Lisa Trever

Art and Architecture of the Americas until 1550
Ph.D., Harvard University, 2013

Lisa Trever is a specialist in early art history and archaeology of what is now Latin America, with a research focus on the ancient art and architecture of Pacific coastal South America.

Since 2010 she has led an international research project on mural painting at the ancient center of Pañamarca in the Nepeña Valley of Peru (www.panamarca.org). Currently she is also developing the Moche Vessel Visualization Project (MVVP) to create high-quality photogrammetric models and analytic imaging of mold-made ceramic vessels in museum collections worldwide.

Trever's books include Image Encounters: Moche Murals and Archaeo Art History (2022), The Archaeology of Mural Painting at Pañamarca, Peru (2017), and the co-edited volume El arte antes de la historia: Para una historia del arte antiguo andino (2020). Her next book project, Seeing with Clay, examines the interplay between imagination and replication in ceramic practices of ancient coastal South America.

Her research has been supported by grants from the National Geographic Society, the Provost’s Office at Columbia, the Rubin-Ladd Foundation, the Rust Family Foundation, the Hellman Family Fund, the University of California Humanities Research Institute, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and the Fulbright-Hays program.

Trever currently serves as the Field Editor for Art of the Ancient Americas for the online journal caa.reviews. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Institute of Andean Studies (2016–22), the advisory board of the Pre-Columbian Society of New York (2019–), and on several journal editorial and advisory boards.

At Columbia, Trever is affiliated faculty in the Center for Archaeology and the Institute of Latin American Studies. She is a co-chair of the University Seminar in the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.

Books

Lisa Trever, Image Encounters: Moche Murals and Archaeo Art History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2022). 240 pp.

• Winner of the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Book Prize “for the best book on the decorative arts, design history, or material culture of the Americas published in 2022,” awarded by the Bard Graduate Center

• Spanish edition under contract with Instituto Peruano de Estudios Arqueológicos, Lima. Simplified Chinese edition under contract with The Commercial Press (商务印书馆有限公司), Beijing

Reviews:

• George Lau, 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual – Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur 4, no. 1 (2023): 135–139.
• Andrew James Hamilton, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 5, no. 3 (2023): 162–163.
• Julia Guernsey, The Art Bulletin 105, no. 2 (2023): 154–156.

Lisa Trever, The Archaeology of Mural Painting at Pañamarca, Peru, with contributions by Jorge Gamboa, Ricardo Toribio, and Ricardo Morales (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Trustees for Harvard University, 2017). 350 pp.

• Spanish edition in preparation for online open-access publication, courtesy of Dumbarton Oaks

Reviews: 

• Richard L. Burger, Journal of Anthropological Research 75, no. 3 (2019): 462–3.
• Alicia Boswell, Journal of Medieval Worlds 1, no. 2 (2019): 97–100.
• Sarahh E. M. Scher, Hispanic American Historical Review 99, no. 1 (2019): 145–7.
• Ananda Cohen-Aponte, Latin American & Latinx Visual Culture 1, no. 1 (2019): 132–3.
• Amanda V. Gannaway, Latin American Antiquity 29, no. 3 (2018): 632–3.

Edited Volumes

Marco Curatola Petrocchi, Cécile Michaud, Joanne Pillsbury, and Lisa Trever, eds., El arte antes de la historia: Para una historia del arte andino antiguo (Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2020). 550 pp.

Journal Issues (Peer-Reviewed)

Lisa Trever, guest editor. “Uneasy Dialogues across Ancient Art History, Archaeology, and Contemporary Art Practice in the Americas,” 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual 4, no. 2 (2023). https://doi.org/10.11588/xxi.2023.2

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Michele L. Koons, Branden Cesare Rizzuto, Lisa Trever, Alicia Boswell, Luis A. Muro Ynoñán, Gabriel Prieto, Carlos Rengifo, Augusto Bazán Perez, Kayeleigh Sharp, Edward Swenson, Hugo Ikehara-Tsukayama, Jessica Ortiz Zevallos, Tirza Cotrina Roncal, Richard J. George, Jose M. Capriles, Fuyuki Tokanai, “Moche Chronology of Ancient Peru: Bayesian Assessment of Radiocarbon Dates and Ceramic Styles from North to South,” Quaternary International (Accepted, forthcoming 2024).

Jessica Ortiz Zevallos, Lisa Trever, J. Antonio Ochatoma Cabrera, and Michele L. Koons, “Redescubrimiento de una sala hipóstila moche con pintura mural en Pañamarca, valle de Nepeña, Perú,” Arqueológicas 32 (2023): 107–123.

Lisa Trever, “A Moche Riddle in Clay: Object Knowledge and Art Work in Ancient Peru,” The Art Bulletin 101, no. 4 (2019): 18–38.

• Winner of the 2021 Article Award, Association for Latin American Art

Lisa Trever, “Criminal Lines, Indian Colours, and the Creation of a Black Legend: The Photographs of ‘Los Bandidos de la Halancha’, Bolivia,” History of Photography 40, no. 4 (2016): 369–387.

Lisa Trever, Jorge Gamboa Velásquez, Ricardo Toribio Rodríguez, and Flannery Surette, “A Moche Feathered Shield from the Painted Temples of Pañamarca, Peru,” Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology 33, no. 1 (2013): 103–118.

Lisa Trever, “Idols, Mountains, and Metaphysics in Guaman Poma’s Pictures of Huacas,” Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 59/60 (2011): 39–59.

Joanne Pillsbury and Lisa Trever, “The King, the Bishop, and the Creation of an American Antiquity,” Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of Andean Archaeology 29 (2008): 191–219.

• Revised Spanish translation: Joanne Pillsbury and Lisa Trever, “El rey, el obispo y la creación de una antigüedad americana,” Historia y Cultura 30 (2019): 51–100.

Chapters in Peer-Reviewed Volumes

Luis Armando Muro and Lisa Trever, “Re-Evaluating Archaeological Discourses about the Moche of Northern Peru,” in Handbook of South American Archaeology, ed. Mark Aldenderfer, Eduardo Neves, and Marcela Sepúlveda (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Lisa Trever, “Archaeology and Art History in Ancient South America: Toward Disciplinary Détente,” in Ancient Art Revisited: Global Perspectives from Archaeology and Art History, ed. Christopher Watts and Carl Knappett (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2023), 19–46.

Lisa Trever, “Cómo escribir una historia del arte para el ‘Nuevo Mundo antiguo’: Perspectivas desde una superficie pintada,” in El arte antes de la historia: Para una historia del arte andino antiguo, ed. Marco Curatola Petrocchi, Cécile Michaud, Joanne Pillsbury, and Lisa Trever (Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2020), 101–129.

Marco Curatola Petrocchi, Cécile Michaud, Joanne Pillsbury, and Lisa Trever, “Para una historia del arte andino antiguo,” in El arte antes de la historia: Para una historia del arte andino antiguo, ed. Marco Curatola Petrocchi, Cécile Michaud, Joanne Pillsbury, and Lisa Trever (Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2020), 19–44.

Lisa Trever, “The Artistry of Moche Mural Painting and the Ephemerality of Monuments,” in Making Value, Making Meaning: Techné in the Pre-Columbian World, ed. Cathy Lynne Costin (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Trustees for Harvard University, 2016), 253–279.

Lisa Trever, “The Uncanny Tombs in Martínez Compañón’s Trujillo del Perú,” in Past Presented: Archaeological Illustration and the Ancient Americas, ed. Joanne Pillsbury (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Trustees for Harvard University, 2012), 106–140.

Lisa Trever and Joanne Pillsbury, “Martínez Compañón and his Illustrated ‘Museum,’” in Collecting across Cultures: Material Exchanges in the Early Modern Atlantic World, ed. Daniela Bleichmar and Peter Mancall (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 236–253, 325–332.

• Revised Spanish translation: Lisa Trever and Joanne Pillsbury, “El obispo Martínez Compañón en los albores de la historia de la arqueología peruana: Entre la ciencia, la fé y el conocimiento indígena,” in La arqueología ilustrada americana: La universalidad de una disciplina, ed. Jorge Maier Allende and Leonardo López Luján (Madrid: Fundación de Municipios Pablo de Olavide, 2021), 217–241.

Book Reviews

Review: Vital Voids: Cavities and Holes in Mesoamerican Material Culture, by Andrew Finegold; and Playing with Things: Engaging the Moche Sex Pots, by Mary Weismantel, The Art Bulletin 104, no 2 (2022): 142–148.

Review: Cuzco: Incas, Spaniards, and the Making of a Colonial City, by Michael J. Schreffler, in Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 3, no. 3 (2021): 150–152.

Review: The Florentine Codex: An Encyclopedia of the Nahua World in Sixteenth-Century Mexico, by Jeanette Favrot Peterson and Kevin Terraciano, eds. Renaissance Quarterly 74, no. 2 (2021): 642–644.

Short Essays, Notes, and Commissioned Texts

Lisa Trever, “El arte antiguo como proceso creative,” in Arte y tesoros del Perú 50 años; Nuevas miradas, ed. Ramón Mujica Pinilla (Lima: Fondo Editorial del Banco de Crédito del Perú, 2023), 120–141, 310–311.

Lisa Trever, short catalogue essays on modern Bolivian works of photography, sculpture, and painting by Luigi Domenico Gismondi, Harmodio Tamayo Galindo, Marina Núñez del Prado, and Miguel Alandia Pantoja for the “Nucleo Storico” section of the La Biennale di Venezia 2024 “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere,” curated by Adriano Pedrosa.

Lisa Trever, “Editorial: Uneasy Dialogues across Ancient Art History, Archaeology, and Contemporary Art Practice in the Americas,” 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual 4, no. 2 (2023): 165–188.

Duccio Bonavia and Lisa Trever, “Pre-Columbian South America: Central Andean Area: Wall Painting,” in Grove Dictionary of Art Online: Latin American Art, Oxford University Press (2023). Commission to revise and update Bonavia’s 1996 essay for Grove Art.

Lisa Trever, Presentación (Foreword) to Régulo Franco Jordán, Moche: Iconografía y Cosmovisión (Lima: Instituto Peruano de Estudios Arqueológicos, 2021).

Lisa Trever, “Pre-Columbian Art History in the Age of the Wall,” Dialogues: The State and Future of Pre-Columbian Visual Culture Studies, guest edited by Cecelia F. Klein, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture 1, no 1 (2019): 100–104.

Lisa Trever, “Las pinturas del centro olvidado de Pañamarca,” in El top anual de los grandes descubrimientos del Perú, ed. Jorge Sánchez (Lima: Perú Explorer, 2017), 422–431.

Lisa Trever, “La pintura mural mochica y la ortodoxia pictórica en Pañamarca,” in Moche y sus vecinos. Reconstruyendo identidades, ed. Cecilia Pardo and Julio Rucabado (Lima: Museo de Arte de Lima, 2016), 160–163, 230–231.