When Amelia Gorman (BFA Design History and Practice ’24) joined Jill Newhouse Gallery in 2022, she stepped into an expansive world of historical depth and material care, working to preserve the stewardship and preservation of rare artworks. Today, as a gallery assistant and registrar there, she oversees the gallery’s 19th- and 20th-century European and American holdings, supporting exhibitions, cataloging works, and helping place pieces in major collections. The position draws on the visual analysis and interdisciplinary research skills she honed at Parsons.

Gorman’s senior thesis, titled Do you not know I am a woman?: Reimagining Shakespearean Heroines in Pre-Raphaelite Art, examines how Victorian ideals of womanhood were projected onto Shakespeare’s heroines in Pre-Raphaelite portraiture. Her research grew into a body of original artwork—drawings paired with sonnets—that reimagined these narratives through her own creative lens.

“I’ve loved theater since I could speak,” Gorman explains. “As I studied art history, I discovered a link between Shakespeare and Pre-Raphaelite painting. Exploring the ways Pre-Raphaelite artworks were shaped by other art forms and the culture in which they were created became a way to bring together so many of my passions.”

Her thesis advisor, Mev Luna, played a central role in guiding the project’s direction. Luna, an assistant professor of Contemporary Art Practice and Theory, encouraged Gorman to approach her work from a broader range of perspectives rather than a purely art criticism one, advice that expanded both the emotional and historical dimensions of her project.

Courses offered throughout Parsons also supported Gorman’s growth; a class on Surrealism, for example, deepened her understanding of artistic communities and cross-disciplinary collaboration. “Like the Pre-Raphaelites, the Surrealists worked with writers, actors, and dancers to propel their movement,” Gorman notes. “Learning how those groups exchanged ideas gave me great insight into the dynamics of the community I was studying.”

Her thesis was later included in a faint annotation, the 2024 Design History and Practice (DHP) capstone exhibition. She remembers that installing her piece alongside work by Luna and student curator Naomi Saito was both “fun and eye-opening.”

“We got to engage with the contemporary practice of curation, and seeing my work on display gave me confidence that it could stand both in a gallery setting and within an academic framework,” she says. “It made me want to collaborate with artists and researchers whose interests differ from mine so we could find common ground.”

Another formative moment came earlier in her studies in the art historian Margaret Samu’s Advanced Research Seminar. “My mind had been so focused on expanding my creative practice,” Gorman recalls, “but that class showed me the richness of deep art historical research.” A visit to The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s study room marked a shift. “I saw an original Millais print of Ophelia. I hadn’t known The Met’s study rooms existed. Now I use them all the time for work. Parsons gave me the knowledge and confidence to access these tools.”

Samu’s emphasis on close observation and formal analysis continues to shape Gorman’s  professional life. “Those are skills I use constantly,” she says. “They allow me to talk knowledgeably to clients or museum professionals and to understand the importance of what I’m looking at. The historical references in Pre-Raphaelite portraiture still influence my personal creative practices, both visual and written.”

Gorman also points to the class Making + Meaning: Proseminar—a core requirement of the BFA DHP program and a class taught by Margot Bouman, the program's director—as a key example of the program’s multi-vocal nature. “We’d study the ideas of a guest speaker, theoretical framework, or movement, and then debate it as a class,” she says. “Everyone had such different takes. But the goal was always understanding—either finding common ground or sharpening our individual perspectives. It trained me to approach projects from multiple angles.” Classmates also broadened her thinking. “My classmate Bella Savignano really inspired me. She was so dedicated to her field of study and fearless about reaching out to people who could further her research. She reminded me that nothing is too much of a reach and no one is ‘off limits’ when you’re pursuing what you care about.”

This openness prepared Gorman for the wide-ranging nature of her work at Jill Newhouse Gallery. A typical day might include organizing a shipment, framing a piece, preparing for an art fair, and meeting with a client—work that keeps her thinking across multiple tracks at once. Gorman finds the pace energizing, and it echoes her experience at Parsons, where varied classes and assignments taught her to think broadly, adapt quickly, and move fluidly between different modes of making and analysis.

At the gallery—an industry leader that has placed works with institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the Louvre—she now applies the skills acquired in her BFA Design History and Practice program to close inspection of art pieces, contextual research, and art historical interpretation. In managing intake, documentation, and care of artworks, Gorman moves between the practical demands of the art market and the interpretive methods she developed at Parsons, bridging the two with ease. “The multifaceted nature of DHP is a constant source of motivation,” she says. “It taught me to approach any project from several vantage points, and that’s invaluable in a job where no two days are the same.”

What stays with Gorman most, however, is the community she found at Parsons. The people and possibilities the program introduced her to remain deeply influential; seeing her peers pursue such varied and compelling paths continues to inspire her to stay open to new opportunities as they arise.