Heidi J. Hornik, PhD

Dr. Heidi J. Hornik, Professor of Art History, came to Baylor in 1990 after receiving her B.A. from Cornell University and M.A and Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Hornik was awarded a Visiting Scholar Fellowship at Harvard University and spent the spring 2017 semester in residence on the campus. She was also a Visiting Fellow at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge University. She has received recognition at Baylor for both teaching and publication in her field. In June 2022, Dr. Hornik was accepted as an affiliated faculty member of the Digital Humanities at Baylor. Dr. Hornik was named the 2015 Outstanding Mentor of the Year for Research, a recognition awarded by the Undergraduate Research Scholarly Achievement office of Baylor. Dr. Hornik has directed twelve undergraduate (11 honors, 1 departmental) theses of which one was published and served on seven dissertation and masters committees. In Spring 2022, she was inducted as a member of The Deans Club of the Honors College at Baylor for mentoring over ten theses.

Her book, Michele Tosini and the Ghirlandaio Workshop in Cinquecento Florence, is the first biography on the artist. During the summer of 2020, Dr. Hornik received a Fundamentals of Data Research Fellowship at Baylor that applied data visualization techniques on information she has collected on Tosini paintings for over thirty years. Her work on Tosini has been published internationally and translated into Italian and German. In addition to Tosini, Hornik, with Mikeal C. Parsons, has co-authored four interdisciplinary books on art and theology and co-edited one book. The books are entitled Illuminating Luke. The Infancy Narrative in Italian Renaissance Painting, Vol. 1; Illuminating Luke: The Public Ministry of Christ in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Painting, Vol. 2; Illuminating Luke: The Passion and Resurrection Narratives in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Painting, Vol. 3 (all T&T Clark International). Hornik and Parsons are also editors of the volume, Interpreting Christian Art (Mercer University Press, 2004). Their fourth book, The Acts of the Apostles Through the Centuries. Blackwell-Wiley Reception History Commentary on the Bible was published in 2016. The Art of Christian Reflection, was published with Baylor University Press in November 2018 and was the subject of her work while at Harvard. The book was the focus of a panel discussion at the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature (10,000 attendees) on November 19, 2018 in Denver. Her most recent book project is a co-edited volume (with Ian Boxall, Catholic University and Bobbi Dykema, Strayer University) for the Society of Biblical Literature Press entitled Painted Portrayals: The Art of Characterizing Biblical Figures and was published in 2021.

Dr. Hornik undertakes research in the archives, libraries and museums in Florence, Italy, each summer and has lectured in Naples, Florence, Rome, Frankfurt, Cambridge, and Oxford as well as throughout the United States. In April 2019, Dr. Hornik was selected as Senior Editor by Oxford University Press for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Religion and Arts in the West. She is on the editorial advisory board for the Oxford University Press series The Apocrypha in the History of Interpretation and is Art Editor for La Bibbia e Le Donne (Women and the Bible: A Exegesis and Cultural History), a twenty-volume series published in four languages and based in Naples, Italy at the Fondazione Valerio. She serves as past President and an executive board member of the Midwest Art History Society. At Baylor, Dr. Hornik was Chair of the University Tenure Committee and has served on the University Research Committee and as the Chair of the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching for six years. 

Currently, she serves as Chair of the Department of Art and Art History. On August 31, 2022, Dr. Hornik, as Founding Editor and Chief of Venue, a digital journal of the Midwest Art History Society, along with Senior Editors Judith Mann and Cheryl Snay, published the first edition of this peer-reviewed scholarly journal. Baylor’s support of this endeavor is great appreciated.

Dr. Hornik teaches advanced art history courses in the areas of Italian Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, and Art History Methods and Theory as well as the Survey of Western Art. She enjoys doing triathlons, officiating at USA Swimming meets, and visiting her sons at Harvard and in NYC, as well as extended family in the Northeast.

PhD, Pennsylvania State University
MA, Pennsylvania State University
BA, Cornell University

Click for more on Dr. Hornik's Book The Art of Christian Reflection

Professional Work