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The High Museum of Art, Emory University’s art history department and the Michael C. Carlos Museum, supported by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, are proud to offer the Mellon Object-Centered Curatorial Research Fellowship Program. Launched in 2012, the program offers Emory art history doctoral candidates the opportunity to pursue object-based curatorial study under the direction of a collaborative team of curators, scholars and conservators from the partnering institutions. Each year, up to three students are selected to receive a one-year fellowship plus a full stipend for research and travel in the United States and abroad. Each student is assigned a curatorial mentor to oversee an object-based research project in collaboration with his or her faculty advisor. The fellowship culminates with a scholarly paper on the primary object, which is published as part of a digital publication series.
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Elizabeth Caris
2018 FellowElizabeth Caris is a graduate student studying ancient American art, specifically central Andean ceramics. Before coming to Emory, Elizabeth received a bachelor’s degree in art history and archaeology from Johns Hopkins University. Elizabeth has also completed internships in curatorial departments at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, the Walters Art Museum, and the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. She recently assisted with the installation, didactics, and online catalogue for the Michael C. Carlos Museum exhibition Threads of Time: Tradition and Change in Indigenous American Textiles.
As a MOCR Fellow, Elizabeth will be producing original scholarship on Eight Part Circle (1976) by Michael Hizer in the Contemporary and Modern Art department at the High Museum, and a collection of ancient West Mexican ceramics at Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum.
Annie McEwen
2018 FellowAnnie received her B.A. in art history in 2014 from Boston College. At Boston College, she also received the Jeffery Howe Art History award for her senior thesis, which focused on the frescoes of Giovanni Battista Gaulli, and his application of Bernini’s theories on monumental painting. Annie entered Emory University’s art history PhD program as a George W. Woodruff Fellow in 2015 to continue studying seventeenth century Italian art with Sarah McPhee. Last spring, she completeld her qualifying paper, “Bernini’s La Predica della Battista: An Epideictic Image.” Annie’s research interests include Baroque painting, early modern image theory, Jesuit patronage, drawing, emblematics, early modern print culture, and urbanism in Rome.
Over the course of her MOCR Fellowship, Annie will be conducting research on an ekori headdress created by the Himba people of Namibia at Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum focused on issues of conservation and display. At the High Museum she is researching Giovanni Battista Gaulli’s The Thanksgiving of Noah, and The Sacrifice of Abraham (c. 1700) in the European Art department.
Abbey Hafer
2018 FellowAbbey Hafer is a graduate student in the Art History Department at Emory University where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in Italian Baroque art and architecture under the direction of Dr. Sarah McPhee. Abbey graduated summa cum laude from Case Western Reserve University in 2015 with a B.A. in Art History and Dance. Upon graduation she was awarded the Muriel S. Butkin Art History Award and the Lily Dreyfuss Memorial Award in Dance. She has held internships at the Saint Louis Art Museum and has been involved with multiple digital humanities projects at Emory.
For her Graduate Fellowship in Object-Based Curatorial Research she will be researching the prints of master eighteenth-century etcher, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, held by Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum—as well as conducting additional research on a Stuart A. Rose Manuscript in the museum’s Archives, and Rare Book Library. At the High, Abbey is producing original scholarship on an eighteenth-century Rhode Island doorframe in the Decorative Arts and Design collection.
Rachel Patt
2017 FellowshipRachel Patt is a doctoral candidate in the Art History Department at Emory University, concentrating on ancient Roman art. Her research interests include Roman luxury arts, the Late Antique, survivals of the Classical world into Byzantine art, and the reception of antiquity from the Renaissance onwards.
Rachel graduated with distinction from Stanford University in 2009, where she majored in Classics with a focus in Latin. While at Stanford she guest-curated an exhibition at the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for the Visual Arts entitled “Appellations from Antiquity,” which explored the relationship between modern and contemporary art and the ancient mythology from which they derived their titles. Rachel also received her Master’s from the Courtauld Institute of Art with a concentration in Classical and Byzantine art. Her thesis, “Envisioning an Artist: The Attribution of Ancient Greek Bronzes,” considered the implications of attribution through three case studies of bronze statues. Rachel has held curatorial internship positions at the Getty Villa, where she worked on several exhibitions, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she researched the museum’s gems holdings.
Courtney Rawlings
2017 FellowshipCourtney Rawlings received her B.A. in 2014 from the University of California, Riverside where she graduated with high honors in art history and philosophy. As an undergraduate, Courtney was awarded the Academic Excellence Award in Art History for her honors thesis: “Proprioception and Surrealism: Understanding Alberto Giacometti’s Surrealist Table within a Heideggarian Spatial Complex.”
Courtney is currently a graduate student in Emory University’s Art History Department where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in modern art and architecture. Courtney’s studies are largely concerned with experiment in architecture and design in Europe and America from the interwar period to the mid-century.
Emma de Jong
2017 FellowshipEmma de Jong is a graduate student in Art History at Emory University. In 2014 she obtained her BA in History of Art at the University of York, in the UK. A year later she completed her MA in Art History, Curatorship and Renaissance Culture at the Warburg Institute in London, UK. For her Graduate Fellowship in Object-Based Curatorial Research she will be studying ‘The Nurture of Jupiter’ by the 17th century Dutch painter Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem.
Nicole Corrigan
2016 FellowshipNicole Corrigan received her B.A. in 2014 from the University of Michigan, graduating with highest honors in art history and museum studies. Her honors thesis, entitled “’The Lady on the Altar’: Miraculous Statuary and Las Cantigas de Santa María” explored the intermedia relationships between sedes sapientiae sculptures and their representation in a thirteenth-century Castilian codex of Marian miracles. In 2013, Nicole held an internship at the Detroit Institute of Arts, organizing the museum’s manuscript collection in anticipation of its inclusion in the Index of Christian Art.
Nicole entered the program at Emory University in 2014 to continue studying medieval art with Elizabeth Pastan. Her current research interests include the connections between sculpture and manuscript illumination and the place of Marian art within the multi-confessional environment of medieval Iberia.
Kimberly Schrimsher
2016 FellowshipKimberly Schrimsher is a PhD student at Emory University working under the advisement of Jean Campbell and Sarah McPhee. She is writing her dissertation on the working practices of the Baroque Italian painter Guercino. A recipient of the 2016 Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Object Centered Curatorial Research, Schrimsher received her master’s degree in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. She has a BA in art history from Emory University where she graduated summa cum laude with highest honors on her thesis.
Julianne Cheng
2016 FellowshipJulianne Cheng is a doctoral candidate in the Art History Department at Emory University. She received her B.A. in Art History and History from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2012 and her M.A. in Art History from Emory University in 2016. She has worked at the excavation of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace under Dr. Bonna Wescoat, and is currently the manager of the Samothrace Archive. Her research interests are in ancient Greek iconography and pottery, particularly in Attic vase painting. She is currently researching her dissertation, “Making the Ordered Cosmos: The Gigantomachy in Archaic and Classical Athenian Vase Painting.”
Laura Somenzi
2015 FellowshipLaura Somenzi is pursuing a Ph.D. in Art History at Emory University, studying art of the Italian Renaissance with Professor C. Jean Campbell. She received her B.A. from Johns Hopkins University in Art History, with a minor focus in Museum studies, in 2013. During her time at Hopkins, she received a Woodrow Wilson Research Fellowship and an Arts Innovation grant, which allowed her to curate the exhibition, Zelda Fitzgerald: Choreography in Color, at the Evergreen Museum and Library in Baltimore. The exhibition ran from October 2011-January 2012. Her senior thesis focused on the fifteenth-century sculptor Agostino di Duccio (traveling and research for this project were supported by a DURA research scholarship). She has recently completed a qualifying paper on the fifteenth-century treatise on architecture and engineering by Francesco di Giorgio and presented a version of the paper at Berkeley’s graduate student conference in the spring of 2014.
John Witty
2015 FellowshipJohn Witty is a Ph.D. candidate studying early Italian Renaissance Art at Emory University under the guidance of Dr. Jean Campbell. He is pursuing a minor in Italian Baroque art with Dr. Sarah McPhee. Originally from Miami, Florida, John graduated cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking and Drawing, completing additional majors in German and Art History. Upon graduation, John was awarded the Mark S. Weil Prize for Distinction in Art History and Museum Practice. Before beginning a Masters degree in Art History at Williams College, John worked as an intern at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. He has also held internships at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, the Williams College Museum of Art, and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown. Another dimension of museum experience that he very much enjoyed was working as an art handler at the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum in St. Louis and the Rubell Family Collection of Miami. He has spoken at undergraduate and graduate conferences at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Indiana. While at the National Gallery, John contributed to an article on Giorgio Vasari’s Libro de’ Disegni published in Facture, a new journal of technical art history. John is always interested in adding an experiential dimension to his study of art history, one of the many factors that inspired him to complete the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in 2012.
Ashley Eckhardt
2015 FellowshipAshley Eckhardt is a doctoral candidate in Art History at Emory University, currently researching her dissertation, “The Crafting of Cult Statues in the High Hellenistic Period.” She also participates in the archaeological excavations at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace. She received her bachelor’s degree in history from St. Norbert College. She earned a master’s degree in public history from Loyola University Chicago and a master’s degree in art history from Washington University in St. Louis.
Kira Jones
2014 FellowshipKira Jones graduated in 2008 from the University of Georgia with bachelor’s degrees in classical culture and Latin, at which point she decided to pursue her Ph.D. in Greek and Roman art history. She has excavated with Dr. Bonna Daix Wescoat at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods in Samothrace and pursues a number of interests outside Greece and Rome, such as the impact of antiquity on later periods and the art of the Ancient Americas. She is currently researching her dissertation, “Domitian and Minerva at Rome: Iconography and Divine Sanction in the Eternal City” at Emory University.
Catherine Barth
2014 FellowshipCatherine Barth is currently a PhD student in the Art History Department at Emory University. She is originally from Chesapeake, VA and completed her B.A. in English and Cultural Studies at the College of William & Mary in 2012. Catherine studies modern and contemporary art at Emory, focusing specifically on 20th century American photography. Photographers of interest include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams, Minor White, Wynn Bullock, and Garry Winogrand. Her current research centers on issues of public and private space, temporality, technology, and socio-political change in modern photography.
Elliot Wise
2013 FellowshipElliott Wise received his Ph.D. in Northern Renaissance Art History at Emory University in 2016. His research focuses on the way art functions in the devotion, exegesis, and religious practice of late medieval and Early Modern Europe. He is particularly interested in Eucharistic, liturgical, and Marian imagery and the way it is nuanced by the spiritual traditions of the monastic and mendicant orders. Wise currently holds a Jane and Morgan Whitney Dissertation Fellowship at The Metropolitan Museum of Art where he is studying the impact of Middle Dutch mysticism on the fifteenth-century painters, Rogier van der Weyden and Robert Campin.
Andi McKenzie
2013 FellowshipAndi McKenzie is a PhD student in the Art History Department of Emory University. She also became Assistant Curator of Works on Paper at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in 2011. Her most recent exhibitions include Conserving the Memory: Fratelli Alinari Photographs of Rome and Mirroring the Saints: The Jesuit Wierix Collection from De Krijtberg, Amsterdam. McKenzie’s research interests focus on the intersections between Catholicism and indigenous spirituality in Latin American art, and printmaking in early modern Germany and the Low Countries. McKenzie received her B.A. in Studio Art from Berry College and her M.A. in Art History from the University of South Florida.
Cecily Boles
2012 FellowshipCecily Boles is a doctoral candidate in Art History at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Her research interest centers on Early Modern sculpture, particularly portraiture. She received her B.A. From the University of California, Riverside in 2005 in French Literature and Art History Administrative Studies. Cecily interned at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California Museum of Photography, and The Phillips Collection. Later she worked in Education at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In 2009, she received her M.A. from the University of Toronto in Art History, which laid the ground work for her article: “The folded mozzetta: an overlooked motif in the portraits of Gian Lorenzo Bernini,” in Sculpture Journal 20.2 (2011).
Ashley Laverock
2012 FellowshipAshley Laverock graduated in 2016 with a Ph.D. in Art History at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Art History from Southern Methodist University and her Master of Arts in Art History from Tufts University. Her dissertation focuses on the visual hagiography of St. Margaret of Antioch in thirteenth-century stained glass across Europe. As the 2012 recipient of the Mellon-Funded Graduate Fellowship in Object-Based Curatorial Research, Ashley studied Tilman Riemenschneider’s St. Andrew in the High Museum of Art’s permanent collection. To complete her research she traveled to Berlin, Germany, where she consulted with experts on German sculpture, and to Würzburg, Germany, where Riemenschneider lived and worked.
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The High Museum of Art regularly conducts research on objects in its permanent collection. Thanks to an initiative funded by the Mellon Foundation, curators and graduate fellows from the department of art history at Emory University are working together to investigate selected objects in the different curatorial areas of the High Museum’s permanent collection. This research delves into questions of authorship, subject matter, materials, and technique, and the resulting illustrated papers are now available below in either ePub or PDF formats (Need an e-reader? Download Adobe’s e-reader here.)
The Nurture of Jupiter by Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem
Research by Emma de JongMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2017Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem
Dutch, 1620–1683
The Nurture of Jupiter, ca. 1660
Oil on panel
Gift of Julie and Arthur Montgomery, 1980.57
Female Figure from a Karan Wemba (Living Ancestress) Mask by a Mossi Artist
Research by Rachel PattMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2017Mossi Artist
Burkina Faso
Female Figure from a Karan Wemba (Living Ancestress) Mask, sixteenth century
Wood and iron
Purchase through funds provided by the Richman Special Initiatives Endowment, Judy and Scott Lampert, Pamola and Guy Lescault, Barbara and Bert Levy, Barbara and Laurence Murphy, and Friends of African Art, 2016.205
Red/Blue Chair by William Wetmore Story
Research by Courtney RawlingsMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2015Gerrit Thomas Rietveld (Dutch, 1888–1964), designer and maker
Red/Blue Chair, 1918, executed 1922–1923
Beech plywood and paint
Purchase with funds from the Decorative Arts Acquisition Endowment, the Decorative Arts Acquisition Trust, the Friends of the Decorative Arts, and High Museum of Art Enhancement Fund, 2002.256
Profile/Part II, The Thirties: Artist with Painting & Model by Romare Bearden
Research by Julianne ChengMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2016Romare Bearden
American, 1911-1988
Profile/Part II, The Thirties: Artist with Painting and Model, 1981
Collage on fiberboardPurchase with funds from Alfred Austell Thornton in memory of Leila Austell Thornton and Albert Edward Thornton, Sr., and Sarah Miller Venable and William Hoyt Venable, Margaret and Terry Stent Endowment for the Acquisition of American Art, David C. Driskell African American Art Acquisition Fund, Anonymous Donors, Sarah and Jim Kennedy, The Spray Foundation, Dr. Henrie M. Treadwell, Charlotte Garson, The Morgens West Foundation, Lauren Amos, Margaret and Scotty Greene, Harriet and Edus Warren, The European Fine Art Foundation, Billye and Hank Aaron, Veronica and Franklin Biggins, Helen and Howard Elkins, Drs. Sivan and Jeff Hines, Brenda and Larry Thompson, and a gift to honor Howard Elkins from the Docents of the High Museum of Art, 2014.66
Pie Safe by unknown maker in Eastern Tennessee
Research by Nicole CorriganMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2016Unknown Maker, Eastern Tennessee
American, 1911-1988
Pie Safe, ca. 1830–1860
Walnut, tulip poplar, tin, paint
Purchase with funds from the Fraser-Parker Foundation in memory of Nancy Fraser Parker who loved the decorative arts, 2016.6
Steps in Transposed Space by Clarence John Laughlin
Research by Catherine BarthMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2016Clarence John Laughlin
American, 1905–1985
Steps in Transposed Space, 1953, printed 1982
Gelatin silver print
Purchase with funds from Robert Yellowlees, 2015.33
Christ and the Samaritan Woman by Il Guercino
Research by Kimberly SchrimsherMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2016Il Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)
Italian, 1591–1666
Christ and the Samaritan Woman, ca. 1650
Oil on canvas
Gift of Julie and Arthur Montgomery, 1980.56
Jerusalem in Her Desolation by William Wetmore Story
Research by Ashley EckhardtMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2015William Wetmore Story
American, 1819-1895
Jerusalem in Her Desolation, 1879
Marble
Gift of the West Foundation in honor of Gudmund Vigtel and Michael E. Shapiro, 2010.92
Hero Looking for Leander by William Wetmore Story
Research by Kira JonesMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2014William Wetmore Story
American, 1819-1895
Hero Looking for Leander, 1858
Marble
Gift of the West Foundation in honor of Gudmund Vigtel and Michael E. Shapiro, 2010.93
Medea Contemplating the Death of Her Children by William Wetmore Story
Research by Kira JonesMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2014William Wetmore Story
American, 1819-1895
Medea, 1866
Marble
Gift of the West Foundation in honor of Gudmund Vigtel and Michael E. Shapiro, 2010.91
Nok Sculpture
Research by Kira JonesMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2014Nok Region of Nigeria
485 B.C.E.-415 C.E.
Terracotta
From the Robert Rubin Collection
Madonna Adoring the Christ Child by Giovanni Francesco de Rimini
Research by Laura Maria SomenziMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2015Giovanni Francesco da Rimini
Italian, ca. 1420–1470
Madonna Adoring the Christ Child, ca. 1460
Tempera on Panel
Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 58.43
Group of eight saint paintings by Lorenzo Costa
Research by John WittyMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2015Lorenzo Costa
Italian, ca. 1460–1535
Group of eight saint paintings, ca. 1480s
Tempera on panel
Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation
Color Light Abstraction 1075 by Wynn Bullock
Research by Catherine BarthMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2014Wynn Bullock
American, 1902–1975
Color Light Abstraction 1075, early 1960s
Inkjet print
Promised gift of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
St. Andrew by Tilman Riemenschneider
Research by Ashley LaverockMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2012Tilman Riemenschneider
German, 1460-1531
St. Andrew, ca. 1505
Lindenwood / Limewood
Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 58.57
Portrait of Antoine-René de Voyer de Paulmy d’Argenson by Jean-Baptiste Defernex
Research by Cecily BolesMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2012Attributed to Jean-Baptiste Defernex
French, 1728 – 1783
Portrait of Antoine-René de Voyer de Paulmy d’Argenson, ca. 1765
Terracotta on wooden base decorated with gilded bronze
Purchase with European Art Acquisition Fund, purchase with funds from Irene and Howard Stein, through prior acquisitions from the Friends of Art and Colonel Clifford C. Early, High Museum of Art Enhancement Fund, and funds from the Phoenix Society, 2007.126
Arethusa by Benjamin West
Research by Ashley LaverockMellon-Funded Graduate Fellow in Object-Centered Curatorial Research
2012Benjamin West
American, 1738-1820
Arethusa, 1802
Oil on canvas
Purchase with funds from Margaret and Terry Stent Endowment for the Acquisition of American Art, 2011.44