Commonly associated with social history approaches, Marxist art history in fact encompasses a wide array of theoretical frameworks, methodologies, and questions. This workshop brings together perspectives on Marxist art historians active during the early and mid-20th century, ranging from well-known to more marginal figures. We will consider these approaches in terms of their underlying theoretical and historiographical patterns, their connections to the broader history of the discipline (e.g. history of style, formalism, social history, Kulturwissenschaft) as well as their intersections with extra-disciplinary fields such as anthropology, ethnology, and economics. What are the concrete tools, interpretative frameworks, periodization schemes, and analytical strategies used in constructing a materialist history of images, objects, and practices? Further, we aim to reflect on how these respective positions—often extending beyond the boundaries of what is traditionally considered Marxist art history—engage with a wide range of overlapping historiographical frameworks, including aesthetic concepts of materiality and form, feminist discourses on gendered relations of production in art and design, and the emerging field of ethnography and world art history.