Smithsonian American Art Museum Fellows
The purpose of this page is to share news of the scholarly activities and contributions of current and former fellows of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), and also to foster a strong international alumni network. We post notices of SAAM symposia, reunions, the annual fellows' lecture series, and other events of interest to alumni. Outside posts with alumni news, including recent publications emerging from Smithsonian research or upcoming convenings of common interest, are encouraged.
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Virtual Symposium: “Past/Present: Collecting, Exhibiting and Conserving Contemporary Art in Asia,” January 5-8, 2022
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https://reurl.cc/kL255q
Hosted by 桃園市立美術館 Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts (TMoFA) and supported by Asian Cultural Council 2021 project grant.
Smithsonian American Art Museum Receives $2.1 Million From the Windgate Foundation
Major Gift Establishes an Endowment for Acquiring Artworks by Living Artists and Support for Fellowship Positions
The Smithsonian American Art Museum has received a $2.1 million gift from the Windgate Foundation to establish an endowment dedicated to acquiring artworks by living craft artists. The gift also funds two sequential one-year pre-doctoral fellowship positions that further scholarship in American craft. This major gift to the museum affirms the Renwick Gallery as the nation’s preeminent center for the enjoyment and study of American craft, and supports the leadership role of its craft program to advocate for a diverse and inclusive view of what is traditionally considered great art.
For the past decade, the Renwick Gallery has presented a series of exhibitions that reassess what craft is in a modern world. This new fund for acquisitions is dedicated to adding to the museum’s collection artworks made by a broadly representative and diverse group of American artists. This collecting effort will be featured, for the first time, in the museum’s upcoming exhibition “This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World” (opening May 2022), which celebrates the Renwick Gallery’s 50th anniversary by honoring the history of studio craft while also introducing progressive contemporary narratives and artists that highlight the more inclusive and changing landscape of American craft.
The two sequential one-year pre-doctoral fellowship positions will support new scholarship in the field of American craft. The positions offered during the 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 academic years, respectively, will provide emerging scholars with financial aid, unparalleled research resources and access to a network of world-class colleagues at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and across the field. The museum operates the premier fellowship program, which is the oldest and largest in the world for the study of American art.
“We are honored to receive this generous and enduring gift from the Windgate Foundation,” said Stephanie Stebich, the Margaret and Terry Stent Director at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “At the Renwick Gallery we are dedicated to nurturing the field of American craft by supporting artists and scholars. This gift builds on our leadership in collecting, researching and exhibiting American craft and allows us to bring more contemporary and diverse voices into the collection.”
The Windgate Foundation has supported contemporary craft and visual arts since 1993. The new gift is a significant expansion of the foundation’s commitment to the craft program at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Previously, the Windgate Foundation contributed to the reinstallation of the permanent collection galleries at the Renwick Gallery in 2015 following a renovation of its historic building, supported acquisitions and public programs such as the “Maloof Symposium: Furniture and the Future” in 2016 and provided funding for the 2010 exhibition catalog for “A Revolution in Wood: The Bresler Collection.”
The Windgate Foundation also supported a pre-doctoral fellowship in American craft for the 2021–2022 academic year. Awarded to Sara Morris of the University of California, Santa Barbara, the fellowship supports her work on her dissertation titled “Figurative Sculpture and the Crafting of Identity in Postwar American Art, 1960–1990.”
About Smithsonian American Art Museum Fellowships
The museum hosts fellows appointed by the Smithsonian Office of Fellowships and Internships and grants its own awards for scholars and students to pursue research at the museum, including senior, predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships. The museum recently announced the appointment of 16 new fellows for the 2021–2022 academic year.
Since 1970, the Smithsonian American Art Museum has supported 732 scholars through its fellowship program. Former fellows now occupy positions in prominent academic and cultural institutions across the United State and around the world. Additional information about the program is online at americanart.si.edu/research/fellowships.
Please join us for this virtual book launch event, a conversation between former Fellows, on March 1 at 7:30 pm EST. The material in this project developed from my Predoc time at SAAM and AAA. I am grateful to the community of fellows, from my year and at large, for their many contributions to my scholarship - and to this book.
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We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Anya Montiel to the Renwick Gallery as our new Curator of American and Native American Women’s Art and Craft, a temporary position split between NMAI and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, funded by the Smithsonian Women’s History Initiative. Anya’s first day in the office is today, and we will be showing her around the building and introducing her to staff in the next several weeks.
Anya comes to the Smithsonian with institutional history, having working at NMAI in various roles from 2004-2009. Before starting work on her doctorate at Yale University, Anya also served as Curator of Collections at the Tohono O’odham Nation Cultural Center and Museum and as an admissions officer for Stanford University. Anya’s Ph.D. research focused on the 20th-century Native art, including work with the Indian Arts and Crafts Board collection and records at NMAI and the national Archives. Since receiving her Ph.D. from Yale, Anya has been an Assistant Professor in the History of Art at the University of Arizona, and has most recently also participated as part of the advisory board for Crystal Bridges’ upcoming craft show. She brings to this position a deep interest in women’s and Native art and craft, including craft programs and legislation, as well an encompassing knowledge of Native contemporary art that will benefit SAAM/Renwick priorities like HOOP, the Permanent Collection rehang, and the Renwick’s 50th Anniversary plans, as well as NMAI projects.