Features

On an evening in February, photography students and faculty from Cornell in Rome headed up the Janiculum Hill from the center of the city to attend a private lecture at the studio of visual artist Catherine Wagner at the American Academy in Rome.

In his concert-lecture entitled, “Da Dove Viene La Black Art?” Derrell Acon combines song, poetry, literary quotation, and instrumentals in asking audiences to reflect with him on the origin and character of black art in America.

What follows is a virtual tour of sites that have hosted the would-be American Academy before it settled in its current home.

Elizabeth Fain LaBombard is the winner of the Prince Charitable Trusts Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture and an Associate at James Corner Field Operations in New York.

Eric Nathan is the winner of the Frederic A. Juilliard/Walter Damrosch Rome Prize in Musical Composition and a Composer from New York City.

Milton Gendel: A Surreal Life, curated by Andrew Heiskell Arts Director Peter Benson Miller and Barbara Drudi, opened last Friday in New York at the Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò.

Ruth W. Lo is the Donald and Maria Cox Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize Winner in Modern Italian Studies and a Ph.D candidate in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Brown University.

Bradley E. Cantrell is the winner of the Garden Club of America Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture and the Director and Associate Professor at the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University.

Prabhavathi Meppayil’s first solo exhibition in Europe opened last Wednesday evening at the AAR Gallery with the artist in attendance.

The American Academy in Rome congratulates the winners of the 118th annual Rome Prize Competition. 

Max Page is the winner of the Mark Hampton Rome Prize and a professor of architecture and history in the Department of Art, Architecture, and Art History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

On October 1, 1914, the doors of the McKim, Mead & White building opened solemnly onto a world at war. It was a war, they said, to end all wars, yet the institution would survive to see it end and another conflict begin.

Peter Streckfus is the winner of the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize, a gift of the Drue Heinz Trust/American Academy of Arts and Letters, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at George Mason University.

Since opening on October 1, 1914, the McKim, Mead and White building has been a crucible for artistic and humanistic innovation. 

Jessica Nowlin is the winner of the Frank Brown/Samuel H. Kress Foundation/Helen M. Woodruff Fellowship of the Archaeological Institute of America Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize in Ancient Studies and a Ph.D. candidate at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University.

Thomas Kelley is the winner of the James R. Lamantia, Jr. Rome Prize in Architecture and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Partner at Norman Kelley, LLC, in Chicago, IL and New York, NY.

This year’s Jerome Lectures were delivered by eminent historian of Roman law and Italian culture Aldo Schiavone of the Scuola Normale Superiore, who spoke on the notion of equality as it emerged within ancient Greco-Roman models and evolved within modern systems of governance.

Sheramy D. Bundrick is the winner of the American Academy in Rome Post-Doctoral Rome Prize in Ancient Studies and an Associate Professor of Art History at the  University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

Last Wednesday the Academy welcomed archaeologists from the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali to discuss recent research at the Mausoleum of Augustus, Circus Maximus and Aqua Claudia.

Three magnificent concerts by the Scharoun Ensemble last weekend at the Villa Aurelia featured music by eight composers and covered over two hundred years of musical evolution.