Long-Term Research Fellowships at the Getty Research Institute

FAIN: RA-50143-14

Getty Publications (Los Angeles, CA 90049-1740)
Alexa Sekyra (Project Director: August 2013 to March 2021)

14 months of stipend support (1.5 fellowships) per year for three years and a contribution to defray costs associated with the selection of fellows.

This application seeks renewal funding from NEH to continue providing two residential postdoctoral fellowship opportunities for 9-months annually, over a period of three years at the Getty Research Institute (GRI) in Los Angeles. GRI-NEH fellows will receive cash stipends in the amount of $4,200 per month. The program value for two fellows annually is 18 stipend months ($75,600),and 54 stipend months (226,800)over the life of the program. The NEH funded stipend will be augmented by a non-cash stipend from the GRI in the total amount of $18,150 per fellow, which is the value of a furnished apartment unit in the Getty Scholar housing complex for 9 months, round-trip airfare to the Getty, and other amenities. NEH fellows will be selected annually by an independent selection committee convened by the GRI Scholars Program. While in residence, fellows will be part of the broader GRI scholar community, and will have priority access to the resources of the on-site GRI Research Library.

Media Coverage

Thirty-Eight Scholars Will Visit the Getty to Study the Materials of Art and the History of Clasical Egypt (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Rebecca Zamora
Publication: The Getty Iris; Behind the Scenes
Date: 5/28/2015
Abstract: This article provides an in-depth profile of the Getty Research Institute's residential scholars program, and introduces the Getty Scholars and Fellows selected for the 2015-2016 academic year. The scholar roster includes two Postdoctoral Fellowships made possible through generous support from NEH.
URL: http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/thirty-eight-scholars-will-visit-the-getty-to-study-the-materials-of-art-and-the-history-of-classical-egypt/

Associated Products

Drawing and the Senses: An Early Modern History (Book)
Title: Drawing and the Senses: An Early Modern History
Author: Caroline Fowler
Editor: N/A
Abstract: Leon Battista Alberti wrote in De pictura (1435) that painting is divine because, as they say of friendship, a painting lets the absent be present. Absence and Presence in Early-Modern Drawing Pedagogy examines this relationship between absent and present objects and subjects in early-modern artistic pedagogy. This book studies the intersections among artistic treatises, natural philosophy and theology from 1400-1700, arguing that drawing pedagogy sought to teach the painting of histories that stimulated in the viewer the sensation of being present before the historical moment, the person, the still life. The manifestation of presence remained not only in the sensation of sight but also in all the sensory perceptions of touch, taste, smell, and the sixth sense of sensing the experience of existence. This book demonstrates the pedagogical means by which artists sought to teach the simulation of presence (and the sensorial perception of absence).
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/drawing-and-the-senses-in-early-modern-history/oclc/951724677?referer=di&ht=edition
Primary URL Description: This URL links to the updated book citation in OCLC WorldCat.
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 1909400394
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

The Printed Eye and Impressions of Sense (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: The Printed Eye and Impressions of Sense
Author: Caroline Fowler
Abstract: Event Description: The 62nd annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America was held in Boston, MA, March 31–April 2, 2016. The meeting/conference featured ca. 680 sessions and 2,300 participants. Conference Panel: "Printed Drawing Books"; presentation abstract pending.
Date: 03/31/2016
Primary URL: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.rsa.org/resource/resmgr/Boston_2016_print_program_fi.pdf
Primary URL Description: This URL links to a PDF of the Conference program, which lists all of the 680 panel sessions with presenters and presentation topics.
Conference Name: 2016 Renaissance Studies of America Conference, Boston, MA

Raphael’s Apostles and Portraiture in the Eighteenth Century (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Raphael’s Apostles and Portraiture in the Eighteenth Century
Author: Caroline Fowler
Abstract: Symposium Abstract: This two-day international symposium was inspired by the important collections of British portraits at the Huntington Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art, and by an upsurge of scholarly interest in the interactive nature of portraiture—both in its intrinsic character and as a curatorial construct. Portraiture implies an interaction between the sitter and the spectator. It often rehearses an interaction between two or more protagonists and regularly focuses on the interaction between the person(s) represented, and his/her or their surroundings. The same portrait, or portraits of the same sitter, can also find themselves interacting with each other across different media—paint, print sculpture, and more. Furthermore, curators are continually thinking about the ways in which the portraits they display—and the individuals these pictures portray—relate with each other across and around a gallery. This symposium, was jointly organized by the Yale Center for British Art, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, and the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Date: 12/11/2015
Primary URL: https://enfilade18thc.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/48985-huntlib-insidepanel_r1.pdf
Primary URL Description: This URL links to the symposium program, which provides a full description of the symposium with roster of presenters and presentation titles.
Conference Name: "Portraiture as Interaction: The Spaces and Interfaces of the British Portrait"; The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA

Primitivism (Article)
Title: Primitivism
Author: Basu, Priyanka
Abstract: Primitivism in modern art designates a range of practices and accompanying modes of thought that span the period from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, and cut across artistic styles and groups. This encyclopedia entry presents instances of Primitivism that are representative of its features from this period.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/primitivism
Primary URL Description: Online encyclopedia article, digital access URL.
Access Model: Open
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism [Online]
Publisher: Routledge

‘Primitive’ Ornament and Physiological Aesthetics in August Schmarsow’s Art History (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: ‘Primitive’ Ornament and Physiological Aesthetics in August Schmarsow’s Art History
Author: Basu, Priyanka
Abstract: This presentation focused on works by German art historian August Schmarsow, in which physiological aesthetics came together with research in ‘primitive’ art. In these writings Schmarsow intervenes in a turn-of-the-twentieth-century German-speaking discourse on the “beginnings" of art and ornament, in which an interdisciplinary group of theorists examined recently discovered ‘primitive’ forms. The presentation discussed Schmarsow’s work in relationship to turn-of-the-century art theory, perceptual psychology, and ethnology.
Date: 4/8/2016
Primary URL: http://www.aah.org.uk/annual-conference/2016-conference
Primary URL Description: URL link to the full conference description and detail.
Secondary URL: http://www.aah.org.uk/annual-conference/sessions2016/session3
Secondary URL Description: URL link to the session and formal presentation abstract.
Conference Name: AAH2016 Annual Conference and Art Book Fair

The Locus of the Zamindar’s Sovereignty (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: The Locus of the Zamindar’s Sovereignty
Author: Chowdhury, Zirwat
Abstract: This presentation discussed the aesthetic function of silence in the topographical drawings that British painter, William Hodges, produced in and around Banaras, during his travels there amidst conflicts between the East India Company and the Raja of Banaras, Chait Singh.
Date: 11/11/2017
Primary URL: http://www.nacbs.org/conference
Primary URL Description: URL link to 2017 conference web page, which has a Word/PDF link to the 2016 conference sessions.
Conference Name: Interdisciplinary Conference for Scholars of British Studies

The Incommunicative Image (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: The Incommunicative Image
Abstract: This lecture discussed the politics of history painting in 18th-century Britain. It examined the challenges that British artists faced in representing “friendship” (as conversation) in the wake of Britain’s military conquests in India, particularly considering the importance given to painting for its ability to cultivate sympathy among viewers.
Author: Chowdhury, Zirwat
Date: 12/12/2016
Location: Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Primary URL: N/A

Peas, Rupees, and the Currency of East Indian Commerce in 1788 (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Peas, Rupees, and the Currency of East Indian Commerce in 1788
Abstract: This talk examined an etching by artist Joshua Kirby Baldrey that he circulated in London (and beyond) in 1788, during the impeachment of Warren Hastings, Governor General of the East India Company. It examined how Baldrey's print crucially sounded both the popular early modern print genre of "Cries" and contemporaneous debates about "specie" in order to illuminate the changing nature of commerce under colonialism.
Author: Chowdhury, Zirwat
Date: 2/24/2017
Location: University of Claifornia, Irvine
Primary URL: N/A

Colonial Panoramas (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Colonial Panoramas
Author: Chowdhury, Zirwat
Abstract: This guest lecture presented to students in a UCLA course on “Art and Empire,” taught by professor Saloni Mathur, focused on the history of panoramas and their relationship to empire.
Date: 10/6/2016
Primary URL: N/A

The Farnese Sarcophagus in Antiquity (Book Section)
Title: The Farnese Sarcophagus in Antiquity
Author: Patrick Crowley
Editor: Christina Nelson
Abstract: not available
Year: 2018
Publisher: Holberton
Book Title: Life, Death, and Revelry: the Farnese Sarcophagus

Factitious Gems and the Matter of Facts in Pliny's "Natural History" (Book Section)
Title: Factitious Gems and the Matter of Facts in Pliny's "Natural History"
Author: Patrick Crowley
Editor: Andreas Gruner
Editor: Anna Anguissola
Abstract: not available
Year: 2018
Publisher: Brepols
Book Title: The Nature of Art: Pliny the Elder on Materials

Ornament and Empathy in August Schmarsow's Psychophysical History of Art (Article)
Title: Ornament and Empathy in August Schmarsow's Psychophysical History of Art
Author: Priyanka Basu
Abstract: not available
Year: 2017
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Anthropology and Aesthetics

Art and/as Direct Action seminar (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Art and/as Direct Action seminar
Author: Nadja Millner-Larsen
Abstract: The relationship between art and political action is a topic of heated debate. Likewise, the question of the use of art—or its supposed uselessness—is a matter of continued controversy. In this graduate-level course, we ask how art might be said to act directly upon the world. How have critical art practices tested the categorically self-contained boundaries of art by asking challenging questions about art's purpose in the world, its separation from everyday life, its anti-instrumentality, or its ability to intervene in the politics of representation? The task of this course is two-fold: to both map some key post-war interventionist art practices and to query the conceptual parameters of what constitutes a "critically engaged" art practice. Throughout this course, we will examine a series of aesthetic strategies that have placed art at the center of political interventionism.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://as.nyu.edu/departments/xe/curriculum/courses-spring-2020/art-and-as-action.html
Primary URL Description: This URL leads directly to the course listing in the NYU online catalogue.
Audience: Graduate

Archives of German Anthropology and Colonialism in Philip Scheffner’s The Halfmoon Files (Article)
Title: Archives of German Anthropology and Colonialism in Philip Scheffner’s The Halfmoon Files
Author: Priyanka Basu
Abstract: This article examines German filmmaker Philip Scheffner’s 2007 film The Halfmoon Files: A Ghost Story about the Halfmoon Camp, a German WWI colonial prisoner-of-war camp. Extensive anthropological research was carried out upon its prisoners, and the camp was also the subject of popular colonial representations. Scholars and others made sound recordings, photographs, films, and drawings and recorded details of prisoners, this documentation now located in German archives. The film considers intertwined histories of German anthropology and colonialism at the camp by means of such documents and is also drawn to traces and mediated presences of individuals held there, evoked especially through sound recordings. Moreover, it looks searchingly at contemporary landscapes for traces and repression of this colonial history. Overall, the film is characterised by a sense of incompleteness of the archive, a layering of visual and aural techniques of display and absence, and metaphors of haunting, producing a ‘ghost story’.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2019.1667618
Access Model: Subscription-only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Third Text, 33(6): 727-743.
Publisher: Taylor&Francis Online

Anthropological Histories and Techniques in Philip Scheffner’s Films (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Anthropological Histories and Techniques in Philip Scheffner’s Films
Abstract: No abstract available.
Author: Priyanka Basu
Date: 12/03/2019
Location: Museum for Contemporary Art Siegen
Primary URL: https://arthist.net/archive/21885
Primary URL Description: "Ethnographic Crossover: Appropriation and Reception of the Other in Popular Culture and the Culture of the Modern" Lecture Series aims to answer the question of what influence ethnographic crossover and the reception of foreigners have had on popular modern culture since the late 19th century as well as its ideological implications.

Anthropological Histories and Techniques in Philip Scheffner’s Films (Book Section)
Title: Anthropological Histories and Techniques in Philip Scheffner’s Films
Author: Priyanka Basu
Editor: Barbara Larson
Editor: Marsha Morton
Abstract: No abstract provided. Author reports article "accepted, peer-reviewed, book manuscript under contract" as of May 11, 2020.
Year: 2020
Access Model: Open access
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Book Title: Constructing Race on the Borders of Europe: Ethnography, Anthropology, and Visual Culture, c. 1850–1930

The Phantom Image: Seeing the Dead in Ancient Rome (Book)
Title: The Phantom Image: Seeing the Dead in Ancient Rome
Author: Patrick Crowley
Abstract: Drawing from a rich corpus of art works, including sarcophagi, tomb paintings, and floor mosaics, Patrick R. Crowley investigates how something as insubstantial as a ghost could be made visible through the material grit of stone and paint. In this fresh and wide-ranging study, he uses the figure of the ghost to offer a new understanding of the status of the image in Roman art and visual culture. Tracing the shifting practices and debates in antiquity about the nature of vision and representation, Crowley shows how images of ghosts make visible structures of beholding and strategies of depiction. Yet the figure of the ghost simultaneously contributes to a broader conceptual history that accounts for how modalities of belief emerged and developed in antiquity. Neither illustrations of ancient beliefs in ghosts nor depictions of afterlife, these images show us something about the visual event of seeing itself. The Phantom Image offers essential insight into ancient art, visual culture, and the history of the image.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo43987655.html
Primary URL Description: This URL provides access to the record for this book in the University of Chicago Press catalog.
Access Model: Open access
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780226648323

Rock Crystal and the Nature of Artifice in Ancient Rome (Book Section)
Title: Rock Crystal and the Nature of Artifice in Ancient Rome
Author: Patrick Crowley
Editor: Avinoam Shalem
Editor: Cynthia Hahn
Abstract: No abstract provided.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.reimer-mann-verlag.de/controller.php?cmd=detail&titelnummer=302843&verlag=3
Primary URL Description: This URL provides access to the record for this book in the Gebr. Mann Verlag catalog.
Access Model: Open access
Publisher: Gebr. Mann Verlag
Book Title: Seeking Transparency: Rock Crystals across the Medieval Mediterranean
ISBN: 978-3-7861-284

The Art of Paper: From the Holy Land to the Americas (Book)
Title: The Art of Paper: From the Holy Land to the Americas
Author: Caroline Fowler
Abstract: The untold story of how paper revolutionized art making during the Renaissance, exploring how it shaped broader concepts of authorship, memory, and the transmission of ideas over the course of three centuries.
Year: 2019
Primary URL: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300246025/art-paper
Primary URL Description: This URL provides access to the record for this book in the Yale University Press catalog.
Access Model: Open access
Publisher: Yale University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780300246025

Decolonising Art History (Article)
Title: Decolonising Art History
Author: Priyanka Basu
Abstract: No abstract provided.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.12490
Primary URL Description: This URL leads directly to the essay (a collection of responses to a questionnaire) on the Wiley Online Library website.
Access Model: Open access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Art History 43, no. 1 (February 2020): 2–59
Publisher: Wiley Online Library

Blackness, Immobility, & Visibility in Europe: A Digital Collaboration (Article)
Title: Blackness, Immobility, & Visibility in Europe: A Digital Collaboration
Author: Zirwat Chowdhury
Abstract: This essay discusses the interactive timeline exploring “Blackness, Immobility, & Visibility in Europe (1600-1800)” launched on Journal18 in September 2020.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.journal18.org/5199
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Journal
Publisher: Journal18: a journal of eighteenth-century art and culture

"Parrhasius’ Curtain, or, a Media Archaeology of a Metapainting" (Book Section)
Title: "Parrhasius’ Curtain, or, a Media Archaeology of a Metapainting"
Author: Patrick Crowley
Editor: Pantelis Michelakis
Abstract: This chapter explores the media–archaeological foundations of trompe l’oeil painting in antiquity, specifically the famous contest between the Greek painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius as recounted by Pliny the Elder. The anecdote is well known: whereas Zeuxis had painted a picture of grapes that deceived the birds who flew up to peck at them, Parrhasius won the palm for deceiving his rival with a painting of a curtain that compelled Zeuxis to ask that it be raised and the picture shown for his appraisal. Modern accounts and even depictions of the contest have taken for granted the formal realism of this painting, its extreme illusionism, as the catalyst of its deceptive power. By contrast, this chapter examines Parrhasius’ curtain from a media–theoretical perspective, which considers the order of representation in relation to the experience of beholders in real space. In short, it argues that the success of Parrhasius’ picture had less to do with its technical virtuosity than its shrewd understanding of how to produce the conditions for depictive and bodily co-presence.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198846024.001.0001/oso-9780198846024-chapter-9
Access Model: Subscription
Publisher: Oxford Scholarship Online
Book Title: Classics and Media Theory
ISBN: 9780198846024

George Dance the Younger Sets Guildhall Alight (Article)
Title: George Dance the Younger Sets Guildhall Alight
Author: Zirwat Chowdhury
Abstract: This essay explores George Dance’s façade as one of the first examples of architecture in Britain to make reference to Indian architecture within the historiography of British architecture and the British Empire.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://www.journal18.org/issue11/george-dance-the-younger-sets-guildhall-alight/
Access Model: Open Access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal18, 11: The Architectural Reference (Spring 2021)
Publisher: Journal18

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