2018 SUMMER RESEARCH GRANT SCHOLAR PROFILES

Alicia Caticha, PhD, History of Art and Architecture, University of Virginia
Through her research of the sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet and his tenure at the Sévres Porcelain Manufactory, Alicia seeks to illuminate the intersections between Falconet’s sculptures in marble, porcelain, and sugar. Her summer funds will assist with her research at Sévres.

Danielle Charlap, PhD, Art History, University of Southern California
Daniele’s research highlights the influence of the U.S. International Cooperation Administration on international design, particularly Israeli design and craft. She will travel to San Francisco to conduct research at the Nathan Shapira archive at San Francisco State University. DARTS grant

Christine Garnier, PhD, History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
By analyzing a set of silver produced in the 1870s for John W. Mackay, the silver king of Virginia City, NV, Christine hopes to showcase how this material was entangled in discourses on national resources, handicraft, Indian removal, and empire in the 19th century. She will visit the Tiffany & Co. archive in Parsippany, NJ, to review unpublished records on the Mackay service.

Elyse Gerstenecker, PhD, Art and Architectural History, University of Virginia
Elyse is studying the production and consumption of ceramics by Lycett Studios and Newcomb Pottery within the dynamic context of the post-Reconstruction American South. She will travel to the Newcomb Art Museum at Tulane University in New Orleans to study their substantial collections. Marie Zimmermann grant 

Carrie Greif, MA, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
Carrie is researching the Knoll furniture acquired by Henry Francis du Pont from 1965–1969 for the Louise Dupont Crowninshield Research Building and Library at Winterthur. This summer, Carrie will visit the Knoll archives in East Greenville, PA. Marie Zimmermann grant

Mariah Gruner, PhD, American Studies, Boston University
Mariah uses needlework produced in the 1830s and 1840s for the abolitionist movement as a mode to investigate how the medium enabled radical re-imaginings of women’s political place. This summer, she will visit Colonial Williamsburg, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Peabody Essex Museum to study their holdings of abolitionist needlework.

Elizabeth Humphrey, MA, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
Through surveying the “Moorish Revival” in often overlooked locations, Elizabeth seeks to provide new insights on the expansive influence of Islamic design in American furnishings and architecture in the 19th century. She will travel to several sites in the Midwest that will serve as case studies for her research.

Matthew Limb, PhD, History of Art and Architecture, University of California Santa Barbara
Matthew will examine the interplay between race, sexuality, the surface, and the haptic by exploring the oeuvres of four ceramists working in the American West in the 1970s through the 1990s. He will visit archives and museums in Los Angeles, CA; Tempe, AZ; and Santa Fe, NM. DARTS grant

Erica Lome, PhD, History of American Civilization, University of Delaware
Erica’s dissertation explores how Colonial Revival furniture reproductions produced between 1890 and 1945 provided Americans with a way to actively showcase their American heritage. Erica will spend a week at Historic New England’s storage facility in Haverhill, MA, and inside their historic properties to view and study reproductions.

Steven McNeil, PhD, Art History, Queen’s University
By analyzing the interiors of early-19th-century residences occupied by the governors of Canada’s Maritime Provinces, including the furniture, paintings and silver, Steven’s dissertation suggests that the objects within these homes reflected the mixed cultural backgrounds of the colonial populations they resided over. Steven will venture to New Hampshire to study collections and archives related to the Wentworth Family.