Enfilade

From Crystal Bridges:

Tyson Scholars Program: Fellowships in American Art
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2021–22

Applications due by 15 January 2021

The Tyson Scholars of American Art Program supports full-time scholarship and an expansive approach to American art and visual and material culture from the colonial period to the present. The program was established in 2012 through a $5 million commitment from the Tyson family and Tyson Foods, Inc. Since its inception, the Tyson Scholars Program has supported the work of 46 scholars, attracting academic professionals in a variety of disciplines nationally and internationally.

Crystal Bridges and the Tyson Scholars Program invites PhD candidates (or equivalent), post-doctoral researchers and senior scholars from any field who are researching American art to apply. We encourage and support scholarship that seeks to expand boundaries and traditional categories of investigation into American art and visual culture. Applicants may be focusing on art history, architecture, visual and material culture, American studies, craft, Indigenous art, Latin American art, and contemporary art. Applications will be evaluated on the originality and quality of the proposed research project and its contribution to a more equitable and inclusive history of American art.

The Tyson Scholars Program looks for research projects that will intersect meaningfully with the Museum’s collections, library resources, architecture, grounds, curatorial expertise, programs and exhibitions; and/or the University of Arkansas faculty broadly; and applicants should speak to why residence in the Heartland will advance their work. The applicant’s academic standing, scholarly qualifications, and experience will be considered, as it informs the ability of the applicant to complete the proposed project. Letters of support are strongest when they demonstrate the applicant’s excellence, promise, originality, track record, and productivity as a scholar, not when the letter contains a commentary on the project.

Crystal Bridges is dedicated to an equitable, inclusive, and diverse cohort of fellows. We seek applicants who bring a critical perspective and understanding of the experiences of groups historically underrepresented in American art, and welcome applications from qualified persons of color; who are Indigenous; with disabilities; who are LGBTQ; first-generation college graduates; from low-income households; and who are veterans.

Fellowships are residential and support full-time writing and research for terms that range from six weeks to nine months. While in residence, Tyson Scholars have access to the art and library collections of Crystal Bridges as well as the library at the University of Arkansas in nearby Fayetteville. Stipends vary depending on the duration of residency, position as senior scholar, post-doctoral scholar or pre-doctoral scholar, and range from $15,000 to $30,000 per semester, plus provided housing. Additional funds of $1,500 for relocation are provided, and research funds are available during the residency upon application. Scholars are housed at one of the Crystal Bridges residences, within easy walking distance from the Museum via wooded trails and approximately 1.5 miles from downtown Bentonville. Scholars have private bed and bathrooms in the house, and share comfortable indoor and outdoor common spaces including an expansive yard and patio. Scholars are provided workspace in the curatorial wing of Crystal Bridges’ library. The workspace is an enclosed area shared with other Tyson Scholars. Scholars are provided with basic office supplies, desk space, an office chair, space on a bookshelf, and a locking cabinet with key for personal belongings and files.

Further information about the Tyson Scholars Program, application instructions, and application portal can be found here. Applications for the 2021-2022 academic year open October 19, 2020 and close January 15, 2021.

Grant recipient Isabella Rosner will research Quaker makers of shell and wax work boxes. Mary Morrison, wax and shellwork shadow box, 1769, Philadelphia (Chester County Historical Society).  

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Press release (27 May 2020) from the Decorative Arts Trust:

The Decorative Arts Trust is pleased to announce the thirteen recipients of their 2020 Summer Research Grants, representing diverse cultures, materials, time periods, and geographies. Each year the Trust awards research grants to graduate students working on a Master’s thesis or PhD dissertation in a field related to the decorative arts. The Trust encourages projects that advance diversity in the study of American decorative arts. The word ‘summer’ may be a misnomer this year, as the Trust extended the terms of the grants to include travel through spring of 2021 due to potential restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Trust also partners with other organizations to offer grants sponsored by the Marie & John Zimmermann Fund, the Decorative Arts Society of Orange County, and the Center for American Art.

The deadline to apply for Decorative Arts Trust Summer Research Grants is April 30 annually. For more information, visit decorativeartstrust.org or email thetrust@decorativeartstrust.org.

Kayle R. Avery
Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, Winterthur, University of Delaware
Avery will examine the digitization of modernist American concepts through the incorporation of Art Deco aesthetics in the BioShock video game franchise. His plans to study collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and the New-York Historical Society’s Print Ephemera Collection.

Elizabeth S. Browne
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
Browne will travel to examine the archives of the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres in France to study 18th-century French sculptor Clodion (Claude Michel) and the Sèvres’ serialization called the ‘Vases Clodion’.

Christina L. De León
Bard Graduate Center 
De León will study the reinterpretation of the butaca by 20th-century designers Josef Albers and Clara Porset at the Albers Foundation in Bethany, Connecticut. Marie Zimmerman Grant.

Catherine Doucette
The Courtauld Institute of Art
Doucette will continue her study of a 19th-century tilt-top table, veneered with Jamaican woods and bearing images of the British Empire, made in Jamaica by the colony’s leading craftsman, Ralph Turnbull by visiting the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Yale Center for British Art.

Lamar Gayles
University of Illinois Chicago
Gayles will research the fabrication techniques and material mnemonics in the work of 20th-century Black American craftspersons by visiting collections in Alabama, Georgia, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

Robert Gordon-Fogelson
University of Southern California
Gordon-Fogelson plans to research the work of mid-century designers Dave Chapman, George Nelson, and Walter Dorwin Teague as well as the Industrial Designers Society of America at the Research and Design Institute at Syracuse University’s Special Collections Research Center.

Cecilia Gunzburger
University of Virginia
Gunzburger will continue her study of the traditions and ornamental function of 16th-century European lace and related textiles at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Cynthia Kok
Yale University
Kok will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore to research snuffboxes made of mother-of-pearl, shell, and imitative materials and decorative styles.

Kayli Rideout
Boston University
Rideout will visit Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia to study ecclesiastical windows that Tiffany Studios was commissioned to create in memory of the Confederacy in the years between 1889 and 1925.

Isabella Rosner
King’s College London
Rosner will visit several collections in the Philadelphia region to understand more about Quaker women who made shell and wax work boxes.

Cambra Sklarz
University of California, Riverside
Sklarz will travel to Winterthur to examine ways that artists from approximately 1750 to 1860 incorporated waste or discarded goods into their decorative arts and practices. DARTS Grant.

Paige Weaver
University of South Carolina
Weaver will explore The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and American Wing to evaluate a wide range of clothing, silver, and metalwork from the Reconstruction Era.

Xiaoyi D. Yang
Bard Graduate Center
Yang aims to continue her investigation of the circulation and consumption of Zhangzhou porcelains in Tokugawa-era commercial and cultural centers by visiting ceramic collections in Tokyo and Kyoto.