Society of Fellows

News & Events

Submit news

To submit announcements, professional, or personal news click here

 

SOF Events - May 2012

What's coming up in May

More

 

 
 
WASHINGTON DC
Friday May 18, 6-8pm
Reception at the home of Christian Zapatka, FAIA, FAAR'91
on the occasion of the AIA 2012 National Convention and Design Exposition
 

1413 35th Street NW

Washington DC
 
The Society of Fellows would like to offer a special thank you to Mr. Zapatka for hosting this reception.
 
Less

SOF Events - April 2012

  • Exhibit: Patricia Cronin, FAAR'07 at Tulane University
  • Gordon Powell, FAAR'88 at the Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, Illinois
  • As You Desire Me, Maureen Selwood, FAAR'03, at Redcat in LA on April 30
  • "There" maquette for axonometric bronze relief by Luise Kaish, FAAR'72 at The Century Association, NYC

What's going on in April

More

 

 
 
 
ELMHURST, ILLINOIS
April 6 - June 9, 2012 
Gordon Powell, FAAR'88
Details
Solo exhibition curated by Aaron Ott
 
150 Cottage Hill Avenue
Elmhurst, Illinois 60126
(630) 834-0202
 
LEESVILLE, LOIUSIANA
April 11 - May 12, 2012
Been There...Painted That...  Paintings and Drawings From Other Lands  
an exhibition with works by James R Turner, FAAR '76
 
Gallery One E111even, 111 Third Street
337 208-1762
 
 
NEW YORK
April 19 - May 24
Opening April 19 5-7pm.
Luise Kaish, FAAR'70 and Morton Kaish
CENTURY MASTERS:  K x 2: II
The Century Association

7 West 43 Street
212 944-0090

 

NEW ORLEANS
April 25 - June 30, 2012
Patricia Cronin, FAAR'07
Newcomb Art Gallery, Tulane University
 
Featuring two major series of work from 2000 to 2009: Memorial to a Marriage and Harriet Hosmer. The exhibition will unite Cronin’s work as it intersects ideas of memory, the recovery and writing of women’s history and contemporary discourses about gay and lesbian representation. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition with essays by Helen Molesworth, Chief Curator of the ICA Boston, and Alexander Nemerov, Professor of Art History at Yale University. This exhibition is supported by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation.

 

NEW YORK
Thursday, April 26, 6pm
Rome Prize Ceremony

The Harmonie Club
4 East 60 Street
New York City 

The evening will feature Desdemona, a conversation with
Peter Sellars and Toni Morrison. 

A reception will follow the event. 
Business attire (jacket and tie required for gentlemen). 
 

 

a program of films by Maureen Selwood, FAAR'03

A selection of recent works including As You Desire Me (2009) a single-channel version of an installation, the result of her residence at the AAR as a fellow in visual arts, plus the premiere of a new film A Modern Convenience, which will be accompanied by live performers.

 
631 West 2nd Street
Los Angeles
213 237-2800
Less

SOF News - April 2012

  • Joseph Caldwell FAAR'80 and The Pig Trilogy
  • Le Testement, 1923 facsimile edition, published by Margaret Fisher, FAAR'09
  • Shane Butler, FAAR'99 and Gail Feigenbaum, FAAR'80 at the Renaissance Society of American reception in Washington, DC.
  • Wendy Heller, FAAR'01 with Stephanie Leone, FAAR'99 at the Renaissance Society reception.

What's been happening with Fellows and Residents

More

 

 

The Pig Trilogy by Joseph Caldwell, FAAR'80 in now available in paperback, e-book, and audio. It is his first trilogy and includes The Pig Did It, The Pig Comes to Dinner, and The Pig Goes to Hog Heaven. Says Caldwell, "This video stars me and a live pig." Also featured is Malachy McCourt talking about Caldwell's work.
 
John Peck, FAAR '79 has published his tenth book of poems, Contradance, University of Chicago Press, 2011, and his eleventh, I Came, I Saw: Eight Poems, Shearsman Books, UK, 2012. C. G. Jung's Red Book or Liber Novus; A Reader's Edition, Norton and Company, New York, is forthcoming in Fall 2012. It will reproduce the facsimile edition of 2009 in a smaller format. Peck is one of the co-translators; the editor and chief translator is Sonu Shamdasani, University of London. Peter Campion of Poetry says, “John Peck may be the best American poet whose name you’ve never heard.”
 
 

In January Susan Yelavich, FAAR'04 was appointed director of the new Masters in Design Studies program at Parsons, which examines the forces that design exerts in and on the world. The inaugural class will be welcomed this September. She can be contacted here for more details.

Jeanne Giordano, FAAR'87 recently completed the design of the shop, custom items, and all merchandising for the Signature Theatre Company, at the new Pershing Square Center on West 42nd Street in New York City. Designed by Gehry Partners, the project includes three theaters, two rehearsal spaces, and theatre offices, in a 7,000 square foot public space. 
 

From Pierre Jalbert, FAAR’01, “My Clarinet Trio was recently taken on a European tour by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and included a performance at London’s Wigmore Hall.” A list of upcoming performances of his work can be found here.
 
 
Margaret Fisher, FAAR’09 has recently published Le Testement, 1923 facsimile edition with audio CD – music by Ezra Pound; edited by George Antheil, and Radia – A Gloss of the 1933 Futurist Radio Manifesto, by Pino Masnata, translated and introduction by Margaret Fisher.
 
 
 
Susan B. Downey, FAAR'65 writes,“After spending a number of years teaching Art History at UCLA, I am retiring, with some regrets. I still look back, with great pleasure, to my time at the American Academy.”
 
 
Ace Torre, FAAR'76 was recently awarded a commission to redesign the Audubon 200, Aquarium, IMAX theater, and insectariums in New Orleans.  Torre Design Consortium is underway with other institution designs in New Bedford, Massachusetts; Atlanta, Ga; Oklahoma City, OK; Los Angeles, CA; and Memphis, TN. The firm recently celebrated 32 years in business, 120 design awards.

Paul R. V. Pawlowski FAAR'69 announces Studio Pawlowski has been re-established in Portland, Oregon and is offering Planning and Design Consultancy services to clients in Oregon, Rhode Island, Hawai'i, and Qatar.

 
Patricia Cronin FAAR'07 had a solo exhibition, Patricia Cronin: Bodies and Soul, at Connor Contemporary Art in Washington, DC.
 

 

Less

A few diversions

Summer school 1989. photo Pamela Starr FAAR'84

 

A MAGAZINE OF SORTS

 

 

More

 

"Rome and Other Stories." Jeremy Mende FAAR'11 

Fountain Challenge

Andrew Kranis FAAR'09 talks about his Rome Prize project.

A View from the Window

Song for Norm

Studio visit Michael Kessler FAAR'91

Bread

Anonymous video.

Galileo's 400th

the immortal STAIR DANCE

Less

SOF News - February 2012

  • Reception at the CAA meetings in Los Angeles. Photo by Julia Cotts
  • At the CAA reception: Bill Hart reads a lovely letter below a monitor playing La Dolce Vita

 

What's been happening with Fellow and Residents
More

On January 11 the SOF sponsored a guided visit to Aphrodite and the Gods of Love, the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, curated by Christine Kondoleon, RAAR'07. Dr. Kondoleon led a group of fifteen fellows and residents through the exhibition, offering her insights into the goddess Aphrodite in her various roles as well as sharing information about the genesis and making of this extraordinary exhibition, which demonstrated the high quality of the MFA's collection of ancient art and included loans of significant works from the Italian government. Many of the fellows and residents in attendance remarked that they felt like they were back at the American Academy in Rome, exchanging ideas and learning from the expertise of fellows and friends. 

Last year Bunny Harvey, FAAR'76 had solo shows at Chazan Gallery in Providence, Rhode Island and Korongo Gallery in Randolph, Vermont. She has an upcoming solo show at the Newport Arts Museum in Newport, Rhode Island.

Recent publications by Douglas Lewis, FAAR'66 include "The Villa Giustinian at Roncade," Annali di Architettura, Vincenza, Italy, vol. 22 (2010) pp. 45-62 and 177; "Out of the Shadows: Drawings After the 1656-1664 Prisons in Vincenza by B. Longhena," Festschrift Höfler, Ljubljana, Slovenia; "Joseph R. Mason, The First Artistic Collaborator of John JamesAudubon" accepted at The Southern Quarterly, Hattiesburg, Mississippi; and  "A Renaissance Plaquette from 19th Century Vienna," accepted at The Medal, London.

 

Robert Hecht, a 1949 Fellow in Classical Studies, died on February 8 in Paris. He was 92.

 

Less

SOF News - January 2012

  • Lawrence Richardson Jr. receives Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement Photo: Duke Archives
  • Winning design for "Close the Gap" by James Stokoe FAAR'79 and his daughter includes an East River Museum.
  • Gareth Schmeling's new book selected a best book of 2011 by the Times Literary Supplement

What's been happening with Fellows and Residents

More

 

 

On January 6, 2012 Lawrence Richardson, Jr., FAAR'50, RAAR'79 was awarded a Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement by the Archaeological Institute of America at the 113th AIA and APA Joint Annual Meeting.
 
Lawrence Richardson, Jr., is the James B. Duke Professor of Latin in Classical Studies Emeritus at Duke University, where he was chairman of the Department of Classical Studies (1966-69). A recipient of Fulbright, Sterling, Guggenheim, and ACLS Fellowships, he was a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome (1950), a Field Archaeologist with the AAR, directing the Cosa excavations (1952-55), a Resident of the AAR (1979), and the AAR's Mellon Professor-in-Charge of the Classical School (1981). He has been a corresponding member of the Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut and a member of the School of Historical Studies with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Besides at Duke, he has taught at the University of North Carolina and at Yale University, where he was educated (BA, 1942; PhD, 1952). He is a former president of the North Carolina Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, a member of the AIA, the American Philological Association, and the Academy of Literary Studies.
 
James Stokoe, FAAR '79 and his daughter Madeline Stokoe (a fifth year architecture student at Calpoly in San Luis Obispo, CA) were awarded a shared first place finish in the international competition "Close the Gap." The competition sponsored by D3 and Transportation Alternatives challenged design teams to envision a completion of the greenway along the East River in Manhattan. 
 
A Commentary on the Satyrica of Petronuis by Gareth Schmeling, FAAR'78 was named one of the best books of 2011 by The Times Literary Supplement.
 
Frederick Biehle, FAAR'87 was a speaker at the symposium "Rome Matters" held at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture in November 2011. Other speakers were Pipp Ciorra, Mark Rakatansky, and Alicia Imperiale.
 
Newest compositions by Stephen Jaffe, FAAR'81 are Designs II for clarinet/bass-clarinet, guitar/electric guitar, and percussion; and Summer Voices for chorus and instruments.  The Borromeo Quartet will feature his String Quartet No. 2 (“Aeolian and Sylvan Figures”) in performances this spring and summer.
 
Laurie Nussdorfer, FAAR'81 gave a paper on ecclesiastical households in baroque Rome at the annual meeting of the New England Renaissance Conference, and a paper on patriarchy without women at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, both in 2011.
 
David Mayernik, FAAR'89 is designing stage sets for the Haymarket Opera Company of Chicago's performance of Charpentier's La Descente d'Orphée aux Enfers on February 24 and 25.
 
Eleanor Leach, RAAR'84 was Visiting Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford in the fall of 2010.
 
Heather Ewing, AFAAR’01 is co-author of a new book, Carrère & Hastings – The Masterworks  published by Rizzoli in October 2011.
 
In 2011 Jeffrey Schiff, FAAR'77 had a solo exhibition, Double Vision: Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society at the Zickha Gallery, Wesleyan University.
 
 
 

 

Less

SOF News - December 2011

  • Kristen Jones/Andrew Ginzel, FAAR'94
  • Stephen Daly in the Academy foundry, 1975
  • Book three of the Pig Trilogy by Joseph Caldwell FAAR'80
  • William Adair, FAAR'92

What's been happening with Fellows and Residents

More

 

 

Fluent, a new project by Kristin Jones, FAAR'94 and Andrew Ginzel, FAAR'94, opened Thursday, December 7, 2011 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Commissioned by New Jersey Transit Arts, Fluent is a work integrated with both the context and architecture of the Hoboken Ferry Terminal. A constellation of related elements is intended to augment the public’s sense of place, focus viewers’ gaze on both the macro- and microscopic aspects of the living river, and reveal the invisible wind currents that surround them.
 
Last January John W. O’Malley, S.J., FAAR’65, RAAR’84, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Catholic Historical Association.  He holds the corresponding award from the Renaissance Society of America and the Society for Italian Historical Studies.

Will Shank, FAAR’05 was one of the principals in a recent high-profile art conservation study and treatment of Keith Haring’s 1989 mural Tuttomondo on the wall of Sant’Antonio Abate in Pisa. The color in the mural had changed dramatically over the past 22 years. An international collaboration of conservators, scientists, art historians, and the commune of Pisa, revived the colors and will preserve the acrylic mural for the future.  Funding was provided by the AAR, Friends of Heritage Preservation and the Keith Haring Foundation. In November Shank spoke on the project at Villa La Pietra in Florence. 

 
Albany Records has released a new recording of the music of Larry Bell, FAAR'83.  “In a Garden of Dreamers”  features Dr. Bell as a pianist and conductor.
 
This season, Pierre Jalbert, FAAR'01 had new works premiered by the Houston Symphony and by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York and London.
 

Sculptor Robert L. Strini, FAAR'72 has a new website and blog, www.robertstrini.com and bobstrini.blogspot.com.

 

James R. Turner, FAAR'76 published Cruise of the Pintail: A Journal the story of Fonville Winans’ cruise, photography, and motion pictures of south Louisiana from 1932 through 1934. The book is co-edited with Robert L. Winans, LSU Press, 2011. 
 
Eric Fulford, FAAR'92 describes his latest projects, “The years have been quietly rewarding either immersed in shaping the subtle beauty of the 100 ACRES art and nature park for the Indianapolis Museum of Art, or bringing wellness and sustenance to a city hospital, WISHARD, whose new downtown campus will feature 27,000 sf urban farm and green roof, a SKY FARM, perched atop a 6 story clinical bldg.  The farm-fresh produce grown will be featured in a café on a new public commons fronting the hospital.”
 
Joseph B. Solodow, FAAR'81 writes, "I continue to teach Latin and Spanish at Southern Connecticut State University, where I was appointed to a chair two years ago.  I’m also a Lecturer in Classics at Yale.  In 2010 Cambridge University Press published my latest book, Latin Alive: The Survival of Latin in English and the Romance Languages."
 
A Commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius by Gareth Schmeling, FAAR'78 was published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK in October 2011.
 
Stephen Sears, FAAR'00 has received the 2011 Excellence in Teaching Award from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA).

Michele Salzman, FAAR'87, RAAR'08 writes, “I just published a book: Book One of the Letters of Symmachus; Translation by Michele Salzman & Marni Roberts; commentary and introduction by Michele Salzman, SBL 2011; Brill 2012.”

Richard Hoffman, FAAR'72 is retiring after 39 years teaching ancient history in the History Department at San Francisco State University. His review of Youval Rotman’s Byzantine Slavery and the Mediterranean World appears in the December 2011 issue of The Journal of World History.

Jon Michael Schwarting, FAAR’70, Director of the graduate program in Urban and Regional Design at New York Institute of Technology, has been fostering an exchange program with the School of Urban Design at the Politecnico di Milano for the past 6 years.

Stephan Daly, FAAR'75 is now Professor Emeritus of Studio Art at the University of Texas at Austin.

Joseph Caldwell, FAAR’80 reports that his book Pig Trilogy is doing well in paperback, E-book, and audio book, as well as in paperback in Germany.  He recently completed  the novel, The Book of Job As Corrected By His Wife.
 
Ronald Musto, FAAR'79 and Eileen Gardiner have been appointed Executive Director and Editor of Speculum for the Medieval Academy of America. They began their five-year term on 1 September 2011.

Reflections: Mentor and Protege, The Work of William B. Adair and His Mentors, featuring William Adair, FAAR'92 was exhibited from October 12 – December 16, 2011 at Montgomery College, Silver Spring, Maryland.

 
Jack Zajac, FAAR'58, RAAR'68 is “Still trying to find a foolproof way to trap the muse.”

Susan Wood, FAAR’78 writes,“My article ‘Caracalla and the French Revolution’ appeared in the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome earlier this year. Not much other professional news; enjoying grand-parenthood and hobbies.”

From Dericksen Brinkerhoff, FAAR’61, “In 2002 I accepted an invitation to serve as vice-president of the UC Riverside Emeriti Association. The President died soon after, then all the officers, so I ran the association until 2011 when finally I found a successor. So now I am fully retired but still attend meetings. I became emeritus in 1991, last taught in 1998.  Hope to see some of you at CAA in LA in 2012.”

 
 
 
Less

SOF News - November 2011

 

 

A selection of recent updates from Academy Fellows and Residents

More

 

 
Gjertrud Schnackenberg, FAAR’84 has won the 2011 International Griffin Poetry Prize with her book of poems Heavenly Questions. The judges wrote, "Reading this book is like reading the ocean, its swells and furrows, its secrets fleetingly revealed and then blown away in gusts of foam and spray or folded back into nothing but water. Heavenly Questions demands that we come face to face with matters of mortal importance, and it does so in a wildly original music that is passionate, transporting, and heart-rending."
 
Patricia Fortini Brown FAAR '90, RAAR '01, Professor Emeritus of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, was awarded this year’s Serena Medal by the British Academy in a ceremony on October 6 in London. The medal, endowed by Arthur Serena following Great Britain’s alliance with Italy in the First World War, has been given annually since 1920 for “eminent services towards the furtherance of the study of Italian history, literature, art and economics.” Previous winners include Mario Praz, Bernard Berenson, Rudolf Wittkower, P. O. Kristeller, Roberto Weiss, and John Shearman. Brown is the eighth woman, and one of only a handful of Americans, to receive the medal. She is the author of Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: art, architecture and the family among other works.
 
Cathy Lang Ho FAAR'09 will be the commissioner for the United States Pavilion at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012, and will co-curate the exhibition with Ned Cramer, editor-in-Chief of ARCHITECT magazine. See a press release here.
 
Vincent Katz FAAR'02 is co-curator, with Yasmil Raymond, of the Readings in Contemporary Poetry series at Dia:Chelsea in New York.

Mirka Benes FAAR'84, FAAR'97 has co-edited a book with Michael G. Lee. Clio in the Italian Garden: Twenty-First Century Studies in Historical Methods and Theoretical Perspectives was published this year (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, distributed by Harvard University Press). The volume includes her own essay, "Methodological Changes in the Study of Italian Gardens from the 1970s to the 1990s: A Personal Itinerary."

 
A new book on the work of Michelle Stuart RAAR'95, Michelle Stuart: Sculptural Objects, Journeys In & Out of the Studio ( Charta 2011) opens with a critical essay by Lucy Lippard and features journal entries by the artist interspersed with 154 images (184 pages) which represent more than three decades of sculpture and thoughts about place. This book about Stuart, whose work blends concepts about nature with an eloquent sense of cultural history, is unique among artists' monographs.
 
James L. Franklin, Jr. FAAR '75 has been named Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies and the History of Art at Indiana University and has relocated to Chicago.
                                                                                   
Sailors & Dreamers by Chester Biscardi FAAR'77 premiered on September 29, 2011 at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City. A song cycle for voice and ensemble, it is based on lyrics by Shirley Kaplan and was commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation in the Library of Congress. It featured  William Ferguson, tenor, the ensemble Sequitur, and was conducted by Paul Hostetter.  Chester Biscardi: In Time's Unfolding, a recording of chamber and instrumental music, was released on the Naxos label in June 2011.
 
Recent premieres of compositions by William Bolcom FAAR'03 include: The Hawthorn Tree by mezzo-soprano Joyce Castle and members of the Orchestra of St. Luke's; Prometheus by pianist Jeffrey Biegel with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra and Chorale conducted by Carl St. Clair (with subsequent performances by 8 co-commissioning orchestras); and Romanza by violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg with the New Century Chamber Orchestra (also performed on the orchestra's November 2011 tour). His second opera, A View From the Bridge, completed during his residency at the American Academy in Rome, was performed in January 2011 by the Rome Opera and in a revival at Indiana University in October 2011. A Wedding, his third opera, is being performed in November 2011 at the Oberlin College and Conservatory in Ohio.
 
Elizabeth Bartman, FAAR'83, RAAR’09 was elected president of the Archaeological Institute of America in January 2011 and will hold this position for 3 years. In 2005 she bought an apartment in Trastevere and spends much time in Rome and at the AAR.
 
Dr. Emil J. Polak, FAAR’63 retired in September, 2010 after 49 years of teaching at the City University of New York. He is at work on the final volume of his Latin manuscript census. Read a 2003 interview with him in SOF News, pages 16-17.
 
In September Professor Giusto Traina AFAAR'84 became chair of Roman History at the University of Paris-Sorbonne. Formerly, he has been assistent professor of Ancient History at the University of Perugia (1993-1998); associate, then full professor of Roman History at the University of Lecce (1998-2001; 2001-2007); full professor of Greek History at the University of Rouen (2007-2001); and visiting Professor at the Universities of Paris 8 andLouvain-la-Neuve.
 
Maria Conelli, FAAR'88, RAAR'99 is now Founding Dean in the School of Visual Media & Performing Arts at Brooklyn College.
 
Charles Witke, FAAR'62, RAAR'98
 writes, "I continue on the editorial board of Medievalia et Humanistica for which I also write reviews. The Michigan War Studies Review will include my review of the work on the modern military history of the Vatican.”
 
Steven Forman AFAAR'78, a senior associate at Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman and Associates, is currently working on the expansion of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in North Miami.”
 
Meaning in Landscape Architecture & Gardens (editor, Routledge, 2011), a new book by Marc Treib FAAR'85, was published in April. Since 2008 he has published Appropriate: The Houses of Joseph Esherick (William Stout Publishers, 2008); Drawing/Thinking: Confronting an Electronic Age (editor, Taylor & Francis, 2008), Spatial Recall: Memory in Landscape Architecture and Architecture (editor, Routledge, 2009), and Dan Kiley Landscapes: The Poetics of Space. (co-editor, William Stout Publishers, 2009).  He remains active as lecturer and visiting professor.
 
 
Less

SOF News - October 2011

City Secrets Rome, second edition edited by Robert Kahn FAAR'82

More

The second edition of City Secrets Rome is now available. Revised and updated, it includes 150 new recommendations from those who know the city best. City Secrets Rome also brings together the recommendations many Rome Prize Fellows and Residents whose passionate opinions and highly informed perspectives illuminate well-known sites as well as overlooked treasures. These expert travel companions share with you their favorite little-known places including restaurants, cafés, art, architecture, shops, outdoor markets, strolls, daytrips, as well all manner of cultural and historic landmarks. For more information see Fang Duff Kahn, publishers.

Less

SOF News - September 2011

A selection of recent updates from our alumni

 

More

A monograph by Martha Pollak FAAR’07, Cities at War in Early Modern Europe, has been published by Cambridge University Press."Martha Pollak has produced a deeply researched study, with a cascade of details for the experts. Its ambitious coverage will rightly turn it, I suspect, into a major reference work." —Lauro Martines, Times Literary Supplement.

Several compositions by Daniel Perlongo FAAR'72 have premiered in recent months. “Only Apricots Fall In The Autumn Wind, Five Songs On Korean Zen Poems” and “Five Pieces On Korean Zen Poems” premiered at the CMS College Music Society International Conference in Seoul and Gyeongju, South Korea, on July 4, and July 8, 2011. Last October “Symphony No. 1, Millennium Voyage” premiered at Festival UNICUM in Slovenia and was heard on an international web broadcast. It was performed by the Slovenian Philharmonic, En Shao conducting. That same month “Ljubljana Settimana” was premiered by Ensemble MD7, www.md7.org/, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Sinclair Bell FAAR'03 has a new book coming out in November. Free at Last! The Impact of Freed Slaves on the Roman Empire, a collection that Bell co-edited with Teresa Ramsby (UMass at Amherst), is being published by Bloomsbury Press. 

This past June Jana Dambrogio FAAR'08, Senior Conservator at the National Archives, had the honor of accompanying the original United Nations Charter from Washington to New York for the swearing-in ceremony of Ban Ki-moon to a second consecutive term as the Secretary-General of the United Nations. As Ki-moon took the oath of office, his left hand was resting on the cover of the Charter. See more at the White House Blog.

 
 
 
 

 

Less

James Lamantia Jr. FAAR'49

James Lamantia Jr. FAAR'49 1923-2011
by Tulane School of Architecture and the American Academy in Rome
 

More

 

    James R. Lamantia, Jr. FAAR'49, died on Sunday, February 20, 2011, after a long illness. He was one of the post war Fellows who enjoyed their Academy time under the direction of Laurance P. Roberts, an era that welcomed wives, children, and women artists to the Academy for the first time, instituted residencies by noted artists and scholars, and began the Academy's ascent to the internationally respected institution it is today. He made one of his last visits to Rome to attend the Centenary Celebration of the birth of  Roberts in 2007.
     Mr. Lamantia was Emeritus Professor of Architecture at Tulane University in New Orleans, an architect, and an artist. His association with Tulane University spanned over 55 years. He received a degree in architecture from Tulane in 1943, and, in 1947, earned a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. He later returned to Tulane and was appointed full professor in 1974. In 1985, he was named director of the Tulane graduate program in architecture. In 1993, he was selected as the first recipient of the Richard Koch Chair in Architecture at Tulane University.
     Highly respected by institutions across the nation, Lamantia served as a visiting critic at the universities of North Carolina State, Notre Dame, Oregon, and Illinois. He was also a visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, and Columbia universities. Lamantia earned international recognition when he received the Rome Prize in Architecture, followed by a  Fulbright Fellowship in 1949 for additional study in Italy. He served as a Fulbright Professor at the University of Jordan, Amman in 1978.
     Throughout his career, Lamantia was actively engaged in professional practice. He worked in New York City on the staff of The Architectural Forum and returned to New Orleans in 1951. He became a partner in the firm Burk, LeBreton and Lamantia in 1955 and designed many church, school and municipal buildings. He also directed the renovation of the historic Presbytere on Jackson Square in New Orleans and the Consulate General office building in Madras, India, for the U. S. State Department. In 1964, he formed James R. Lamantia, Architect, and moved his practice to New York City, where he was responsible for several renovations in Central Park and the design of restaurant facilities in the World Trade Center and Lincoln Center. His design work reaped a multitude of honors and awards.
     An accomplished painter, Lamantia exhibited his work in the Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Chicago Art Institute, and in one-man shows in major U. S. cities. A prolific artist and designer, Lamantia exhibited oil paintings in the Whitney Museum of Art's "Fulbright Painters" show in 1958. He designed room schemes and furnishings for Interiors magazine, and collaborated with Louisiana-based sculptor Lin Emery on a brass fountain for Edgar A.G. Bright.
     His most recent works were collages, assemblages from his Hurricane Katrina-ravaged collection of Piranesi prints, a series completed in 2010. In an introduction to the 60 collages he made from the ruined prints he said, "My subsequent task of making collage can be projected over two years—two adventuresome years in fact,when one realizes that reassembling Piranesi prints, even in fragmentary form, is far from a usual occurrence. Most surprisingly, I begin to think that the remnants of the famous plates seemed to offer less and less resistance to manipulation—and imagined that there were projected clues to new and unintended associations.The working process, beginning in umbrage relaxed to become both therapeutic and challenging."
Less

Charles O. Perry FAAR’66, RAAR’71

Charles O. Perry FAAR’66, RAAR’71

by William Grimes
New York Times, February 11, 2011
More

 

     Charles O. Perry, a sculptor who created dozens of mathematically inspired works for plazas and sculpture gardens throughout the United States and abroad and created “Continuum,” the knotted black Möbius strip that stands in front of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, died on February 9 at his home in Norwalk, Conn. He was 81.
     The cause was stomach cancer, his son Marco said.
Mr. Perry was an architect working for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in San Francisco when he began making sculptural models at night in a garage. In 1964 his works were exhibited in a one-man show at the Hansen Gallery that sold out and earned him a commission from the city of Fresno.
     That year he also won the Rome Prize, an award that sent him to study sculpture at the American Academy in Rome, where he stayed for the next 14 years to practice architecture and make large-scale works of sculpture that drew inspiration from the geometry inherent in natural forms.
     “Continuum,” completed in 1976 for the new Air and Space Museum, is a bit of topological whimsy that plays with the peculiarities of the Möbius strip, which has one continuous surface and one edge.
     “In this case, the edge of the sculpture portrays the path of a star as it flows through the center of the sculpture’s ‘black hole’ into negative space-time and on again into positive space,” Mr. Perry told Ivars Peterson for the book “Fragments of Infinity: A Kaleidoscope of Math and Art” (2001).
     Charles Owen Perry was born on Oct. 18, 1929, in Helena, Mont., where his father owned a successful gold and gem mine.
He served in the Army as a forward observer with an artillery unit in Korea, where he was awarded a bronze star for bravery and invented his own gun sight out of scrap parts to achieve better depth perception.
After returning to the United States, he enrolled in the School of Art and Architecture at Yale, earning a master’s degree in architecture in 1958.
     At the suggestion of the painter Josef Albers, he experimented with a variety of materials in a quest to discover their inner nature. In so doing, he became interested in the rhombus and invented plastic rhombic hexahedrons that interlocked to form novel shapes. These were later exhibited as art at the 1969 Spoleto Festival in Italy and, under the name Perrygons, sold as construction toys through the Museum of Modern Art.
     The artistic possibilities of geometric forms, and the mysteries of the universe’s physical laws, provided Mr. Perry with an inexhaustible source of material. The Möbius strip reappeared in the sculptures “Calligraphic Möbius” and “Helix Möbius Mace,” both in the Crystal City development in Arlington, Va.; “Continuum II” at the Marina Center Holdings Building in Singapore; and “Solstice,” at the Bank of America Building in Tampa, Fla., an assemblage of silver pipes described on its base as “a two-thirds twist triangular torus Möbius.”
     Mr. Perry explored other shapes in “Shell Mace” (Shell Oil Company, Melbourne), the bright-red, calligraphic “Rondo” (Kinshicho Station, Tokyo) and “Eclipse” (Hyatt Regency, Embarcadero Center, San Francisco), a gold-colored sphere — technically a pentagonal dodecahedron with the faces spiraling outward — composed of 1,440 pieces of gold-colored, interlacing aluminum tubes.
     Mr. Perry also designed gold and silver jewelry for Tiffany & Company, a semi-abstract chess set made of nickel-plated tubing, and sculptural puzzles. In the early 1990s he designed several chairs: an ergonomic stacking chair, known as the Perry Chair, for Krueger International; the Uno office chair for Steelcase; and the Virtuoso for Virco.
In addition to his son Marco, of Brooklyn, he is survived by his wife, Sheila Henry de Perry; a brother, Alexander, known as Sandy, of St. Marys, Ga.; a sister, Avery Wall of Omaha; three other sons: Paul, of Lexington, Mass., Carlo, of Brooklyn, and Pat, of Yardley, Pa.; and nine grandchildren.
 
Less

Gregory S. Baldwin FAAR’71

Gregory S. Baldwin FAAR’71

by Nancy Fishman, Christiana Killian, Michael Schwarting FAAR’70, and ZGF Architects

More

     The Academy, ZGF Architects in Portland, Oregon and the greater design community has lost a Fellow, a supporter, a partner, and a dear friend. Gregory S. Baldwin, FAAR’71, FAIA, passed away from a brain tumor on June 25, 2011 at age 70.
     Architect Michael Schwarting FAAR’70 remembers Greg well. “I was in my second year as a Fellow at the Academy when Greg, his wife Joan and son Ben arrived for their year in Rome. As was typical when there was a two-year fellowship, the "veterans" showed the "rookies" the ropes. Greg was an incredibly eager follower and we spent a lot of time walking in Rome and taking trips, sharing Ben on my and Greg's shoulders. It was good for me and probably helped instigate my interest in teaching. We had great times personally as well as with our Italian pursuits. Greg and I kept up, I saw him in Portland and in New York City. That was an interesting year because Dan Scully [FAAR’70] and Ron Filson [FAAR’70] came, sharing an architectural Fellowship, to work on Robert Venturi's “Learning from Rome” chapter in Learning from Las Vegas. There were lots of fascinating discussions because we all came from such different places architecturally. That's what is great, among other things, about the Academy.  Greg got a masters degree from Harvard and I found him to be an interesting true believer and at the same time skeptic of his time at Harvard; skeptic because he was so overwhelmed by what he was learning in Rome. I think Greg was that way about architecture in general.”
     When the Baldwins arrived in Rome in 1969 there were very few accommodations made for Fellows with children. Greg came first to find an apartment big enough for his wife and son, and though he was able to find one within walking distance of the Academy, this still left his family removed from the larger Academy community. Undaunted by this, Joan Baldwin and several other mothers from the Academy community took matters into their own hands, establishing and running a day-care center in the Villa Aurelia, engaging a qualified teacher and providing the necessary books, toys, and treats.
     With memories of their difficulties in Rome, Greg and Joan approached the Academy through the Lamb Baldwin Foundation, and made annual gifts of support specifically to ease the life of families at the Academy. In this way, the Baldwins have provided cribs and bedding, housewares and linens for the family apartments, as well as countless other amenities. They have supplied everything from extra laundry tokens to a communal barbeque, and even provided the much used soccer goal posts in the Triangle Garden. The Friday night family dinners and Saturday family lunches instituted by Carmela Franklin are made possible by the Baldwins, as their support allows Fellows to bring their families without charge, folding them into the life of the community. Their contributions after the initial gifts for children and family life were unrestricted, trusting the Academy to use the funds wisely.
     The architects at ZGF in Portland write, “Greg cared deeply about design at all levels from the very broad and civic to the smallest mechanical connection. Quite simply he designed and built from the heart. From his vantage point, the goal was never to merely complete the project at hand, but to see what the project could leverage from other adjacent partners to create a sum greater than the individual parts. Rather than point to a single successful, stand-alone project as an outstanding career example, one must look wider and dig deeper to uncover the real transformative nature of his design pursuits. Light rail systems stretching for scores of miles and touching numerous communities; university and campus master plans which shaped not just the buildings but actually defined the teaching, learning and living experiences of those who used them; and buildings to live in, downtowns, parks and public streets, which Greg firmly believed belonged to ‘the old and young, rich and poor, active and infirm, and all of those in between.’
     He was the consummate, old school, bow-tied gentleman, yet he continually reached out to and surrounded himself with young designers. As a mentor to many, he was always ready with a compliment when deserved, and rigorous, but constructive, criticism when warranted. Governors, congressmen and mayors regularly sought his guidance, but Greg was also a friend to developers, grandmothers and skateboarders alike. Never standing in one place too long, he was an avid long distance runner, an early morning water skier, a high noon driver of high performance racecars, and a good dancer at dusk. His eclectic pursuits were one of his many charms and certainly a window into his perspective on life, where everything had meaning and value and lessons to be learned.
     Greg graduated from Wilson High School in Portland, Oregon in 1958. He went on to Harvard College, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1962, and then earning two master’s degrees from Harvard University in Architecture (1966) and Urban Design (1967). He received a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome in 1971, as well as a Marshall Prize and Fulbright Fellowship for post-graduate studies. Following his European studies, he worked for Skidmore Owings & Merrill in Portland, and renovated facilities for Portland Public Schools before joining ZGF in 1979, and becoming a partner in 1985, where he remained until his death.” 

 

    

 

 
Less

SOF News - July 2011

A selection of recent updates from our Alumni.

More

Kate Jansen FAAR’95 spent academic year 2010-2011 as Visiting Professor in the Department of History at Princeton University. Her newest book is Charisma and Religious Authority: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Preaching, 1200-1500, edited with Miri Rubin (Turnholt: Brepols, 2010). Last year her book Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation, co-edited with Joanna Drell FAAR’01 and Frances Andrews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,2009) was issued in paperback. 

The presentation by Janet Echelman RAAR’11 at the annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference recently premiered on TED.com. In the nine-minute video “Taking Imagination Seriously,” Echelman speaks about reshaping urban space with soft sculptures that move with environmental forces. www.ted.com/talks/janet_echelman.html

Composer Andrea Clearfield FAAR’10 premiered her new cantata, "Les Fenêtres” at the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts on April 30, 2011. It was commissioned by Singing City to celebrate the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, and was partially written in the Bass Studio at the Academy.  LES FENÊTRES Choral excerpt (PDF)  

She is currently composing a new cantata for 300 singers, "Tse Go La” (At the Start of my Life), co-commissioned by the Mendelssohn Club and the Pennsylvania Girlchoir. It will incorporate some of the gar-glu and tro-glu Tibetan melodies she has been documenting in the remote restricted Himalayan region of Lo Monthang, Nepal, introducing these songs to the United States. The work uses traditional texts, as well as newly composed texts by Dartmouth anthropologist, Dr. Sienna Craig.  Clearfield received a grant from the American Composers Forum to work with the Tibetan community in Philadelphia teaching traditional Tibetan song and dance to the girls. Venerable Losang Sampten, former aid to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, will teach the audience traditional chant at the concert.  The cantata will be premiered with the choirs and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia on April 29, 2012 at Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia. Many thanks to Tamzen Flanders at the Academy for helping to get this project off the ground!

Current set design projects by Paul Steinberg FAAR’82 include: Deidamia, by Handel for the Netherlands National Opera,  Falstaff by Verdi for Covent Garden and La Scala,  Billy Budd by Britten for the English National Opera and Deutsche Oper, Berlin and Un Ballo in Maschera by Verdi, for the Metropolitan Opera. He continues as Associate Arts Professor, Graduate Design Department, NYU/Tisch School of the Arts.

Margaret Fisher FAAR’09 says “This month Robert Hughes and I, through our press Second Evening Art, published the fifth and final volume of the series The Music of Ezra Pound. This is the first edition of the "Gold Score," the 1923 urtext of Pound's opera Le Testament to Francois Villon's poem of the same name, in facsimile color edition with audio cd, editors' annotations, and groundbreaking essays on the metrical relationship between music and The Cantos. The holograph score, edited in 1923 by George Antheil, is an important modernist document, later edited by Pound for the 1931 experimental "features" broadcast by the BBC. Information and a discount offer are on our website www.ezrapoundmusic.com

Last year David Mayernik FAAR'89 completed a cycle of frescoes for a chapel in the church of S. Cresci in Valcava near Borgo S. Lorenzo, Tuscany. This year he returned to paint a monochrome fresco over the entry door to the church.

MICHELLE STUART: SCULPTURAL OBJECTS, Journeys In & Out of the Studio (Charta, 2011) by Michele Stuart RAAR’95 opens with a critical essay by Lucy Lippard and features journal entries by the artist interspersed with 154 images (184 pages) which represent more than three decades of sculpture and thoughts about place. This book about an internationally acclaimed artist, whose work blends concepts about nature with an eloquent sense of cultural history, is unique among artists' monographs.

A new novel, The Face Thief, by Eli Gottlieb FAAR’99 will be published by William Morrow in winter 2012.

From Rosa Lowinger FAAR’09. “I just returned from Haiti where I completed the removal of the murals at St. Trinity Cathedral in Port Au Prince.  After the Jan 2010 earthquake only three of 14 original murals remained. A paintings conservator and I were hired by the Haiti Cultural Recovery Center and the Smithsonian  to stabilize, remove and store the fragments.  Mission accomplished this past month.”

Robert Bagg FAAR’59 has published two books this summer: The Tandem Ride and Other Excursions: Selected Poems 1955-2010, (Spiritus Mundi Press, 2011), and The Complete Plays of Sophocles:  A New Translation by Robert Bagg and James Scully, (Harper Perennial, 2011). Bagg’s contributions were Women of Trakhis, Elektra, Oedipus The King, Oedipus At Kolonos, and Antigone. His translations of Oedipus The King and Antigone will be included in The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 3rd edition, coming in January 2012.

When a Priest Marries a Witch, an Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra starring Paul Lazar by Suzanne Bocanegra FAAR'90 was performed at the Chocolate Factory Theater in NYC this past April. Her one person show last year at Tang Museum at Skidmore College has travelled to Site Santa Fe and will be on view there through September 18, 2011.

SANTA FE
Through September 18, 2011
I Write the Songs by Suzanne Bocanegra FAAR’90
Site Santa Fe
1606 Paseo de Peralta
www.sitesantafe.org/exhibitions/exhibitfr.html

The Other Half of Tomorrow is a new media initiative that explores contemporary Pakistan through the perspectives of Pakistani women. Created by artist and author Samina Quraeshi FAAR’98 in collaboration with The New England Foundation for the Arts and Asia Society, the project consists of a series of short documentary films, an interactive website, a traveling lecture and performance series. www.saminaquraeshi.com/

New writings by and about Agnes Denes FAAR’98 and her work include Eco-Amazons: 20 Women Who Are Transforming the World by Dorka Keehn (Powerhouse Books, Brooklyn, NY) text and illustration by Agnes Denes pp. 58-63. www.powerhousebooks.com/site/?p=1209 Contemporary Drawing—Key Concepts and Techniques by Margaret Davidson, (Watson-Guptill  Publications, NY, 2011), pp. 22-23, 30, 84-85, 88, 90-91. www.crownpublishing.com and “Public Art as  a Spiritual Path” by Arlene Goldbard, in Public Art Review, “Spirituality and Religion”, issue 44, spring/summer 2011, pp. 18,24,25. Denes’ online article from this issue, “The Paradox of Eco-Logic: Individual Creation vs. Social Consciousness,” is available here: www.forecastpublicart.org/par-denes.php

Less

SOF News - June 2011

A selection of recent updates from our Alumni.
More

John Cary, FAAR’08 writes, "I had the honor of giving the commencement address for the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design on May 16, 2011. The text and an amateur video (amidst pouring rain and gusting winds) of the talk were published by Metropolis magazine, and are available online at http://www.metropolismag.com/pov/20110526/commencement-address.

I was subsequently one of a half-dozen designers interviewed—along with the likes of Paula Scher, David Rockwell, et al, for Metropolis magazine's 30th anniversary.” That video is available online at http://vimeo.com/21975672."

Eliza Glaze, FAAR’08  was elected a 'Socia' in the Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino  in 2010. She was awarded an NEH sabbatical fellowship at the National Humanities Center for 2010-11. The essays she co-edited with husband Brian Nance in Between Text and Patient: the Medical Enterprise in Medieval & Early Modern Europe, were published March 2011 by SISMEL (Firenze) as Micrologus' Library no. 39. Her monograph on medicine in 11th-12th century Europe will appear the Summer 2012 issue.

Eliza is also co-principal investigator for the project “Excavating Medicine in Digital Age: Paleography and the Medical Book in the Twelfth-Century,” Renaissancenationalhumanitiescenter.org/newsrel2010/prrevmedicine.htm.

The group aims to produce an open-access database of high-quality dated or dateable medical manuscript images for the sake of advancing understanding of the production, use, and circulation of Latin medical texts in the High Middle Ages.

Gareth Schmeling, FAAR’78  has just published A Commentary  on the Satyrica of Petronius, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011.

Pamela Starr, FAAR’84 has been elected to a third two-year term as Secretary of the American Musicological Society for 2011-2013.

From Molissa Fenley, FAAR’08.  “I am premiering a new work, "The Vessel Stories" at the Days and Nights Festival in Carmel, California - August 27 and 28, 2011. If you are nearby please come!  More information is listed on my website, www.molissafenley.com”

Linda Duke, AFAAR’2009 has been appointed Director of the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum at Kansas State University, effective July, 2011.

John R. Clarke, RAAR’95 recently completed his sixth season as director of the Oplontis Project, aimed at the definitive publication of the so-called Villa of Poppaea at Torre Annunziata.  Volume 1, The Ancient Setting, to be published, "born-digital,"  in the ACLS Humanities E-Book series, is in currently in production.  Clarke took time away from Oplontis to give the Patricia H. Labalme Friends of the Library lecture in Rome on May  24, He spoke about the archives of Oplontis: daybooks, photographs, and plaster fragments.

In August 2011, Maria Ann Conelli, FAAR’88 will become the Founding Dean of the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts at Brooklyn College.  “What makes it even better is that I'm an alumna of the college!” she says.

Julius Kirshner, FAAR’69 has co-edited The Politics of Law in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy, published by University of Toronto Press in 2011.

With the help of his daughter, John Nick Pappas, FAAR’66 has just put together his new web site, johnnickpappas.com

Less