Smithsonian American Art Museum Announces 2017–2018 Fellowship Appointments

The Smithsonian American Art Museum will host 16 new fellows for the 2017–2018 academic year. The museum’s program grants awards for scholars and students to pursue research at the museum, including senior, predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships.

            The 2017–2018 museum fellows are:

• Lorinda Roorda Bradley, William H. Truettner Predoctoral Fellow, University of Missouri; “The Spirit of Exhibition and Visual Pedagogy in the Work of Charles and Ray Eames”
• Dorothy Cheng, Lunder Fellow in Objects Conservation, independent conservator; “A Technical Study of Casting and Patination Methods Used for the Bronze Sculptures of Paul Manship”
• Christian Cloke, Smithsonian postdoctoral fellow, University of Cincinnati; “Iconography of the ‘Other’ on Ancient Greco-Roman and American Money”
• Sarah Cowan, Smithsonian predoctoral fellow, University of California, Berkeley; “Mending Abstraction: Howardena Pindell’s Black Feminist Critiques, 1967–1986”
• David Park Curry, Smithsonian senior fellow, independent scholar; “Hayes Presidential China in the Context of 19th-Century American Painting”
• Alexander Jackson, Terra Foundation Predoctoral Fellow in American Art, University of East Anglia; “Critical Mass: Art Writing and Popular Periodicals, 1877–1913”
• Jennifer Noonan, Terra Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in American Art, Caldwell University; “1970 Venice Biennale: The Politics of Display, Politics on Display Abroad and At Home”
• Danielle O'Steen, Big Ten Academic Alliance Smithsonian Institution Predoctoral Fellow, University of Maryland; “Plastic Fantastic: American Sculpture in the Age of Synthetics”
• Lauren Richman, Terra Foundation Predoctoral Fellow in American Art, Southern Methodist University; “The Mediating Lens: American Cultural Occupation and German National Identity in West Berlin, 1949–1968”
• Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, Joshua C. Taylor Predoctoral Fellow, University of Delaware; “Roots/Routes: Spirituality and Modern Mobility in American Art, 1900–1945”
• Michaela Rife, Joe and Wanda Corn Predoctoral Fellow, University of Toronto; “The Fertile Land Remembers: An Environmental History of New Deal Post Office Murals on the Great Plains”
• Xuxa Rodriguez, Smithsonian predoctoral fellow, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; “Performing Exile: Cuban-American Women’s Performance Art, 1972–2014”
• Florencia San Martín, Patricia and Phillip Frost Predoctoral Fellow, Rutgers University; “Reading the Art of Alfredo Jaar from the Americas” 
• Abbe Schriber, Douglass Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, Columbia University; “The Ethics of Obscurity: David Hammons and Black Experimentalism, 1974–1989”
• Marin R. Sullivan, George Gurney Postdoctoral Fellow, Keene State College; “Alloys: American Sculpture and Architecture at Midcentury”
• Spencer Wigmore, Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, University of Delaware; “Albert Bierstadt and the Speculative Terrain of American Landscape Painting, 1863–1888”

Since 1970, the museum has hosted more than 660 scholars who now occupy positions in academic and cultural institutions across the United States and in Australia, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East and South America. Fellowship opportunities include the Joe and Wanda Corn Fellowship for research that spans American art and American history; the Douglass Foundation Fellowship; the Patricia and Phillip Frost Fellowship; the George Gurney Fellowship; the Joshua C. Taylor Fellowship; the Terra Foundation for American Art Fellowships for the cross-cultural study of art of the United States; the William H. Truettner Fellowship; and the Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship for the study of excellence in all aspects of American art. The museum also hosts fellows supported by the Smithsonian’s general fellowship fund. For additional information, call (202) 633-8353 or email saamfellowships@si.edu. The deadline for applications is Dec. 1.

The museum maintains six online art-research databases with more than a half-million records, including the Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture that document more than 400,000 artworks in public and private collections worldwide and extensive photographic collections documenting American art and artists. An estimated 180,000-volume library specializing in American art, history and biography is shared with the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. An active publications program of books, catalogs and the critically acclaimed peer-reviewed journal for new scholarship American Art complements the museum’s exhibitions and educational programs.

About the Smithsonian American Art Museum

The Smithsonian American Art Museum celebrates the vision and creativity of Americans with artworks in all media spanning more than four centuries. Its National Historic Landmark building is located at Eighth and F streets N.W., above the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail station. Museum hours are 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily (closed Dec. 25). Its Renwick Gallery, located on Pennsylvania Avenue at 17th Street N.W., is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (closed Dec. 25). Admission is free. Follow the museum on Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Pinterest, iTunes U and ArtBabble. Museum information (recorded): (202) 633-7970. Smithsonian information: (202) 633-1000. Website: americanart.si.edu.

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SI-271-2017