(New York, June 4, 2021)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today a generous gift from the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation to fund five fellowship positions in the Museum’s Department of Drawings and Prints. These paid positions include four yearlong fellowships and one interdisciplinary fellowship of two years that combines curatorial, conservation, and scientific studies. The fellowships will begin in fall 2022, with applications available in September 2021.
“We are deeply grateful to the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation for initiating and sponsoring these meaningful fellowships for emerging museum professionals—a testament to the Foundation’s longtime dedication to broadening access to the arts and fostering the next generation of cultural leaders,” said Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Met. “This significant funding helps to strengthen our ongoing commitment to being an inclusive and accessible institution and to advance our vision of equity in museum scholarship.”
Nadine M. Orenstein, Drue Heinz Curator in Charge of the Department of Drawing and Prints, added, “We are thrilled to receive this noteworthy support and look forward to meeting the first cohort of Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellows. Not only are we excited to offer impactful career training to those who share our passion for drawings and prints but we also welcome the new perspectives and fresh ideas that these individuals will bring to the Museum to further contextualize our collection in complex, multifaceted, and engaging ways.”
Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Chair of the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation, said: “We are pleased that these new fellowships will create stronger relationships between two critical areas in the visual arts—curatorial research and scientific conservation. It is our hope that these fellowships will provide an enriching, immersive experience for aspiring museum professionals, especially those historically underrepresented in careers related to the visual arts.”
The four History of Art and Visual Culture Fellowships will be open to those enrolled in a PhD program in art history, visual and cultural studies, history, or a related field. With access to the Museum’s extensive holdings of drawings and prints, these fellows will conduct their own research projects while being exposed to a full range of curatorial and departmental activities. The two-year-long Curatorial/Scientific Research STEAM Junior Fellowship will offer to qualified graduate students an interdisciplinary experience combining technical investigation with art historical research on works on paper. This fellow will divide their time between the Department of Drawings and Prints, the Department of Scientific Research, and the Department of Paper Conservation, benefiting from the expertise of curators, scientists, and paper conservators while learning how to use state-of-the-art technology to closely study drawings and prints in The Met collection.
Learn more about The Met’s fellowship programs at metmuseum.org/fellowships.
About the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation
The Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation was founded by Dr. Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and Ambassador Carl Spielvogel to continue and extend their long-term commitment to the common good and the public interest. With this focus, deeply rooted in inclusiveness, social equity, and community service, the Foundation creates and supports original projects based on results-driven and innovative strategies. The Foundation funds projects which demonstrate creative promise in four priority areas: projects focused on civic leadership, public affairs and diplomacy; projects of cultural merit; original educational initiatives; and science and medicine, in support of the advancement of the field of health. All funding initiatives are by invitation only. Learn more at diamonstein-spielvogelfoundation.org.
About The Met’s Department of Drawings and Prints
The Met’s Department of Drawings and Prints holds a vast collection of works on paper that comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its founding in 1916, the department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, from pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal to those that are more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history. More information is available online.
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June 4, 2021