Dr. Randall Griffin, Chair of the Division of Art History, won the 2005 Vasari Award presented by the Dallas Museum of Art for Homer, Eakins & Anshutz: The Search for American Identity in the Gilded Age, which won the award as the finest art history book authored by a scholar in Texas. The award honors those authors whose books provide insight into works of art or aspects of art history and theory that enrich the understanding of visual art. Criteria for the award include originality and depth of scholarship, quality of book production and visual presentation of material, as well as significance for the field of specialization and the literature of art history. Griffin’s book examines the ways in which artists and critics sought to forge a new identity for America during the era of growth and change dubbed “The Gilded Age” because of its leaders’ taste for opulence.