John T. Paoletti Travel Research Fellowships
in Art History
Funds are available to support student research and travel in the summer following the junior year that will result in a senior thesis project. Only current juniors who are working with art history faculty and who will complete a senior thesis are eligible. These funds are made available through a gift from Judith Gurewich P'05, P'10 to the Art History Program at Wesleyan University in honor of John T. Paoletti, Kenan Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus and Professor of Art History, Emeritus. Paoletti Research Travel Fellowships are intended for advanced students who have demonstrated a commitment to art historical study and a strong aptitude for writing and research. In addition to a solid background in art history and knowledge of relevant foreign languages, students must have formulated an original, coherent, and methodologically informed research project related to the study of art objects, material culture, cultural sites, and/or architecture. Applicants must demonstrate that travel to archives and to specific collections and/or sites is necessary in order to complete successfully the proposed project.
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The 2025 John T. Paoletti Travel Research Fellowship Recipients:
Oliver Brown '26
My project, Gustave Caillebotte: Masculine Intimacy in Public and Private Spaces, explores how class, privacy, and masculinity intersect in the work of the 19th-century French painter Gustave Caillebotte. Central to my project is an analysis of Homme au bain (1884), a striking portrayal of the male nude that challenges traditional depictions of gender and intimacy within the Impressionist movement. I will investigate the relationship between masculine intimacy and homoeroticism in Caillebotte’s paintings, while also considering how class differences shape the visibility and anonymity of his working-class subjects. With the support of this grant, I will travel to Paris and Yerres, France, to conduct first hand research. I plan to visit the Musée d'Orsay, the Musée Marmottan Monet, and the Maison Caillebotte, where I will study major works, archives, and historical locations central to Caillebotte’s life and practice. I will also explore the public spaces of Haussmannian Paris that shaped his artistic vision. This trip will allow me to analyze Caillebotte’s paintings and personal environment directly, providing insights that cannot be gained through secondary sources alone. My research will also engage contemporary debates about queerness and French cultural memory, sparked by the Musée d'Orsay’s 2024 retrospective and its reception in French media. Ultimately, my project seeks to contribute to ongoing conversations about gender, sexuality, and class in 19th-century art, situating Caillebotte’s work within a broader history of masculine representation.
Lucy Schwalbe '26
Fiber artist Olga de Amaral elegantly hovers between tapestry and sculpture, art and craft, pre-Columbian tradition and European Modernism. In occupying these intermediary spaces, she defies the limitations of media and weaves the impossible. I plan to understand the traditions and vocabularies de Amaral explores through an immersive approach. Traveling to Colombia, where the artist was born, raised, and currently resides will allow me to experience the cultural context of her works. My trip will include visits to both archaeological and contemporary art museums, as well as local artisan markets. I will then participate in a hands-on weaving workshop at the Center for Traditional Textiles in Cusco, Peru. De Amaral has been prominently featured in major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Her recent retrospective at the Cartier Foundation in Paris has gained her further international attention. Despite this prominence, she remains widely underrepresented in art historical literature. Many authors are quick to assign her textile roots to Indigenous tradition with little elaboration. By visiting Colombia and personally engaging with Indigenous weaving practices, I hope to further explore how exactly de Amaral fits into this artistic tradition and simultaneously challenge the tendency to place her works within the broad category of Indigeneity.
Previous recipients since the fellowship's founding in 2012:
2024: Valerie Gottridge
"'Jane in Peepland': Re-presenting Jane Dickson's Times Square, 1992-1993"
2024: Emily Petersdorf
"Theorizing Textiles: Dorothy Liebes and Her Contributions to Modern Architecture"
2024: Sophie Raiskin-Wood
"Practices of Care: Reproductive Labor in Simone Leigh's Social Sculptures"
2023: Olivia Andrews, Art History Major
Project Title: "The Emergence of Cape Verdean Visual Culture Post-Independence"
2023: Bailey Chapin, Art History and French Double Major
Project Title: "Joan Mitchell in Paris and Vétheuil"
2023: Emma Flaherty, Art History Major
Project Title: "The Artist as Cultural and Religious Pilgrim: Dutch Artists in Renaissance Italy"
2023: Sabrina Tian, Art History and Double Major
Project Title: "Between Japan and America: On Kawara's Personal Conceptualism"
2022: Gabby Farina, Art History and English Double Major
Project title: "The Aesthetic of the Feminine: Female Spaces in the Art and Architecture of Al-Andalus"
2022: Sarah Hale, Art History and Italian Studies Double Major
Project Title: "Engravings of Dante's Commedia in Wesleyan’s 1481 Incunable"
2022: Mim Pomerantz, Art History and Art Studio Double Major
Project title: "Surrealism, Ethnography, and Photography"
2021: Josh Merkin, Art History Major and Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate
Project title: "The Body and the Archive: Contemporary Performance Art as Institutional Critique"
2021: Ann Zhang, Art History, Psychology, Science in Society Triple Major
Project title: "1920’s Shanghai, Reimagined & Recreated in 2020: Preservation & Gentrification of Wukang Mansion and the Surrounding Area in Former French Concession"
2020 Maya Hayda, Art History and English Double Major
Project title: "Reshaped and Reframed: Art, Industry, and the Changing American Landscape"
2020 Riley Richards, Art History Major and History Minor
Project title: "Newcomb Pottery: Women and Enterprise in the American Arts and Crafts Movement"
2019 Emma Frohardt, Art History Major, Hispanic Literatures and Cultures Major
Project title: "Art as Cultural Critic: Surveillance, Authorship and Collectivism in the Oeuvre of Equipo Crónica, 1964-81"
2019 Olivia Samios, Art History Major, French Studies Major
Project title: "The Nordic Home as a Total Work of Art: Codifications of Nationalism in Norwegian Home Design, 1880-1905"
2018 Sara Kim, Art History Major, College of East Asian Studies Minor and Data Analysis Minor
Project title: "The Impact of Jesuit Missionaries on the New Visual Culture in Japan: Namban Byōbu in the 16th and 17th Centuries"
2018 Rachel Rosin, Art History and English Double Major
Project title: "Mary Cassatt & the Impressionist Exhibitions: Defining 19th Century 'Girlhood'"
2017 Nicole Boyd, Art History and Italian Studies Double Major with a Writing Certificate
Project title: "Compositional Cross-Dressing: The Figures of Guido Cagnacci, the Pursuit of Invention, and the Construction of Artistic Identity in 17th Century Italy"
2017 Emily Furnival, College of Letters Major
Project title: "Fictitious Friars, Reconstructed Romans: The Architecture and Experience of the Getty Villa and Met Cloisters"
2017 Juntai Shen, Art History and College of Social Studies Double Major
Project title: "Modern vs. Rural: The Chinese Rural Architecture & Modernization since 1978--Three Case Studies"
2016 Nathan Johnson, Art History and College of Letters Double Major
Project title: "Purvis Young, Lonnie Holley, and Thornton Dial: When Outsider Artists Become Insiders"
2016 Sharifa Lookman, Art History and College of Letters Double Major
Project title: "Non finito: Botticelli and the Status of Drawing in the Italian Renaissance 'Here It Behoves Us, Use A Little Art'"
2015 Bryan Schiavone, Art History Major
Project title: "The Tree as Cultural Pillar Throughout Indian Art History"
2014 Rachel Hirsch, Art History and French Studies Double Major
Project title: "Mughal Illustrations of Hindu Epics: Tracing Iconographic Sources of the Razmnama and the Ramayana to the Indic Visual Landscape"
2013 Grace Kuipers, Art History Major
Project title: "The Philosophy Behind the Wall: Modernism, Industrialism, Primitivism and Albert Barnes' Wall Ensembles"
2012 Zoe Mueller, University Major with a Concentration in Urban Studies
Project title: "Highway Adaptation and Appropriation: Grassroots Transformation of Visual Culture in the American Rust Belt"