Spencer Harrigan

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT SPENCER HARRIGAN

Recent Graduate of DePaul University with a BFA in Costume Design & History of Art and ArchitectureI\'ve been an artist for as long as I can remember. My mother raised my sisters and I to have a passion for the arts. However, my love for costuming began with my love for Project Runway and, for some reason, the Olympics, when I took a shot a designing opening ceremony outfits for Team USAMy growing ambition to pursue art and design as a career has afforded me numerous opportunities, including a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing through the Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative and the opportunity to receive my artistic training at one of the top-rated theatrical design programs in the US. At The Theatre School, I have designed costumes for 3 shows. Most recently, I designed for the world premiere of Left Unheard by Perse Grammer. The other two shows were adaptations of classical theatre plays, A Midsummer Night\'s Dream by William Shakespeare, and Lysistrata by Ellen McLaughlin. If I could describe my design ethos in a few words, it would be \"whimsy for the people,\" something I constantly argue is important in this day and age.I have also cultivated a strong interest in Art History throughout my time in undergrad, when I encountered the topic of the Nazi\'s looting of art during the Second World War and the ongoing issues regarding their presence in museums in the United States. My History of Art and Architecture Senior Capstone Paper,\"Egon Schiele\'s Russian War Prisoner and the Restitution of Nazi-Confiscated Art,\" focused on the current litigation faced by the Art Institute of Chicago over the painting Russian War Prisoner by Egon Schiele to return the painting to the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum. I presented this paper at the 20th Undergraduate History of Art and Architecture Symposium at DePaul in March 2025 and was later invited to present at the 2025 Intercollegiate Art History Symposium at the University of Chicago in April 2025. Most recently, I gave an invited talk at the Art Institute of Chicago during DePaul\'s Partnership Night in May 2025 on Henri Matisse\'s Daisies, a painting with resolved provenance at the Art Insitute that was at one point stolen by the Nazis from the collection of Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg.My Research Interests include: Looted Art during World War II, Modern Art between 18••••45, Eighteenth-Century Chinese Paintings, and Eighteenth-Century British and French Portraiture.