This month, The Metropolitan Museum of Art welcomes 62 scholars and graduate students as part of its annual fellowship program for 2016–2017. The program, which began in 1951 with three scholars, has grown to be one of the largest museum-based research fellowship programs in the world.
Graduate students, conservators, scientists, educators, museum curators, and scholars from all parts of the globe spend one year in residence, conducting research on topics relevant to The Met collection and ongoing investigations into scientific and conservation studies.
“I so often hear from scholars that their time at The Met was crucial to their work,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Each year we gather an international group to pursue their research alongside our collection, curators, and conservators. The result inspires all who participate—both as fellows and as members of our staff—and represents our commitment to supporting scholarship that explores art across time and around the globe.”
Reflecting the Museum’s collection, which spans over 5,000 years of art from every corner of the world, this year’s fellows’ projects include topics that range from a study of emotion and identity in Mayan art to an examination of the influence of African American photography and painting on contemporary African American design.
The Met’s Departments of Objects Conservation, Painting Conservation, Paper Conservation, Textile Conservation, and Scientific Research support innovative analytical techniques, preventative conservation, and treatment methodologies. This year, fellows in Conservation and Scientific Research will undertake research on a variety of topics, including 15th-century Spanish ecclesiastical textiles, glass-plate negatives by photographer Ernest J. Bellocq, and plastics in 20th-century costumes. While most fellows work closely with a specific curatorial, conservation, or scientific research department, some of the Museum’s fellowships focus on collaborative studies between fields.
A complete list of the 2016–2017 fellowship recipients, including their academic affiliations and areas of study, can be found on The Met website.
For more information about the fellowship program and information on how to apply for the 2017–2018 year, please visit our website.
The Met thanks the following for their generous support of fellowships at the Museum: Association of Research Institutes in Art History, Mercedes T. Bass, Bothmer Fellowship Fund, Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund, Chester Dale Fellowship Fund, Douglass Foundation, Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc., The Hagop Kevorkian Fund, Leonard A. Lauder and Anonymous Gifts to The Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art, J.S. Lee Memorial Fellowship Programme, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, J. Clawson Mills Charitable Trust, Theodore Rousseau Fellowship Fund, Joseph and Sylvia Slifka Foundation, Hanns Swarzenski and Brigitte Horney Swarzenski Fellowship Fund, Polaire Weissman Fund, and Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship Fund.
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October 6, 2016
Image: Participants in The Met's fellowship program for 2016–2017. Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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