Faculty Publishes Article on Anne Ryan in Contemporary Collage Magazine

March 17, 2026

BY Emily capdeville

Professor of Practice Jill Stoll has published a new article, "Restraint and the Grid: The Collages of Anne Ryan," examining the work of American artist Anne Ryan (1889–1954). The essay appears in Contemporary Collage Magazine, an international publication dedicated to collage as a contemporary art practice. It explores Ryan’s remarkable late-career turn to collage. Although Ryan began making collages at the age of fifty-seven, she produced more than four hundred works in the final six years of her life.

Stoll’s article situates Ryan’s practice within the broader history of modernist collage while drawing attention to the distinctive restraint and material sensitivity of her work. Ryan’s compositions, constructed from fragments of fabric, handmade papers, string, and other modest materials, are often small in scale but formally rigorous. Through subtle arrangements of texture, color, and proportion, Ryan developed a quiet but powerful visual language grounded in the grid.

The essay also considers how Ryan’s tactile approach to materials continues to resonate with contemporary artists who engage collage as both a formal system and a record of lived experience.

Stoll has been part of the school’s faculty since 2009 and has taught across programs as the school has evolved. Alongside her teaching, she maintains an active studio practice that examines material culture and consumption through collage and woven cardboard constructions.