2024 Research Grant Recipients

After celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Research Grants program in 2023, the Decorative Arts Trust was able to increase the range of grant amounts from $1,000 up to $2,000 and the total budget from $15,000 to $20,000 in 2024. The Trust congratulates these 14 recipients of this year’s Research Grants: 

• Steven Baltsas, MA student, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware, European émigré cabinetmakers and the Renaissance Revival furniture in America
• Juliana Fagua Arias, PhD student, History of Art and Visual Studies, Cornell University, transpacific trade including Chinese silks, Indian cottons, Japanese lacquerware, Colombian emeralds, and Mexican cochinea
• Rachel Hunter Himes, PhD student, Art History and Archeology, Columbia University, meaning and representations of race in 18th- and 19th-century porcelains, clocks, textiles, and wallpapers
• Allyson LaForge, PhD student, American Studies, Brown University, Passamaquoddy birchbark artist Tomah Joseph’s awikhigan (birchbark writing)
• Andrea Jung-An Liu, PhD student, History of Art, University of California Berkeley, decorative arts in Modernist Japanese architecture
• Lauren Lovings-Gomez, PhD student, Art History, Rice University, the materiality and innovation demonstrated by women artists in Britain from 1853 to 1912 (The Marie Zimmermann Grant)
• Molly Martien, PhD student, Art History, University of Delaware, John Hemming’s furniture and joiner’s shop at Monticello
• Matthew Monk, PhD student, History of American Civilization, University of Delaware, Appalachian Craft Revival movement woodworking and weaving from 1895 to 1930
• Carole Nataf, PhD student, History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art, circum-Atlantic networks of cochineal and indigo dyestuffs in the “Nouvelle Indes” Gobelins tapestry set from 1737
• Ariana Pemberton, PhD student, History of Art, University of California Berkeley, analyzing the “Elephant of Charlemagne” ivory chess piece purportedly gifted by the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid to the Roman emperor Charlemagne
• Anastatia Spicer, MA student, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware, the Philadelphia ingrain carpet weaving industry from 1870 to 1885
• Emily Whitted, PhD student, History, University of Massachusetts Amherst, early American darning samplers from Westtown School
• Margot E. Yale, PhD student, Art History, University of Southern California, studio jewelry designer Margaret De Patta’s production line with the California Labor School (The American Decorative Arts Forum of Northern California Grant)
• Danielle Zhang, PhD student, History, University of California, Los Angeles, Qing dynasty (1636–1912) vernacular crafts that incorporate imagery of literati art (The Decorative Arts Society of Orange County Grant) 

​The application deadline for Research Grants is April 30 annually. For more information on grants and scholarships from the Decorative Arts Trust, read about our Emerging Scholars Program, generously supported by Trust members and donors. For grant announcements and deadline reminders, sign up for our e-newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. The deadline for the 2024 Prize for Excellence and Innovation is approaching on June 30.