This year's grantees come from eight American and two European institutions, and the topics they will investigate range from late-medieval gardens to feminist art of the 1970s and '80s. Museum budgets are often severely strained, and the Getty's fellowships offer a welcome new source of funding for serious scholarship. Research carried out by Fellows may be in preparation for institutional or independent projects. For example, William Robinson, associate curator of paintings at the Cleveland Museum of Art, will conduct research for an exhibition on Spanish modernism, while Sandra Phillips, senior curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, will be able to travel to Rome to study the photography collection of the Vatican Library. In addition to the range of their subject matter, the Fellows themselves represent a wide variety of organizations, from regional museums and university art galleries to major international institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Grantees are also at different stages in their careers, from assistant to senior curators.
We all know that many demands are placed on museum professionals today, but allowing curators concentrated periods of time to pursue research will ultimately strengthen their work and that of their institutions. I think it's wonderful that the Getty is encouraging this. Full-time curators working in museums with art collections are eligible to apply for Curatorial Research Fellowships, which are awarded by the Getty Grant Program through an open competition. Fellows pursue their research wherever necessary to complete their projects. The next application deadline for Curatorial Research Fellowships is November 1, 2000.