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Excellence and Expertise

Associate professor of Art History wins research fellowship to study sculpture on Miami’s campus

With the fellowship the Holt-Smithson Foundation awarded her, Dell’Aria will turn her research on the artwork into an academic article.

Excellence and Expertise

Associate professor of Art History wins research fellowship to study sculpture on Miami’s campus

Associate professor of Art History wins research fellowship to study sculpture on Miami’s campus

Since 1980, Nancy Holt’s sculpture outside of Miami University’s Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum has mostly gone unresearched by scholars. Now, Star-Crossed will finally get its spotlight from associate professor of art Annie Dell’Aria.

With the fellowship the Holt-Smithson Foundation awarded her, Dell’Aria will turn her research on the artwork into an academic article. She said she plans to show the full narrative of Star-Crossed, from its “intersecting with the bureaucratic hurdles and institutional aspirations of a new museum commissioning work on a public university campus, to inspiration from Indigenous earthworks of the Miami people and practical and material challenges to realization and preservation.”

Dell’Aria has long admired Holt’s work. “I was so thrilled when I started teaching at Miami to learn that we had one of her public artworks,” Dell’Aria said. “When I learned of this fellowship, it felt like a great opportunity to merge two of my interests: public art and Miami's history.” Her research will also examine Holt’s dozen proposals, nine completed projects and her deep involvement with U.S. universities.

Dell’Aria expects to use institutional archives from Miami’s museum such as drawings, plans, press clippings, photographs and a journal kept by professor Clive Getty during Holt's visits. Additionally, she plans to conduct oral history interviews with students and faculty who oversaw Holt constructing the sculpture, as well as those who witnessed later conservation efforts. Miami art librarian Stefanie Hilles and the University Archives will also help her. Finally, Dell’Aria will access information from Holt-Smithson’s digital database and some of Holt’s papers in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art in Washington, D.C.

Before applying for her fellowship at the beginning of the spring semester, Dell’Aria developed a proposal based on her preliminary readings, submitted some writing samples, secured a recommendation letter and interviewed with the foundation. 

Dell’Aria thanks master of fine arts (MFA) student Kelsey Nolin for giving her the heads up about the fellowship after they discussed Star-Crossed in class the previous semester. She also credits Miami’s museum and her department chair, Amanda Alexander, for supporting her in earning the fellowship.

“The museum is an absolutely fantastic research resource that we are lucky to have on our campus,” Dell’Aria said. “Their staff is so knowledgeable and helpful.”

After the fellowship concludes, Dell’Aria and Miami’s museum hope to arrange a symposium or small exhibition for her work. 

Read more about Star-Crossed and Dell’Aria’s bio online.