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.
Click here for more information.
Applications received by Friday, March 27th, 12 noon will receive first consideration.
The 2026 John T. Paoletti Travel Research Fellowship Recipients:
Ivy Eastland '27
Nell Brayton '27
Theo Lockrow '27
Wenqi He '27
Recipients since the fellowship's founding in 2012:
2025: Annie Hedgepeth
"Spatializing Memory: Geography and Diaspora in the Sculptures of Melvin Edwards"
2025: Lucy Schwalbe
"Crafting National Identity: Olga de Amaral’s Social Fabrics"
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
"The Emergence of Cape Verdean Visual Culture Post-Independence"
2023: Bailey Chapin, Art History and French Double Major
"Joan Mitchell in Paris and Vétheuil"
2023: Emma Flaherty, Art History Major
"The Artist as Cultural and Religious Pilgrim: Dutch Artists in Renaissance Italy"
2023: Sabrina Tian, Art History and Double Major
"Between Japan and America: On Kawara's Personal Conceptualism"
2022: Gabby Farina, Art History and English Double Major
"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
"Engravings of Dante's Commedia in Wesleyan’s 1481 Incunable"
2022: Mim Pomerantz, Art History and Art Studio Double Major
"Surrealism, Ethnography, and Photography"
2021: Josh Merkin, Art History Major and Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory Certificate
"The Body and the Archive: Contemporary Performance Art as Institutional Critique"
2021: Ann Zhang, Art History, Psychology, Science in Society Triple Major
"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
"Reshaped and Reframed: Art, Industry, and the Changing American Landscape"
2020 Riley Richards, Art History Major and History Minor
"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
"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
"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
"Mary Cassatt & the Impressionist Exhibitions: Defining 19th Century 'Girlhood'"
2017 Nicole Boyd, Art History and Italian Studies Double Major with a Writing Certificate
"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
"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
"Modern vs. Rural: The Chinese Rural Architecture & Modernization since 1978--Three Case Studies"
2016 Nathan Johnson, Art History and College of Letters Double Major
"Purvis Young, Lonnie Holley, and Thornton Dial: When Outsider Artists Become Insiders"
2016 Sharifa Lookman, Art History and College of Letters Double Major
"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
"The Tree as Cultural Pillar Throughout Indian Art History"
2014 Rachel Hirsch, Art History and French Studies Double Major
"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
"The Philosophy Behind the Wall: Modernism, Industrialism, Primitivism and Albert Barnes' Wall Ensembles"
2012 Zoe Mueller, University Major with a Concentration in Urban Studies
"Highway Adaptation and Appropriation: Grassroots Transformation of Visual Culture in the American Rust Belt"