The Smithsonian American Art Museum announces the appointment of 22 new fellows for the 2008–2009 academic year. The museum’s program grants awards for scholars and students to pursue research at the museum, including senior, predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships.

The 2008–2009 museum fellows are:

• Makeda Best, predoctoral fellow, Harvard University; “Alexander Gardner—Photography into History, 1858–1868”
  
  
• Sarah Carter, predoctoral fellow, Harvard University; “A Basket, a Needle, a Penknife: Object Lessons in 19th-Century American Material and Visual Culture”
  
  
• Ellery Foutch, Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania; “Arresting Beauty: The Perfectionist Impulse in Peale’s Butterflies, Heade’s Hummingbirds, Blaschka’s Flowers and Sandow’s Body”
  
  
• Joanna Frang, Terra Foundation for American Art Predoctoral Fellow, Brandeis University; “Becoming American on the Grand Tour, 1740–1830”
  
  
• Jason Goldman, predoctoral fellow, University of Southern California; “Arousing Possibilities: Deviant Sexuality and Underground American Art, 1955–1969”
  
  
• Kenneth Haltman, Terra Foundation for American Art Senior Fellow, University of Oklahoma; “Preparing a Critical Translation of René Brimo, ‘L’Évolution du goût aux États-Unis’”
  
  
• Valerie Hellstein, Patricia and Phillip Frost Predoctoral Fellow, Stony Brook University; “The Politics of Metaphysics in the Club: John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Ad Reinhardt”
  
  
• Jamie Jones, predoctoral fellow, Harvard University; “American Whaling in Commerce, Culture and Memory: Contexts in American Art of the Inland and Maritime Frontiers”
  
  
• Jason LaFountain, predoctoral fellow, Harvard University; “A History of New England Puritan Art”
  
  
• Crawford Alexander Mann III, Terra Foundation for American Art Predoctoral Fellow, Yale University; “When in Rome: Italian Travel and the Pursuit of the Ideal Male Body in Antebellum American Art”
  
  
• Holly Markovitz, Douglass Foundation Predoctoral Fellow, Boston University; “Reframing the Frontier: Rephotography, Repetition and Return”
  
  
• Leo Mazow, senior fellow, Palmer Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University; “Thomas Hart Benton and the American Sound”
  
  
• Frank Mehring, Terra Foundation for American Art Postdoctoral Fellow, Free University Berlin; “Transatlantic Encounters with the Colors of Democracy: The Life of the German American Artist Winold Reiss (1886–1953)”
  
  
• Leta Ming, predoctoral fellow, University of Southern California; “Performing Counterculturalism: San Francisco Conceptual Art, 1969–1979”
  
  
• Nancy Palm, predoctoral fellow, Indiana University; “Unsettling Identities: Indian Iconography in Thomas Cole’s National Landscapes”
  
  
• Jody Patterson, Terra Foundation for American Art Postdoctoral Fellow, University College London; “Modernism for the Masses: Painters, Politics and Public Murals in New Deal New York”
  
  
• Janneken Smucker, James Renwick Predoctoral Fellow in American Craft, University of Delaware; “From Rags to Riches: Amish Quilts and the Crafting of Value”
  
  
• Jeannine Tang, Terra Foundation for American Art Predoctoral Fellow, Courtauld Institute of Art; “Conceptual and Post-Conceptual Art in the Cold War”
  
  
• Robin Veder, senior fellow, The Pennsylvania State University; “Embodied Modernism: American Art, Exercise and Dance, 1880–1940”
  
  
• Annemarie Voss, predoctoral fellow, Rutgers University; “Incremental Remedies: Women Artists and Ecology Since 1980”
  
  
• Miranda Wallace, postdoctoral fellow, Queensland Art Gallery; “A Time of Images: Photography and Film in American Art Since 1970”
  
  
• Mary Peterson Zundo, predoctoral fellow, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; “Mapping Destiny: Cartography and 19th-Century American Art of the Frontier”

In addition, John Fagg (The University of Nottingham), Betsy Fahlman (Arizona State University) and Marc McClure (Lees McRae College) have received short term research appointments at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Since 1970, the museum has hosted more than 340 scholars who now occupy positions in academic and cultural institutions across the United States. Fellowship opportunities available at the Smithsonian American Art Museum include the Terra Foundation for American Art Fellowships for the cross-cultural study of art of the United States; the Patricia and Phillip Frost Fellowship for research in American art and visual culture; the Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship for the study of the traditions of American art; the Sara Roby Fellowship in American Realism; the Douglass Foundation fellowship in American art; and the James Renwick Fellowship in American Craft. The museum also hosts fellows supported by the Smithsonian’s general fellowship fund.

Research resources at the museum include extensive photographic collections documenting American art and artists and unparalleled art research databases. An estimated 180,000-volume library specializing in American art, history and biography is shared with the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. An active publications program of books, catalogs and the critically acclaimed journal American Art complements the museum’s exhibitions and educational programs. To request a brochure with information about museum fellowships, call (202) 633-8353 or write to saamfellowships@si.edu. The deadline for applications is Jan. 15, 2009.

About the Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum celebrates the vision and creativity of Americans with approximately 41,500 artworks in all media spanning more than three centuries. Its main building, a National Historic Landmark and major example of Greek Revival architecture, is a dazzling showcase for American art and portraiture located at Eighth and F streets N.W. in the heart of a revitalized downtown arts district. It is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., except Dec. 25.

The museum’s branch for craft and decorative arts, the Renwick Gallery, is steps from the White House in the heart of historic federal Washington. Its Second Empire-style building, also a National Historic Landmark, is located at Pennsylvania Avenue and 17th Street N.W. It is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., except Dec. 25. Museum information (recorded): (202) 633-7970. Web site: americanart.si.edu.

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SI-264-2008