Release Date: November 13, 2007

National Gallery of Art Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts Announces 2007–2008 Appointments

Washington, DC—The Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art has announced the appointments of members for 2007–2008. They include Rudolf Preimesberger, Freie Universität Berlin (emeritus), as Samuel H. Kress Professor; Elizabeth Hill Boone, Tulane University, as Andrew W. Mellon Professor; and Hans Belting, Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe, as Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor for spring 2008. Joseph Leo Koerner of Harvard University has been named the 57th A.W. Mellon Lecturer in the Fine Arts for spring 2008.

CASVA also announced the appointment of six senior and four visiting senior fellows, the Edmond J. Safra Guest Scholar for spring 2008, two postdoctoral fellows, 18 predoctoral fellows, and four predoctoral fellowships for historians of American art to travel abroad.

CASVA was founded 28 years ago to promote the study of the history, theory, and criticism of art, architecture, and urbanism through the formation of a community of scholars. A variety of private sources supports the program of fellowships, and the appointments are ratified by the Gallery’s Board of Trustees.

The position of Samuel H. Kress Professor was created in 1965. It is reserved for a distinguished art historian who, as the senior member of CASVA, pursues scholarly work and counsels predoctoral fellows in residence.

Rudolf Preimesberger is professor emeritus at the Freie Universität Berlin. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Vienna in 1962. Professor Preimesberger has been a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 1992, and the Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft zu Berlin since 1983. He has held fellowships at the University of Jena, Getty Research Institute, and University of Basel.

The position of Andrew W. Mellon Professor was created in 1994 for distinguished academic and museum professionals. Mellon professors serve two consecutive years and pursue independent research at CASVA while collaborating in scholarly exchanges with the Mellon senior curator and Mellon head of scientific research.

Elizabeth Hill Boone serves as professor and Martha and Donald Robertson Chair in Latin American Art at Tulane University. An expert in Latin American art, Professor Boone has earned numerous honors and fellowships, including the Order of the Aztec Eagle from the United States of Mexico and the Avery Prize for best book on Latin American art from the Association for Latin American Art in 2001. Her most recent book, Cycles of Time and Meaning in the Mexican Books of Fate (2007), explores how pre-contact Mesoamericans used pictographic calendars to guide their decisions in life. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas in 1977.

The position of Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor was established in 2002 through a grant from the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation. The Safra Professor serves for up to six months, forging connections between the research of the curatorial staff and that of visiting scholars at CASVA. At the same time, the Safra Professor advances his or her own research on subjects associated with the Gallery’s permanent collection. The Safra Professor may also present seminars or curatorial lectures for graduate students and emerging scholars and curators from other institutions. The Safra Professor’s area of expertise varies from year to year, spanning the Gallery’s permanent collection—from sculpture, to painting, to works on paper of all periods.

Hans Belting is a professor at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe, and was formerly director of the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften in Vienna. He is a member of the Academia Europaea, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. His 2004 book, Bild und Kult: Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (translation: Picture and Cult: A History of the Picture Before the Age of Art) investigates the religious role of the image in a pre-art world. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Mainz in 1959.

Joseph Leo Koerner is professor of history of art and architecture at Harvard University and has also taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Cambridge University, and University College in London. He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006 and was a fellow at Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin (2003–2004) and Clare College, Cambridge University (2002–2003). Koerner received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988.

CASVA MEMBERS FOR 2007–2008

Members of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) for the 2007–2008 academic year are listed below with their current affiliations and research topics.

Paul Mellon Senior Fellow
Marcia Kupfer
Washington, DC
Medieval Cartographies: Imagining the Orbis Terrarum and the Christianization of Space

Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellows
Beth L. Holman
New York, New York
"Honest Envy": Artists' Competitions in Renaissance Italy

Felipe Pereda
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Flemish Exports and Local Markets: The Religious and Ideological Conditions of Spanish Patronage

Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellows
Stanko Kokole
University of Primorska, Slovenia
Marbled Imagery of Humanists' Imagination in the Tempio Malatestiano at Rimini

Alex Potts (fall 2007)
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
Art and Non-Art in the Mid-Twentieth Century: Between Commitment and Consumerism

Dennis Romano
Syracuse University
Markets and Marketplaces in Medieval Italy, c. 1100–c. 1350

Edmond J. Safra Guest Scholar, spring 2008
Carl Brandon Strehlke
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Fifteenth-Century Art in the Crown of Aragon

Paul Mellon Visiting Senior Fellows, fall 2007
Laura Coyle
American Federation of Arts
A Passion for Flowers: Painting in France from Courbet to Monet

Guido Rebecchini
Università di Siena
The Artistic and Literary Patronage of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, 1529–1535

Ailsa Mellon Bruce Visiting Senior Fellows, fall 2007
Michael Kiene
Universität zu Köln
"Palaces of Wisdom": College and University Building in Italy, 1300–1800

Pietro Roccasecca
Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma
Visual and Representational Theories in Leon Battista Alberti's De pictura

Postdoctoral Fellows
Douglas Brine
A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, 2007–2009
The Content and Context of Wall-Mounted Memorials in Northern Europe, 1360–1530

Amy Freund
A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, 2006–2008
Revolutionary Likenesses: Portraiture and Politics in France, 1789–1804

Predoctoral Fellows (in residence)
Bridget Alsdorf
Twenty-Four-Month Chester Dale Fellow, 2006–2008
[University of California–Berkeley]
The Art of Association: Fantin-Latour and French Group Portraiture, 1855–1885

Ross Barrett
Wyeth Fellow, 2006–2008
[Boston University]
Rendering Violence: Riots, Strikes, and Upheaval in Nineteenth-Century American Art and Visual Culture

Zeynep Çelik
Paul Mellon Fellow, 2005–2008
[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]
Kinaesthetic Impulses: Aesthetic Experience, Bodily Knowledge, and Pedagogical Practices in Germany, 1871–1918

Cécile Fromont
Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, 2006–2008
[Harvard University]
Christian Icons, Kongo Symbols: Defining Form, Religion, and Meaning in Early Modern Central Africa

Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi
Ittleson Fellow, 2006–2008
[University of California–Los Angeles]
Crossing Borders, Pushing Boundaries: Senufo Arts and History in a "Frontier"

Rebecca M. Molholt
David E. Finley Fellow, 2005–2008
[Columbia University]
On Stepping Stones: The Historical Experience of Roman Mosaics

Sara Switzer
Samuel H. Kress Fellow, 2006–2008
[Columbia University]
Correggio and the Sacred Image

Predoctoral Fellows (not in residence)
Lucia Allais
Twelve-Month Chester Dale Fellow, 2007–2008
[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]
Will to War, Will to Art: Cultural Internationalism and the Modernist Aesthetics of Monuments, 1932–1964

Ivan Drpić
David E. Finley Fellow, 2007–2010
[Harvard University]
Kosmos of Verse: Art and Epigram in Late Byzantium

S. Adam Hindin
Samuel H. Kress Fellow, 2007–2009
[Harvard University]
Knowledge, Memory, and Ethnic Commitment in Bohemian Visual Culture, 1200–1450

Ashley Elizabeth Jones
David E. Finley Fellow, 2006–2009
[Yale University]
"Lord, Protect the Wearer": Late-Antique Numismatic Jewelry and the Image of the Emperor as Talismanic Device

Joan Kee
Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, 2007–2009
[New York University, Institute of Fine Arts]
Points, Lines, Encounters: The Paintings of Lee Ufan and Park Seobo

Michele Matteini
Ittleson Fellow, 2007–2009
[New York University, Institute of Fine Arts]
Painting in the Age of Evidential Scholarship (Kaozheng): Luo Ping's Late Years, c. 1770–1799

Cammie McAtee
Wyeth Fellow, 2007–2009
[Harvard University]
The "Search for Form" in Postwar American Architecture

Albert Narath
Paul Mellon Fellow, 2007–2010
[Columbia University]
Rediscovering the Baroque: Architecture, History, and Politics in Austria and Germany

Christina Normore
Robert H. and Clarice Smith Fellow, 2007–2008
[University of Chicago]
Feasting the Eye and Eyeing the Feast in Late Medieval Burgundy

Kristin Romberg
Paul Mellon Fellow, 2006–2009
[Columbia University]
Gan's Constructivism

Joyce Tsai
Twenty-Four-Month Chester Dale Fellow, 2007–2009
[The Johns Hopkins University]
Painting after Photography: László Moholy-Nagy, 1921–1936

Ailsa Mellon Bruce Predoctoral Fellowships for Historians of American Art to Travel Abroad
Ellery Foutch
[University of Pennsylvania]

Leta Ming
[University of Southern California]

Prudence Peiffer
[Harvard University]
Andrea Renner
[Columbia University]