FACULTY NEWS

The Strong National Museum of Play has awarded assistant professor Freyja Hartzell a residential research fellowship to pursue research this summer on her second book, Doll Parts: Designing Likeness. She will give three papers related to her findings in the coming months: “‘Nothing but a DOLL!’ Defining and Designing Likeness,” for the International Toy Research Association’s ninth world conference, August 8–10; “Welcome to the Dollhouse: Displaying Human Likeness,” at the 2023 Design History Society Conference in Matosinhos, Portugal, September 7–9; and “‘The Real Canvas is the Child’: Dollmaking for Disability and Physical Difference,” for Hidden Worlds: Histories of Disability Things and Material Culture Workshop at the University of Manchester, September 13–15. Well done, Freyja!

Professor emeritus Paul Stirton gave the keynote lecture “The Private Press, the Bauhaus and Die neue Typographie,” April 26 at the conference, Jan Tschichold’s New Typography: Its Roots and Impact on National Scenes, at ECAL/University of Art and Design, Lausanne, Switzerland. His talk will be published by the Swiss National Publishing House next year as the first stage in a three-year research project based in ECAL.

Imhof Verlag recently released associate professor Ittai Wenryb’s new book, Die Hildesheimer Avantgarde: Kunst und Kolonialismus im mittelalterlichen Deutschland (The Hildesheim avant-garde: Art and colonialism in medieval Germany). Congratulations, Ittai!

STUDENT NEWS

Angela Crenshaw (MA ’24) presented two papers: “Chocolate, Coconuts, and Colonialism: Cocos Chocolateros in the Spanish Americas” at the Yale University Pre/Early Modern Forum Graduate Conference on April 15; and “Agency in Adornment: Convents and Escudos de Monjas in New Spain” at the Mary L. Cornille 39th Annual Boston University Graduate Symposium in the History of Art and Architecture on April 21.

ALUMNI NEWS

Doctoral candidate Martina D’Amato (MA ’12), managing director of Cora Ginsburg, designed its most recent catalogue and contributed entries along with BGC alum William (Billy) DeGregorio (MA ‘12, PhD ’21) and professor emerita Michele Majer. Several pieces have already found new homes!

Juliana Fagua Arias (MA ’22) curated Hilando rituales: Diez años Bi Yuu, on view May 5–August 27 at the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City. Congratulations, Juliana!

Brian Gallagher (MA ’99, MPhil ’12) was the featured speaker and lead panelist at of the Potteries of Trenton Society’s annual lecture on April 22. Gallagher, senior curator of decorative arts at the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC, gave a sneak peek of his upcoming exhibit, Walter Scott Lenox and American Belleek, which opens on September 23, 2023. It features more than eighty works from the museum’s expansive collection and notable public and private collections from across the United States.

Genevieve Ward Swenson (MA ’05) has joined Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation as the assistant to the executive director. The Soane Foundation supports Sir John Soane’s Museum in London through a spirited program of lectures, travel opportunities, fellowships, and events inspired by Sir John Soane and his world. Congratulations, Genevieve!

Madeline Warner (MA ’20) has joined the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum as the manager of sponsorship. Congratulations, Maddy!

Rebecca Tilles (MA ’06) has been appointed curator of the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, beginning in August 2023. The Gilbert collection is famous for European and British masterpieces including gold and silver, gold boxes, painted enamels, and mosaics. Well done, Rebecca!

BGC alumni Leigh Wishner (MA ’04) and John Stuart Gordon (MA ’03) contributed to the new publication A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes. This is the first major publication devoted to weaver and designer, Dorothy Liebes, reinstating her as one of the most influential American designers of the twentieth century. An exhibition of the same name, co-curated with Alexa Griffith Winton (MA ’03), will be on view at the Cooper Hewitt from July 7 through February 4 and will feature more than 125 works, including textiles, textile samples, fashion, furniture, documents, and photographs.

Ajiri Aki (MA ’09) released her second book on April 18, 2023, JOIE: A Parisian’s Guide to Celebrating the Good Life (available through Penguin/Random House and Amazon).

Hannah Wirta Kinney (MA ’14) published an article with Alexandra Letvin, “Interpretation as Introspection: Transforming Narratives of American Art at the Allen Memorial Art Museum” for Panorama (Spring 2023 9.1) about an exhibition incoming MA student Lucy Haskell worked on. Another article, “The Fleshiness of Bronze” in The Matter of Mimesis (Brill, 2023) grew out of the ideas she first explored in her BGC QP.

Dare Turner (MA ’17) was appointed the Brooklyn Museum’s first-ever full-time curator of Indigenous art.

Dylan Leah Brekka (MA ’19) started a new position as gallery manager at Nicholas Hall Ltd. in New York.

Caroline Elenowitz-Hess (PhD candidate) published “’Something Really Very Odd and Singularly Appropriate:’ The Fashionable Swastika in the US Before 1939” for the Journal of Design History.