DANA PRESCOTT is an American arts educator, painter, and writer who has lived and worked in Rome for most of the past 18 years. She has wide experience with arts, scholarly, educational and cultural organizations in both the United States and Italy that qualify her uniquely to serve the Academy as Heiskell Arts Director.

A member of the faculty of the Rome programs of both Cornell University and Temple University, Ms. Prescott also teaches frequently in the University of Washington Studio Arts, Rome program. From 1984-1991 she served as Director of the European Honors Program in Rome for Rhode Island School of Design and in 1999 taught in the Art Workshop International in Assisi, Italy. She also served as Director of Lacoste School of the Arts in France. In addition, Ms. Prescott is on the Board of Directors of the Italiaidea, the Center for Italian Language and Culture in Rome.

Dana Prescott has been an Artist in Residence in programs in Moab, Utah and San Francisco, California. She has twice been a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. Her work has been widely exhibited in Europe and the United States included exhibitions in Paris at the Mona Bismark Foundation; at Temple Gallery, Palazzo Pio, Villa Taverna and Studio Aperto in Rome; Palazzo Strozzi, Villa Schifanoia, and Villa Le Balze in Florence; and numerous galleries and universities in the United States. In 1996 a solo exhibition of her work was presented at Palais Palffy in Vienna.

As a writer, Dana Prescott's publications range from articles in The Washington Post, The Seattle Times and the Christian Science Monitor to the guidebook Around Rome With Kids, which was published this year by Random House/Fodors.

As Andrew Heiskell Arts Director, Ms. Prescott will be part of the program team at the American Academy in Rome responsible for the design and execution of the annual program in the arts and in the humanities. In addition to helping to advance the work of Rome Prize winners in the arts, she will organize exhibitions, lectures, concerts, and readings to reach out to the larger arts and cultural communities in Rome and throughout Europe. She will work to introduce the Rome Prize winners to their Italian peers and to introduce American art and culture to Italy and Europe, establishing a context for the exchange of ideas.

DR. CORNELIA LAUF will assist Ms. Prescott by planning and mounting the Academy's exhibitions. Dr. Lauf is a curator, writer, editor, lecturer and artistic director who works and publishes internationally. She has curated exhibitions in Italy, the United States (New York, Chicago, Cambridge), and Poland. As Artistic Director of the community art center Camera Oscura, in San Casciano dei Bagni, her shows have featured the work of international artists and designers as well as local artisans and craftsmen. Summer exhibitions at Santa Maria della Scala in Siena have included works by Ken Lum, Sarah Charleswork, Michel Zumpf, David Byrne, Heimo Zobernig and Martin Guttmann.

Dr. Lauf's publications include The Leonardo Codices of Joseph Beuys (New York and Dusseldorf: Dia Center for the Arts, 1998), which she co-authored with Lynne Cooke, Martin Kemp and Ann Temkin and Katharina Sieverding (Milan: Charta, 2001), as well as numerous articles published in Beople, ArtMargins, Arts, Arts Magazine, Arts Scribe and Art and Text, among many others.

Dr. Lauf earned her M.A. in Architectural History and Ph.D. in the History of Art at Columbia University. She has taught as visiting professor at Duke University, a thesis advisor at Bard College, and has been an on-line instructor for the New School for Social Research. Dr. Lauf has lectured throughout Europe and North America.

Dana Prescott and Cornelia Lauf were chosen from a field of outstanding candidates. Professor Lester K. Little, Director of the American Academy in Rome, chaired the Search Committee that included Academy Trustees Agnes Gund, Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell, Billie Tsien and Academy President Adele Chatfield-Taylor. In announcing the Committee's appointments, Professor Little said: "With the team of Dana Prescott and Cornelia Lauf in place, the Academy will be able to maintain its strong commitment to fostering contemporary art. Moreover, given their long experience of working in Rome, there promises to be a series of lively connections between the Academy community and the Roman art world".

One of the world's leading centers for independent study and research in the arts and the humanities, the American Academy in Rome offers support, time and an inspiring environment to some of America's most gifted artists and scholars. Recipients of a variety of fellowships and residencies, including the coveted Rome Prize, pursue their work in the environment of a historic setting on the Janiculum, the highest hill within the walls of Rome.

The Academy is a private institution supported by gifts from individuals, foundations, corporations and government agencies and by the annual membership of many distinguished colleges and universities in the United States. Established in 1894 by famed architect Charles Follen McKim as the American School of Architecture, the Academy assumed its present name in 1897 and its present composition in 1913 when it merged with the American School of Classical Studies in Rome. In 1994, in honor of the Academy's Centennial, the President of the United States signed a joint Resolution of Congress in recognition of the Academy's contribution to the intellectual and cultural life of the nation.

The Academy offers Rome Prize fellowships to as many as 30 Americans annually for periods ranging from six months to two years. Selected by juries made up of distinguished artists and scholars, there have been 1,500 men and women Fellows since 1894. Rome Prize winners are provided with stipends, studies or studios, and room and board. The competition attracts applications from as many as 1,000 artists, architects, design professionals, composers, writers and scholars. Fellowship disciplines include Architecture, Design, Historic Preservation and Conservation, Landscape Architecture, Literature, Musical Composition, Visual Arts, and in humanistic approaches to Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Early Modern, and Modern Italian Studies. The annual application deadline is 1 November.

Several recipients of prizes and fellowships other than the Rome Prize reside at the Academy and participate in its programs, forming a residential community that consists of more than 100 individuals at any one time.

The Academy also sponsors exhibitions, concerts, lectures, symposia and other events, as well as a Summer Program in Archaeology, Classical Summer School, Summer Program in Applied Palaeography, and, subject to annual funding, a Summer Seminar sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Academy supports archaeological research, survey, excavation, and conservation projects intended to advance both scholarship and training.

The Academy maintains a research library of over 126,000 volumes in the fields of classical studies, the history of art and architecture and other disciplines, and a Photographic Archive of more than 60,000 prints including the Fototeca Unione, founded by Ernest Nash with the donation of his own collection.

The Academy publishes scholarly works and exhibition catalogues. Among recent exhibitions are Chuck Close: Ritratti (2002); Steven Holl (2001-02); Alex Katz - Edward Ruscha (2001); The Panza di Biumo Collection: Works from the 80s and 90s (2000); Michael Mazur: Graphic Works 1992-2000, L'Inferno di Dante (2000); Joel Shapiro (1999); Richard Serra: Weight and Measure Drawings (1999); Cy Twombly, 8 Sculptures (1998); and, Maya Lin (1998).

Dana Prescott succeeds Linda Blumberg as the third Heiskell Arts Director.

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