Features

The American Academy in Rome announces the winners of the 2018–19 Rome Prize and Italian Fellowships.

Drue Heinz, a spirited philanthropist for literature and the arts, died on March 30, 2018, in Lasswade, Scotland. A Trustee of the American Academy of Rome from 2001 to 2004, she endowed the Drue Heinz Librarian and the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize in Literature.

Henry A. Millon, dean emeritus of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, died on April 2, 2018. Millon was a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in 1960, a Resident in 1966, Director from 1974 to 1977, and a Trustee from 1977 to 1994.

On February 2–3, the renowned Scharoun Ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra performed two concerts at the American Academy in Rome as the culminating events of a week-long residency. This is the tenth year of the group’s annual visit and concert series for the AAR community and the city of Rome.

MAXXI is presenting a project by the American artists Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla called Blackout.

A group exhibition titled Black Value, composed of current and former Academy Fellows, opens on February 8 in Florence.

The celebrated playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner delivered a delightful Centennial Medal Speech during the American Academy in Rome’s 2017 Fall Gala.

Lynne C. Lancaster, an archaeologist, architectural historian, educator, and 2002 Fellow, has been selected as the next Andrew W. Mellon Professor-in-Charge of the Humanities at the American Academy in Rome.

United States Artists has selected two Rome Prize winners, Abigail DeVille and Thomas Kelley, and one AAR Resident, Tania León, to receive 2018 fellowships.

Rana Hamadeh, an artist based in Rotterdam, has won the 2017 Prix de Rome, the oldest and most generous award in the Netherlands for visual artists under the age of forty. Since 2012, the Mondriaan Fund has been responsible for the award.

A conference held at the American Academy in Rome on October 19, 2017, brought together eminent scholars from Biblical, Qur’anic, Hindu, and Chinese studies.

The Academy’s fall 2017 exhibition, Matera Imagined/Matera Immaginata: Photography and a Southern Italian Town, travels to Matera, located in the southern Italian region of Basilicata.

In November, 250 guests gathered to honor Tony Kushner and returning Rome Prize Fellows at the American Academy in Rome’s Fall Gala in New York.

John W. Hyland Jr., a longtime Academy friend and chairman emeritus of the Board of Trustees, has passed away.

In 1948, teams of archeologists from the Academy traveled up the Tuscan coast to the abandoned town of Cosa. They were the first Americans granted a permit to excavate in Italy. Under the directorship of then Mellon Professor Frank Brown, the teams began one of the first attempts in Italy to chart the history of a Roman town.

In the spirit of Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad (1869), which brought American mythologies into relief through direct encounters with Europe, AAR invited celebrated artist Charles Ray, to explore the theme of “American Classics.” The new sculpture resulting from this invitation debuts in a two-work exhibition at the Academy in May, during the artist’s tenure as the 2017 Deenie Yudell Artist in Residence.

Each year at the American Academy in Rome, common themes emerge among Fellows’ projects with wonderful serendipity. This year found several scholars and artists investigating the Mediterranean as a geographical and conceptual framework in different historical periods and from different perspectives.

It is with heavy hearts that we mourn the passing of Sophie Chandler Consagra, an integral and unique figure in the history of the American Academy in Rome. Her long relationship with the Academy began with her being hired as AAR director in 1980, then with her selection in 1984 as president.

AAR announced today that John Ochsendorf, a preservation engineer, historian, and educator, has been selected as the twenty-third director of the American Academy in Rome.

It is with sorrow that we say goodbye to our colleague Lidia Villani, who passed away a few days ago. Lidia began at the American Academy in Rome in 1999 as administrative assistant and cashier. Her contagious cheerfulness enlightened both her work and her personal relationships with the community.