues, and we strongly encourage all graduate students and recent Ph.D.s to submit material. We are in need of articles in all areas, including features, book and exhibition reviews, and practice articles (curator's notes, special projects, teaching, etc.). Please view submission guidelines in the about PART section for the pertinent information. Projected upcoming issues include a general issue encompassing all areas of art, and special issues on Photography, Renaissance and Baroque art, American Modernism, and Landscape.

Thanks for checking us out and I sincerely hope you enjoy our sixth installment.