Once a narrowly defined subfield of art history, the study of American art has evolved in recent decades to better reflect the incredible diversity of perspectives, artists, and media that have animated cultural production in the United States. Since 1992, ACLS has partnered with the Henry Luce Foundation to support future leaders in this dynamic field through the Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowships in American Art, which offer doctoral students studying American artistic production the rare opportunity to conduct their research and writing anywhere in the country.
Since the program’s inception, the fellowships have supported more than 300 scholars whose work has the clear potential to advance the field of American art history, including all facets of Native American art. Alumni of this program include some of the country’s most distinguished college and university faculty, museum curators, and leaders in the arts and cultural sector.
“We are proud to celebrate our longstanding relationship with the Henry Luce Foundation and are honored to be a part of a legacy that has supported some of the most transformational scholarship in the field of American art history,” said ACLS President Joy Connolly. “The research supported by this fellowship has opened up new vistas and deepened our understanding of our shared cultural history. We look forward to continuing this important work in the years ahead.”
The research supported by this fellowship has opened up new vistas and deepened our understanding of our shared cultural history. We look forward to continuing this important work in the years ahead. ACLS President Joy Connolly
The Henry Luce Foundation recently awarded ACLS a $1.2 million grant to continue the program, now embarking on its 33rd year of supporting future leaders in the field. The fellowships offer 9-12 months of support for graduate students in any field of the humanities who are pursuing dissertations on the history of the visual arts of the United States.
“The Henry Luce Foundation remains wholeheartedly committed to support for doctoral education in American art through the dissertation fellowships administered by our excellent partners at ACLS,” said Teresa Carbone, Program Director for American Art at the Henry Luce Foundation. “The Foundation is pleased, each year, to recognize excellence, new thinking, and new voices in the field, and to provide flexible funding that best serves the plans and needs of these rising field leaders.”
ACLS spoke with several alumni of the program, who reflected on the impact of the support that Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellowships provide.
“One receives all sorts of messages about the validity of your person and ideas as a woman of color in academia,” said Marci Kwon F’14, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at Stanford University. “Receiving this award gave me confidence that there was a place for me and my work in this field. This confidence affirmed the importance of following my own path in art history, which eventually led me to co-found the Asian American Art Initiative at Stanford.”
Kwon’s dissertation project, which became her book Enchantments, was the first major work to examine Joseph Cornell’s relationship to American modernism. She is currently writing a history of artists in post-earthquake San Francisco Chinatown, alongside her work at the Asian American Art Initiative and as the co-editor of the Martin Wong Catalogue Raisonné.
The fellowships aim to support research that advances new and innovative directions in the field of art history. Recently awarded topics explore conceptions of cultural heritage expressed through Chinese-American architecture in Northern California, art and architecture of grief in Colonial New York, and AIDS-related art histories through the lens of African-American photographers. Many projects also include publicly engaged research and innovative methods, including community-based digital collections and curated exhibitions.
“It was not only a prestigious award, but one that a number of scholars whose work mattered to me, who I felt were really at the forefront of changing the field, had received, so I knew that the Luce Foundation and ACLS would be open to my work, which is also invested in changing how we think about studying and framing American art,” said Huey Copeland F’03, F’13, Andrew W. Mellon Chair and Professor of Modern Art and Black Study at the University of Pittsburgh.
The award, in many ways, gave me a certain kind of attention, confidence, and visibility in terms of launching my professional career. I would not have been able to get the dissertation to the place it was by the end of that academic year without the support of the Luce/ACLS Fellowship.
Copeland’s dissertation focused on figures of slavery in the art of Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, and Fred Wilson. His upcoming book uses Black queer feminist methods to explore the intersections of race and gender, history and memory, subjectivity and sexuality, and art and culture.
For Copeland, and many other fellows, receiving the Luce/ACLS fellowship as an emerging scholar helped jumpstart his career.
“The award, in many ways, gave me a certain kind of attention, confidence, and visibility in terms of launching my professional career,” said Copeland. “I would not have been able to get the dissertation to the place it was by the end of that academic year without the support of the Luce/ACLS Fellowship. In fact, it enabled me to produce enough writing that I was able to present it successfully at that year’s CAA conference, where I was recruited for my first job at Northwestern University.”
Helen Molesworth F’95 was awarded a Luce/ACLS Fellowship in 1995 for her dissertation on French sculptor and painter Marcel Duchamp. She worked as the Chief Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles from 2014-18, and is currently a writer, podcaster, and curator.
“The fellowship ensured that I had one year of reading and writing with no other commitments,” said Molesworth. “Ultimately, my dissertation resulted in many articles and two major museum exhibitions. In other words, it was a goldmine of ideas that set me off on my professional path.”
ACLS and the Luce Foundation are proud to continue this critical program that has not only helped advance individual career paths but has also contributed to new directions and expanded areas of research in the field of art history. We look forward to announcing the next generation of American art historians with our 2025 awardees this spring.
