New Book | François Boucher and the Art of Collecting
From Routledge (and today priced at $105 for the hardcover). . .
Jessica Priebe, François Boucher and the Art of Collecting in Eighteenth-Century France (Routledge, 2021), 270 pages, ISBN: 978-1472435835 (hardcover), $150 / ISBN 978-1003224730 (ebook), $35.
While earlier studies have focused predominantly on artist François Boucher’s artistic style and identity, this book presents the first full-length interdisciplinary study of Boucher’s prolific collection of around 13,500 objects including paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, porcelain, shells, minerals, and other imported curios. It discusses the types of objects he collected, the networks through which he acquired them, and their spectacular display in his custom-designed studio at the Louvre, where he lived and worked for nearly two decades. This book explores the role his collection played in the development of his art, his studio, his friendships, and the burgeoning market for luxury goods in mid-eighteenth-century France. In doing so, it sheds new light on the relationship between Boucher’s artistic and collecting practices, which attracted both praise and criticism from period observers.
Jessica Priebe is a Lecturer in the Department of Art History and Theory at the National Art School, Australia.
C O N T E N T S
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction: In Pursuit of Pleasure
Part 1: The Artist as Agent
1 Modernizing Watteau: Marketing Luxury in France and Sweden
2 Boucher and the Art of Conchyliomanie
Part 2: The Artist as Collector
3 Trading Places: Boucher as a Collector of Fine Art
4 The Business of Collecting
Part 3: The Collector as Artist
5 A New Address: Boucher at the Louvre
6 Boucher’s Cabinet of Natural History
7 The Artist Inspired: Representing Genius and the Art of Emulation
Bibliography
Index
Exhibition | Antoine Watteau: Art — Market — Trade
Now on view at Schloss Charlottenburg:
Antoine Watteau: Art — Market — Trade
Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin, 9 October 2021 — 1 January 2022
Curated by Christoph Martin Vogtherr
2021 marks the 300th anniversary of the death of the French painter Antoine Watteau (1684—1721). The fame of the artist, who was already celebrated during his lifetime, continues to have an effect today, and his works are coveted collector’s items. After the Louvre in Paris, the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg owns the most important collection of paintings by this artist. Under the motto ‘Art—Market—Trade’, a special exhibition at Charlottenburg Palace pays tribute to this outstanding painter of the 18th century. The focus of the show is one of Watteau’s major works: the Shop Sign of the Art Dealer Gersaint (L’enseigne du marchand d’art Gersaint). Acquired by Frederick the Great (1712—1786) in 1746, the painting has been considered a masterpiece ever since it was painted. Originally created as a medium of business advertising and as a ‘figurehead’ of the Parisian art trade, the painting continues to stimulate contemporary questions concerning marketing, trade, but also collecting and intellectual engagement with art.
Two protagonists of Parisian art life are presented: Edme-François Gersaint (1694—1750) and Jean de Jullienne (1686—1766). Gersaint, a young up-and-coming art dealer, used his shop on the Pont Notre Dame in Paris to market the artist’s works throughout Europe through new advertising media and formats after Watteau’s death. Together with Jullienne, a collector and patron of Watteau, they realized the idea of reproducing all of the painter’s drawings and paintings in print. This edition, the Recueil Jullienne, was the prototype of a modern illustrated collection of works, which in its aftermath was to trigger a veritable fashion wave: throughout Europe, collectors, manufactory owners, and tradesmen acquired the prints created after Watteau’s works. Watteau’s imagery also inspired court painting and arts and crafts in Prussia. Motifs á la Watteau can be found not only in painting, but also on screens, wallpaper, fans, porcelain, and tapestries of the Frederician period.
As a source of inspiration, Watteau continues to have an impact right up to the modern age. Contemporary artists such as the Swiss painter Thomas Huber (b.1955) and the British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood (b.1941) are represented in the exhibition with one work each. Their artistic positions show that Watteau is still perceived today as an innovative artist and that his work stimulates creative debate. The exhibition, under the patronage of the French ambassador Anne-Marie Descôtes, paints a multifaceted picture of Watteau as an artist and style icon, whose posthumous fame was established with the shop of the art dealer Gersaint on Notre Dame in Paris.
C. Alff, S. Evers, P. Fuhring, A. Moulinier, D. Ranftl, C. Vogtherr, F. Windt, E. Wollschläger, Antoine Watteau: Kunst — Markt — Gewerbe / Art — Marché — Commerce (Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2021), 272 pages, ISBN: 978-3777437866 (German edition) / ISBN: 978-3777437842 (French edition), 40€.
New Book | Nature’s Favourite Child: Thomas Robins
Available from John Sandoe Books:
Cathryn Spence, Nature’s Favourite Child: Thomas Robins and the Art of the Georgian Garden (Bradford-on-Avon: Stephen Morris, 2021), 312 pages, ISBN: 978-1838472634, £40.
Thomas Robins the Elder (1716–1770) recorded the country estates of the Georgian gentry—their orchards, Rococo gardens, and potagers—like no other, with both topographical accuracy and delightful artistry, often bordering his gouaches with entrancing tendrils, shells, leaves, and birds. His skill was honed by the delicacy required for his early career as a fan painter and is shown too in his exquisite paintings of butterflies, flowers, and birds. This ravishing and scholarly study emerges from many years’ research by Dr Cathryn Spence, the curator and archivist at Bowood House who has also worked for the V&A, the American Museum, the Bath Preservation Trust, and the National Trust. This is the first full study of Thomas Robins since John Harris’s Gardens of Delight, published in two volumes in 1978; Harris, in fact, made over all his research notes to Spence in 2005 when she embarked on her work. Chinoiserie is everywhere—a wooden bridge over the Thames, delicious kiosks in a garden, a view of Bath with sampans, and Chinese fishermen on the river. There are also fascinating views of Sudeley Castle and other great houses that incorporated more or less ruined monastic structures, destroyed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Spence has tracked down many previously unknown paintings by Robins and sets his elusive life and work in the framework of his patrons.
New Book | The Country Houses of Shropshire
From Boydell & Brewer (with 50% off most print books until 10 December; use code BB050) . . .
Gareth Williams, The Country Houses of Shropshire (London: Boydell Press, 2021), 760 pages, ISBN: 978-1783275397, £95 / $150.
A gazetteer of the many fine Shropshire country houses, covering the architecture, the owners’ family history, and the social and economic circumstances that affected them.
Shropshire is the largest English inland county and has a wide variety of important landed country houses, with owners from diverse social groups, with links to trade in Liverpool, Manchester, and London as well as the local gentry. This book is not simply about the houses they built, but also about the people who lived in them and the context in which the houses are set. The architecture is, of course, fully covered. What is distinctive about the author’s approach is that he treats the histories of the families, their artistic tastes, and their estates, as an integral part of the character of each house. Country houses can serve as a barometer of national tastes and of the social and economic times in which they were built. The work includes reference to the important sporting associations, fine, and decorative art collections, and to important guests and social networks. Unlike most architectural guides, this aims at a wider readership, and will be an important resource for social historians, genealogists, and local historians. The Country Houses of Shropshire considers the history of 347 identified houses of varying importance; those with a significant or influential history are given a main entry of up to 6000 words whilst lesser houses are treated with an entry of less than 1000 words. All houses have footnoted entries, enabling the reader to refer directly to source and to undertake further research themselves.
Gareth Williams has been a regional director of Sotheby’s and a curator for the National Trust at Nostell Park. He is now Curator & Head of Learning at Weston Park, one of the major British country house collections, and coordinates residential cultural tours based at the historic house.
Exhibition | Studies in Irish Georgian Silver
From Four Courts Press:
Alison FitzGerald, ed., Studies in Irish Georgian Silver (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2020), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-1846827990, €50.
Irish silver, for long renowned among collectors and connoisseurs, is increasingly being considered as an aspect of the material world of the past. Its making, acquisition and use tells much about past attitudes and behaviour. At the same time, careful examination of surviving articles not only adds to appreciation of the design and craftsmanship but also to Ireland’s participation in international fashions. This volume, with new research by established and emerging scholars from Ireland and the UK, advances the study across a broad range. The contributions examine the circumstances in which silver objects were made, sold, valued, and dispersed in Georgian Ireland. It considers specialized branches of the trade including the production of freedom boxes and jewellery, the sourcing of metals and materials, the value of inventories as evidence, and regional patterns and preferences. This book builds on recent literature on the history of silver, second-hand markets, guilds, and luxury goods, to recover and reconsider Ireland’s silversmithing.
Alison FitzGerald is associate professor in history, Maynooth University. She has published widely on the history of Irish silver, including a monograph, Silver in Georgian Dublin: Making, Selling, Consuming (London, 2016), and an essay in the catalogue Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690–1840 (New Haven, 2015).
C O N T E N T S
• Toby Barnard, Silver: Mined and in Mind
• Damian Collins, The Production and Supply of Gold and Silver Boxes in Late Stuart and Georgian Dublin
• Tessa Murdoch, Elite Gift Exchange: A Royal Christening Gift for Lady Emily Lennox in the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection and Christening Gifts in the V&A Collections
• Thomas Sinsteden, The Dukes of Ormondes’ Silver Inventories, 1674–1715
• Jessica Cunningham, ‘Taken or Destroy’d’: The Silver at Castlecomer House and the Irish Rebellion of 1798
• Breda Scott, Jewellery in Georgian Dublin, 1770 to 1830
• Zara Power, Jewellery in Eighteenth-Century Ireland: From the Staple to the Sublime to the Sentimental
• John R. Bowen, Irish Provincial Silver in the Georgian Period
• Alison FitzGerald, Plate, Plated Wares, Plotting, and Proposals: Matthew Boulton’s Irish Correspondence
Exhibition | The Expressive Body, 1400–1750
From the press release for the exhibition:
The Expressive Body: Memory, Devotion, Desire (1400–1750)
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 15 October 2021 — 7 March 2022
Organized by Maggie Bell
The Norton Simon Museum presents The Expressive Body: Memory, Devotion, Desire (1400–1750), an exhibition that examines the ways in which the human form has provoked powerful responses, from the physiological to the mystical. In the early modern period—that is, the centuries following the Middle Ages—works of art were thought to have such power that they affected the viewer physically. From erotic paintings produced for wealthy patrons to venerated statues of the wounded Christ installed in local chapels, representations of the body stimulated visceral and often self-reflexive reactions of desire, compassion, or aversion.
Francesco Trevisani, Apelles Painting Campaspe, 1720, oil on canvas, 75 × 60 cm (Pasadena: The Norton Simon Foundation).
Culled from the Norton Simon’s collections, the more than 60 artworks presented in the exhibition include paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures from throughout Europe and Latin America, some of which have rarely been exhibited. The exhibition is on view in the Norton Simon Museum’s exhibition galleries on the lower level from 15 October 2021 through 7 March 2022.
The Expressive Body is organized around two major themes: “Love and Suffering” and “Accessing the Divine.” Within these sections are art objects that were created to be experienced in multisensory ways, including sculptures meant to be caressed, prints that were handled, and even sacred images that were kissed (although not permitted today in a museum setting). Indeed, medical theory during this era suggested that even gazing at representations of beautiful lovers could have physical consequences, leading to the conception of handsome and healthy children, whereas spiritual practice could involve meditating on the portrayal of a tortured martyr in order to empathetically feel his or her torment.
The exhibition’s introductory section explores the notion of “The Body and the Senses,” providing context for the role of the body in perceiving art in the period. Included is Jusepe de Ribera’s fascinating painting The Sense of Touch from c. 1615–16. Seated at a wooden table, a blind man uses his hands to thoughtfully observe a carved head; a painting rests beside him, unexamined. By depicting the sense of touch in this way, Ribera engages with a major debate in the period over the merits of sculpture versus painting. Sculpture seems to be the victor here, since it can be perceived by both touch and sight, and is therefore the more accessible and verifiable of the arts. Ribera’s naturalistic rendering of the sculpture, however, also makes a case for the virtuosity of painting. The artist uses paint to create the effects of texture and weight, emphasizing the man’s wrinkled hands as they hold the bust. Through vision the painting appeals to the sense of touch, inviting viewers to imagine the sculpture’s smooth contours under their own fingertips.
The theme of love and suffering has long been explored by artists. In Francesco Trevisani’s Apelles Painting Campaspe from 1720, the artist blurs the line between real and represented bodies in his depiction of Apelles, the favorite painter of Alexander the Great, who painted a beautiful portrait of Campaspe, the ruler’s mistress. As the apocryphal story goes, the artist’s representation was so flattering that Alexander chose the painting over Campaspe herself. This clever interpretation, which would have amused 18th-century Roman patrons, makes an argument for the beguiling power of painting.
Also in this section is Guercino’s dramatic Suicide of Cleopatra from around 1621. This large painting depicts a moment of despair for the powerful queen, but like many images of this subject, the painting has erotic undertones. Guercino emphasizes the drama of the moment through the dynamic pose of the Cleopatra’s body, and he highlights her beauty with strong contrasts of light and dark. The soft lushness of her garments adds to the tactile nature of the painting, and contrasts with the perception of the sharp pain of the asp’s bite.
Unknown artist, Mexico, Head of Christ, 18th century, polychrome wood, 43 × 38 cm (Pasadena: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of Mrs. Henrietta S. Cecil).
Religious images likewise had palpable effects, but to devotional ends. In the “Accessing the Divine” section, visitors will encounter the Head of Christ from 18th-century Mexico, a sculpture that invites worshippers to meditate on the physicality of Christ’s pain, brutally represented by his lacerated flesh and his lips parted in agony, subtly exposing delicately carved teeth. These details become all the more arresting in their three-dimensionality, mimicking the scale and appearance of a human head, and making the representation of the suffering Christ feel inescapably real. Polychrome sculptures like this one were common, but they caused anxiety among some religious reformers who feared that the sculptures would prompt too much empathy in viewers, leading them to treat the inert representations as living idols.
A more tender representation of Christ can be found in Baciccio’s Saint Joseph and the Infant Christ from around 1670–85. The artist represents the strong familial bond between the baby Jesus and his earthly father, Joseph, which was unusual, since such scenes of parental affection typically involved the Madonna and Child. Baciccio brilliantly portrays the recognizably human gesture of a baby reaching up to the face of his parent. The act of touching is a central component of this image—we can imagine the scratchiness of Joseph’s beard in Christ’s hands, or the weight of the baby in Joseph’s arms. Though the painting depicts a human moment between father and child, the monumentality of the figures reminds the viewer of the baby’s divine nature.
When presented together, the objects in The Expressive Body: Memory, Devotion, Desire (1400–1750) reveal the historical potency of the represented body to move the mind through the flesh, and they invite us to examine our own responses to these works today. The exhibition is organized by Assistant Curator Maggie Bell and is on view in the Museum’s lower level exhibition galleries.
Conference | La Chiesa di San Rocco
Scuola Grande di San Rocco and Chiesa di San Rocco, Venice
(Wikimedia Commons; September 2017)
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From ArtHist.net:
La Chiesa di San Rocco: Spazio Sacro Confraternale e Centro di Culto
Auditorium Santa Margherita, Chiesa di San Rocco, Venice, 2–4 December 2021
Organized by Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel and David D’Andrea
The church of San Rocco is the only Venetian church that is both a confraternal devotional space and a ‘sanctuary’ that houses the body of the titular saint, who was translated to Venice in 1485 and located in the main altar since 1520. Belief in the miraculous power of San Rocco to heal and protect those afflicted with the plague made the church a popular pilgrimage destination and site of international devotion. The church was adorned with rich artwork and musical space (an organ and choir gallery) designed to focus religious devotion on the altar-reliquary. The original church, built in 1489, was heavily renovated by Giovanni Scalfarotto between 1726 and 1733. The rebuilt façade, completed by Bernardino Maccaruzzi in 1769, unifies the confraternity’s ritual space, which encompasses the square and the adjacent streets.
The conference proposes to examine, in a broad chronological span and with an interdisciplinary approach, the significant aspects of this devotional space, where processions, festivals, and pilgrimages reaffirmed the status of the confraternity and the healing power of San Rocco both in Venetian life and in universal Catholic devotion. Papers will discuss the origins of the cult of San Rocco in Venice, the foundation of the Scuola, the construction of the church and the relationship between the church and confraternity. The altars and devotional images of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century church and the later seventeenth- and eighteenth-century renovations will be analyzed in relationship with the other confraternal churches in Venice. Particular attention will be dedicated to ritual spaces, music, objects of devotion (the relic of San Rocco, the miraculous Crucifix, the miraculous image of Christ Carrying the Cross; devotion to the Holy Eucharist), and festivals, including changes introduced by new religious devotions and spaces (the Redentore and Madonna della Salute) associated with the plague.
The conference—part of the Churches of Venice: New Research Perspectives project—will consist of two days in the classroom (Auditorium Santa Margherita) and a final session on site in the church. Places are limited, and the required registration can be completed here. In addition, the sessions will be recorded and made available on the ‘Chiese di Venezia’ YouTube channel. For more information, please email chiesedivenezia@gmail.com.
2 D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 1
9.30 Welcome
9.45 Introduction by Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel, David D’Andrea
10.15 Session 1: Gli inizi del culto di San Rocco nel Veneto, la Scuola e la chiesa veneziana
Chair: David D’Andrea
• Claudia Salmini (Scuola Grande di San Rocco, già Archivista di Stato a Venezia), Alla ricerca delle fonti sulla chiesa di San Rocco
• Rachele Scuro (Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca), Il culto di san Rocco e la presenza ebraica a Venezia e nello Stato veneto nel Rinascimento
• Francesco Bianchi (Università degli Studi di Padova), San Rocco in ospedale (secc. XV–XVI)
• Adelaide Ricci (Università di Pavia), Le opere e i segni: san Rocco nel progetto narrativo della Scuola di Venezia
13.00 Break
15.00 Session 2: La chiesa quattro-cinquecentesca: gli apparati decorativi e il messaggio dei teleri
Chair: Paola Marini
• Gianmario Guidarelli (Università degli Studi di Padova), L’architettura della chiesa di San Rocco
• Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel (Wake Forest University), L’arredo della chiesa quattro-cinquecentesca e le sue trasformazioni nel corso del Seicento: proposta
• Diana Gisolfi (Pratt Institute), L’organo rinascimentale della chiesa di San Rocco
• Lorenzo Lazzarini (Laboratorio di Analisi dei Materiali Antichi, Università Iuav di Venezia), Le pietre e i marmi della chiesa di San Rocco
• Louise Marshall (University of Sydney), St Roch Between North and South: Understanding Artistic and Confraternal Choices in Tintoretto’s Narratives at the Chiesa di San Rocco
• Ewa Rybalt (Indipendent Scholar; Lublino), ‘San Rocco cura gli appestati’ di Tintoretto e la disputa tra Valerio Superchio e Vettor Trincavello
3 D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 1
10.00 Session 3: I rapporti della Scuola e della chiesa con il popolo
Chair: Martina Frank
• David D’Andrea (Oklahoma State University), From the Renaissance to the Grand Tour: The Church of San Rocco in the Eyes of Spiritual and Cultural Pilgrims
• Giulia Zanon (University of Leeds), Relazioni sociali e devozionali nella chiesa di San Rocco tra Cinque e Seicento
• Matteo Casini (University of Massachusetts, Boston), Liturgia urbana, di Stato, di gruppi
• Fabio Tonizzi (Facoltà Teologica dell’Italia Centrale), La chiesa di San Rocco: un santuario? Aspetti giuridici e devozionali
13.00 Break
15.00 Session 4: Il culto di San Rocco e la vita religiosa tra XVI e XVIII secolo
Chair: Fabio Tonizzi
• Christopher Nygren (Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Art, National Gallery / University of Pittsburgh), Il Cristo portacroce della Scuola di San Rocco, tra antropologia dell’immagine e storia dell’arte
• Alexandra Bamji (University of Leeds), The Church of San Rocco between Venetian Piety and Post-Tridentine Devotion
• Andrea Savio (Università degli Studi di Padova), La festa di San Rocco a Venezia dopo la pestilenza del 1630
• William Barcham (Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, emeritus), La trasformazione della facciata di San Rocco, ca. 1756–1769
• Federica Restiani (Istituto Veneto per i Beni Culturali), Giuseppe Angeli e il rinnovato ciclo pittorico della cupola del presbiterio. Contributi dal cantiere di restauro
• Jonathan Glixon (University of Kentucky), The Choir of San Rocco and Its Music
4 D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 1
10.00 Session 5: Trasformazioni, restauri, nuove prospettive
Chair: Demetrio Sonaglioni
• Maria Agnese Chiari Moretto Wiel (Wake Forest University) and Melissa Conn (Save VeniceInc.), Ultime trasformazioni interne della chiesa: dal XVIII secolo ad oggi
• Amalia Donatella Basso (Scuola Grande di San Rocco, già Soprintendenza per i Beni Architettonici e Paesaggistici di Venezia e Laguna), Rileggendo i dipinti di Tintoretto nella chiesa confraternale di San Rocco. Considerazioni e riflessioni
• Mario Piana (Università Iuav di Venezia), La cantoria
• David D’Andrea (Oklahoma State University), Sintesi dei temi del convegno
Basile Baudez on Textiles, Policy, and Lived Spaces in 18th-C Venice
https://vimeo.com/646998977?embedded=true&source=video_title&owner=125550939
Basile Baudez contributed to this fall’s Princeton Talks series, a new initiative of the Princeton Public Lectures Committee:
Basile Baudez, “Regulation & Transgression: Textiles, Policy, and Lived Spaces in 18th-Century Venice,” Princeton Talks (Fall 2021), 14 minutes.
Exhibition | In American Waters
Unknown artist in New England, Contemplation by the Sea, 1790, oil on board 37 × 59 inches
(Salem, MA: Peabody Essex Museum, Museum purchase with funds from anonymous donor, 1994 137681)
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Now on view at Crystal Bridges:
In American Waters: The Sea in American Painting
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, 29 May — 3 October 2021
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 6 November 2021 — 31 January 2022
Curated by Austen Bailly and Daniel Finamore
For over 200 years, artists have been inspired to capture the beauty, violence, poetry, and transformative power of the sea in American life. Oceans play a key role in American society no matter where we live, and still today, the sea continues to inspire painters to capture its mystery and power. Be transported across time and water on the wave of a diverse range of modern and historical artists including Georgia O’Keeffe, Amy Sherald, Kay WalkingStick, Norman Rockwell, Hale Woodruff, Paul Cadmus, Thomas Hart Benton, Jacob Lawrence, Valerie Hegarty, Stuart Davis, and others.
highlights American art historical and cultural traditions associated with the sea, deepening our understanding of it as a symbol of American ambition, opportunity, and invention. While histories of American art have long privileged ways of imagining American culture that tell only a partial story and that overlook marine narratives of national and individual experience past and present, this ambitious exhibition reveals the sea as an expansive way to reflect on American culture and environment and to question what it means to be “in American waters.”
The exhibition is co-created by Austen Bailly, chief curator, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and Daniel Finamore, The Russell W. Knight Curator of Maritime Art and History, Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
Daniel Finamore and Austen Barron Bailly, eds., with additional contributions by Mindy N. Besaw, Sarah N. Chasse, and George H. Schwartz, In American Waters: The Sea in American Painting (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2021), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-1682261705, $60.
Fellowships | Tyson Scholars in American Art, 2022–23
From Crystal Bridges:
Tyson Scholars Program: Fellowships in American Art
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2022–23
Applications due by 14 January 2022
The Tyson Scholars of American Art Program encourages and supports full-time interdisciplinary scholarship that seeks to expand boundaries and traditional categories of investigation into 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 57 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. Scholars may be focused on architecture, craft, material culture, performance art, and new media. We also invite applications from scholars approaching US art transregionally and looking at the broader geographical context of the Americas, especially including Latinx and Indigenous 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 Northwest Arkansas and the surrounding areas 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 and archives 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 $17,000 to $34,000 per semester, plus provided housing. The residency includes $1,500 for relocation, and additional research funds upon application. Scholars are provided workspace in the curatorial wing of the 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. Housing is provided within walking distance of the museum.
Further information about the Tyson Scholars Program, application instructions, and application portal can be found here. Applications for the 2022–2023 academic year open 1 November 2021 and close 14 January 2022.
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