Getty Announces 2013–2014 Scholars Selected from a Record Number of Applicants

A record number of applicants sought to join the highly competitive Scholars Program at the Getty Research Institute (GRI) this year.

Nearly 600 scholars, the highest total in the program’s 28-year history, applied from around the world. Forty scholars were chosen to come to the Getty Center and Getty Villa this fall and spring to study under the theme Connecting Seas: Cultural and Artistic Exchange.

“The Getty Research Institute’s Scholars Program is an exceptional opportunity for academics and attracts prestigious talents, both accomplished and promising,” said Thomas W. Gaehtgens, Director of the Getty Research Institute. “This year’s theme, Connecting Seas, underscores both the global nature of cultural research today and the scope of materials we hold in our Library and Special Collections. According to our mission and policy we will be hosting scholars from around the world who work in a variety of disciplines across multiple cultures.”

Connecting Seas: Cultural and Artistic Exchange looks at water as an historically significant means for the movement of goods and people. Sophisticated networks, at a variety of scales, were established in antiquity around the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, and later in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Together with sporadic and accidental encounters, these networks fostered commerce in raw materials and finished objects, along with the exchange of ideas and cultural concepts.

For the 2013–2014 academic year, scholars at the GRI and Getty Villa will be devoted to exploring the art-historical impact of maritime transport. This study extends beyond the Scholars Program to include an important public exhibition opening at the GRI in November 2013. The exhibition, also called Connecting Seas, will draw from the GRI’s extensive Special Collections to explore water as a cultural conduit.

Although all of the visiting scholars’ research projects will adhere to this theme, their work ranges tremendously. For example, Qing Mei from the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for Asia and the Pacific Region (WHITRAP Shanghai) will focus on the trade of Chinese Glassware from the 17th and 18th centuries, while Martin Schieder, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Institut für Kunstgeschichte at the Universität Leipzig, Germany, will focus on European artists exiled by war who crossed the Atlantic from 1919 to 1945.

And just as their projects vary, so do their areas of expertise. This year’s group includes archeologists, art historians, visual artists, curators, specialists in comparative literature and religious studies, and more.

“We want to give scholars the space and means to truly be creative and adventurous,” said Alexa Sekyra, Head of the Scholars Program at the GRI. “At the Getty, it’s not just the fantastic setting that appeals to scholars, it is also the opportunity to take advantage of the exceptional resources we provide them, including access to our collections and inclusion in a vibrant intellectual community of visiting scholars as well as the researchers, historians and curators who work here.”

Among the six residential postdoctoral fellowships awarded, two fellowships are made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Division of Research Programs. These fellowships are funded by the NEH as part of the Getty’s annual scholar and fellow program. For the 2013–2014 year, the GRI-NEH Postdoctoral Fellowship was awarded to Chanchal Dadlani, an Assistant Professor of Art History from Wake Forest University, Winton-Salem, North Carolina and Kristina Kleutghen, Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Washington University, St. Louis Missouri.

Annually, one to two postdoctoral fellowships at the GRI are supported by the Volkswagen Foundation as part of the[VolkswagenStiftung Funding Initiative. The fellowships are awarded to post-doctoral scholars from German-based institutions, and this year the Volkswagen Fellowship was awarded to Ulrike Hanstein, Research Fellow, Faculty of Philosophy and Audiovisual Media at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany.

The first group of 23 scholars will begin arriving in September 2013.

2013–2014 Incoming Scholars

Getty Scholars

Hannah Baader is Head of Research Group at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck Institut, Italy. Her research focuses on Mediterranean art histories.

From Thalassa to Okeanos, from the Mediterranean to the Oceans: Iconology and Iconospheres of the Sea, 1100–1600

April–June 2014

Sandra Lynn Blakely (Villa) is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. She is a scholar of classics, anthropology, and Greek religion.

Seafaring and the Sacred: Maritime Networks and the Cult of the Great Gods of Samothrace

September 2013–June 2014

Daniela Bleichmar (Consortium Scholar) is Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Her research concerns colonial Latin America, early modern Europe, the history of collecting, the history of science, and the history of books and prints.

The Itinerant Lives of Painted Books: Mexican Codices and Transatlantic Knowledge in the Early Modern World

September 2013–June 2014

Suzanne Preston Blier is Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and Professor of African and African American Studies in the department of Art and Architecture at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. She specializes in African art and architecture.

By Sea, Sand and River: Africa and the West, a History in Art (1300–1800)

January–June 2014

Timothy James Brook is Professor in the Department of History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. His research centers on global economy, maritime trade, Chinese art, and Europe-Asia encounters.

The Taste of Water: The Global Traffic in Images, 1600–1620

January–June 2014

Florina Hernandez Capistrano-Baker is Consultant at the Ayala Museum, Makati City, Philippines. Her research concerns the art and history of the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

Routes of Exchange: 10th–13th Century Gold from Butuan and Links to the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Trade Network

September–December 2013

Owen P. Doonan (Villa) is Professor in the department of Art at California State University Northridge. He is a scholar of classical archaeology, geography and long-term history, and colonial networks.

Connection and Community in the Black Sea

January–March 2014

Christine Eva Göttler is Professor and Chair in the Institut für Kunstgeschichte at Universität Bern, Switzerland. She is a scholar of early modern northern European art.

Inventing Newness: Art, Local History, and “World Knowledge” in Early Modern Antwerp (Mid-Sixteenth to Mid-Seventeenth Centuries)

January–June 2014

Burglind Jungmann is Professor in the department of Art History at University of California, Los Angeles. Her research centers on the history of Korean painting and the exchange in art between Korea, China, Japan, and Europe.

Beyond the Sea, Two Women, Two Cultures—a Comparison

January–June 2014

Carl Knappett (Villa) is Graham/Thompson Chair in Aegean Prehistory in the Department of Art at the University of Toronto, Canada. His research concentrates on Aegean prehistory.

Maritime Mobility in the Mediterranean: The Case of Minoanization

January–June 2014

Marco Musillo is Research Associate in the Department of Chinese Art at the Museo delle Culture, Lugano, Switzerland. He specializes in early modern global art, Chinese art, the art of colonial Mexico, and critical theory.

From Local Media to Global Spectators: Early Modern Screens between Asia and New Spain

September–December 2013

Corinna Riva (Villa) is Senior Lecturer in Mediterranean Archaeology in the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, England. Her research focuses on Etruscan archaeology.

Pushing the Boundaries of Exchange: Emporic Trade and Culture Contact in the 6th Century BC Central Mediterranean

September–December 2013

Sofia Sanabrais is an independent scholar based in Los Angeles. Her research concerns the cultural and artistic exchanges between Asia and Colonial Latin America.

The Globalization of Taste: The Influence of Asia on Artistic Production in Colonial Latin America

September–December 2013

Caroline Anne-Sophie Sauvage is Visiting Scholar at the Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California. She is a scholar of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Art and Archaeology.

Late Bronze Age Regional Identities and Distribution of Motifs: Mycenaean Pictorial Ceramics in their Cypriot and Levantine Contexts

January–June 2014

Martin Schieder is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Institut für Kunstgeschichte at the Universität Leipzig, Germany. His research focuses on art history of the twentieth century, avant-garde movements, cross-cultural transfer, exile research, and identity and otherness.

The Transatlantic Ocean Crossing into Exile, 1919–1945: From Heterotopic Experience to Aesthetic Reflection

September 2013–April 2014

Nancy Um is Associate Professor in the department of Art History at Bingham University, State University of New York. Her research concerns the visual, material, and built cultures of the Indian Ocean.

The Material World of the Overseas Merchant in Yemen: Ceremonies, Gifts, and the Social Protocols of Trade, 1700–1750

September 2013–June 2014

Gert Jan Maria van Wijngaarden (Villa) is Associate Professor in the Amsterdam Archaeological Center at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. He specializes in Mediterranean archaeology.

The Relevance of Authenticity: Traveling Artists in Late Bronze Age Greece (1600–1200 BC)

September–December 2013

Charlene Villaseñor-Black is Associate Professor in the department of Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research explores the early modern Iberian world.

Itinerant Artists in the Global Early Modern World

September 2013–April 2014

Predoctoral Fellows

Vanessa Frances Rhiannon Crosby is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Religious Studies at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

Foreign Goods and Trans-regional Identities: Commemoration as Cross Cultural Encounter

September 2013–June 2014

Ariane Marie Sophie de Saxcé (Villa) is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Archaeology at the University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris 4); National Institute of Art History (INHA), Paris, France.

From South Asia to the West: Cartography of Cultural Interactions in the Erythraean Sea (Third Century BC to Seventh Century AD)

September 2013–June 2014

Galia Halpern is a Ph.D. candidate in the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, New York.

Maritime Sight and Insight: Mandeville’s Travels and Vernacular Geography

September 2013–June 2014

Meha Priyadarshini is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at Columbia University, New York.

From Jingdezhen to Puebla: Cultural and Artistic Exchange across the Pacific

September 2013–June 2014

Postdoctoral Fellows

Esteban Garcia Brousseau received his doctorate from the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His research focuses on Iberian Baroque in Asia (Goa) and America (Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru).

Galleons, Pulpits and Processional Carts: Connected Seafaring Metaphors against Lust and Idolatry along the Iberian Maritime Routes, from Portuguese India to the Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru (1498–1740)

September 2013–June 2014

Alex Robert Knodell (Villa) received his doctorate from the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.

Sailing on the Cusp of History: Crafting Connections in the Early Mediterranean

September 2013–June 2014

Lihong Liu received her doctorate from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, New York.

Techniques, Technologies, and Media of Representation: Artistic Exchange between China and Europe during the Eighteenth Century

September 2013–June 2014

Guest Scholars

Patrick Duarte Flores is Professor in the department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines. He is a scholar of art history, theory, criticism, and Philippine art.

Scale and Time: The Historical Image and Southeast Asian Modernity

April–June 2014

Qing Mei is Associate Professor and Consultant Expert in the department of Architecture at the World Heritage Institute of Training and Research for Asia and the Pacific Region (WHITRAP Shanghai) under the auspices of UNESCO. Her research investigates the maritime silk road, and Sino-European artistic and cultural exchange from the 17th through the 18th centuries.

Art of Reflection by Sea: A Historical Study of Chinese Glassware from the 17th and 18th Centuries

January–June 2014

Yoshiaki Shimizu is Frederick Marquand Professor of Art and Archaeology, Emeritus at Princeton University. His research explores Japanese art including ink painting of the medieval period, arts of Zen Buddhist establishments, Heian and Kamakura narrative painting, and Sino-Japanese cultural history of twelfth through the sixteenth century.

Transmission and Transformation: The China-Japan Interface in Arts and Other Things January–June 2014

Yudong Wang is Professor in the School of Arts and Humanities at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, China. He specializes in Chinese landscape and figure art, Buddhist art, Taoist art, Tibetan art, Chinese Bronze Art, and methodology.

The Wonder That is Art: Indian Art Theory and Art Practice in the Six Dynasties

September–December 2013

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellows

Chanchal Dadlani is Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department of Art at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Her research concerns South Asian and Islamic art and architecture.

Art and Epistemology Between Early Modern India and France: The Collection of Jean-Baptiste Gentil

September 2013–July 2014

Kristina Renée Kleutghen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. She is a scholar of Chinese art history with a focus on early modern Sino-European contact.

Visions of the West: Rediscovering Eighteenth-Century Chinese Perspective Prints and Viewing Devices

September 2013–July 2014

Volkswagen Foundation Fellow

Ulrike Hanstein is Research Fellow, Faculty of Philosophy and Audiovisual Media at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany.

Retracing Movements: Performance Art and Moving-Image Documentation

September 2013–June 2014

Museum Guest Scholars

Tonny Beentjies is Head of Metalwork Conservation Program at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Host Department: Decorative Arts and Sculpture Conservation

July–September 2014

Sophie Descamps-Lequime is Conservateur en chef du Patrimoine Département des Antiquités gracques, eetrusques et romaines at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, France.

Host Department: Antiquities

September–December 2013

John Gillis is Senior Conservator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

Host Department: Paper Conservation

April–June 2014

Thomas Alexander Heslop is Professor of Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom.

Host Department: Manuscripts

January–March 2014

Claudia Kryza-Gersch is Curator of Italian Sculpture at the Kunstkammer of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.

Host Department: Sculpture and Decorative Arts

April–June 2014

Stéphane Loire is Chief Curator in the Paintings Department at the Musée due Louvre, Paris, France.

Host Department: Paintings

January–March 2014

Anne McCauley is David. H. McAlpin Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art at Princeton University, New Jersey.

Host Department: Photographs

April–June 2014

Carel van Tuyll is Curator Emeritus at the Musée due Louvre, Paris, France.

Host Department: Drawings

January–March 2014