NEH CURATORIAL INTERNSHIP PROGRAM
Bryn Mawr College
Graduate Group in Archaeology, Classics, and History of Art
NEH Curatorial Internship Program
Internship Opportunities at Partner Institutions
Summer 2012 through Spring 2013
Prospective interns must have a faculty sponsor, who will work with them to make the appropriate contact at the partner institution and at Bryn Mawr.
Prior to applying for a curatorial internship, students must meet with a staff member atthe partner institution to design a curatorial project at that institution.
For opportunities at the PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART in the department of Modern and Contemporary Art, contact Kelly Lehman, Administrative Assistant in Modern and Contemporary Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, P.O. Box 7646, Philadelphia, PA 19101; email Kelly,Lehman@philamuseum.org; reference Bryn Mawr Internships in the subject line.
To find out about internship opportunities in other departments contact Marla K. Shoemaker, Senior Curator of Education, Philadelphia Museum of Art, P.O. Box 7646, Philadelphia, PA 19101; e-mail mshoemaker@philamuseum.org; reference Bryn Mawr Internships in the subject line.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art has potential internship opportunities in various curatorial departments. Projects include conducting research for upcoming exhibitions; assisting with loan arrangements for exhibitions; researching and documenting the permanent collection; and assisting with public programs related to exhibitions and collections. In particular, the department of Modern and Contemporary Art is seeking qualified interns to provide support with research, writing, and administrative details for the curatorial department. The intern will assist with specific contemporary art exhibitions as well as with the management of the collection.
For opportunities at the UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY contact Professor Ann Blair Brownlee, Acting Curator-in-Charge, Mediterranean Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104; e-mail abrownle@mail.sas.upenn.edu; phone 215-898-6556.
The collections of the Mediterranean Section in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology comprise approximately 30,000 objects of Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Cypriot, and Bronze Age Aegean origin, the majority of which were acquired before World War I, when the laws governing the export of antiquities made it possible. Students work on various aspects of the collection.
The Museum is now doing preliminary planning for a new permanent exhibition of its extraordinary Cypriot collection, and interns will have an opportunity to work with the Mediterranean Section’s keeper and curator on this project. Internships are available for the Fall semester only.
For opportunities at the INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART contact Kathryn Kraczon, Assistant Curator, Institute of Contemporary Art, 118 S. 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104; e-mail kkraczon@ica.upenn.edu; reference “curatorial graduate internship” in the email subject line.
An intern will work with Institute of Contemporary Art’s (ICA) curatorial team to research relevant texts to prepare for the upcoming Jason Rhoades travelling exhibition – organized by ICA. The intern will work with the Senior Curator and Assistant Curator to pinpoint vital exhibition themes, prepare bibliographies and exhibition histories, secure catalogue images, and assist with exhibition interpretation strategies for the general public. Jason Rhoades is the first major American museum exhibition of this exceptional American installation artist. Rhoades’s sprawling environments are immediately accessible and eye-catching. Using found objects, neon, Lego, power tools, macramé, and a vast range of other materials, Rhoades’s work brings the viewer in with humor, vibrancy, and the provocative audacity of his vision. Rhoades’s popular vernacular ranges from the complete filmic oeuvre of Kevin Kostner to Black Pussy, a neon compilation of slang synonyms. As this will be the artist’s first major institutional exhibition, the show will travel to prominent museums throughout the country.
Other potential internship projects include working with curatorial and public relations staff on the institutional archives, including conducting in-depth research on past ICA exhibitions, and developing ways to make related images and materials available to scholars and general audiences via the museum’s website.
For opportunities at the PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY OF THE FINE ARTS contact Robert Cozzolino, Curator of Modern Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 128 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102; e-mail rcozzolino@pafa.org; phone 215-972-2302; fax 215-972-5564.
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th- and 20th-century American paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. PAFA maintains an active special exhibition program, which features masterpieces from around the world as well as work by emerging artists. PAFA’s archives house important materials for the study of American art history, museums, and art training.
Internship opportunities at PAFA include assisting with all aspects of special exhibitions—conducting exhibition research; preparing catalogue information; assisting with loan arrangements; and drafting exhibition labels and text. In addition to assisting with exhibitions, internship opportunities include research, documentation, and reinstallation of the permanent collection; development of community outreach programs; and assisting with grant writing and fundraising. See http://www.pafa.org/Museum/Exhibitions/Upcoming-Exhibitions/124/ for current projects.
For opportunities at the AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY (APS) MUSEUM, contact Dr. Sue Ann Prince, Founding Director & Curator, American Philosophical Society Museum, Richardson Hall, 2nd Floor, 431 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106; e-mail: sprince@amphilsoc.org; phone 215- 440-3442; fax 215-238-0340; www.APSMuseum.org and www.amphilsoc.org.
Established in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin, the American Philosophical Society’s mission is to “promote useful knowledge.” The APS Museum exhibitions explore the intersections of history, science, and art, and connect the historical themes and objects in its exhibitions to relevant issues today.
The APS Museum seeks an intern whose interests include cultural history, history of science, art history including contemporary art, the Enlightenment, European or early American history, Philadelphia history, and/or museum studies. The Museum, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2011, organizes interdisciplinary exhibitions and public programs, and for each one it commissions original contemporary works in visual art, music, architecture, and/or the performance arts. These projects offer a contemporary lens through which to interpret the exhibitions.
Our intern will be able to choose from several potential projects: (1) researching objects in the permanent fine art and object collections; (2) assisting in planning and/or implementing interdisciplinary public and educational programs for the 2012 exhibition “Tempus Fugit: Passage of Time and Knowledge,” a show of objects from the permanent collections of the APS Library and Museum that are being selected by Chicago artist Antonia Contro, who will also create and exhibit art works in response to the selected objects. (3) researching themes and objects or working on programs for other future exhibitions, possibly including one on Thomas Jefferson and Philadelphia (pending funding). (4) researching image files and printed materials from past exhibitions and projects and helping develop a useful, easily accessible archive on the Museum’s website.
The intern will join a small, versatile staff and will have the opportunity to see all aspects of museum work in action.
For opportunities at the LIBRARY COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA, contact Sarah Weatherwax, Curator of Prints and Photographs, Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107; e-mail: printroom@librarycompany.org; phone 215-546-8229
Potential projects for interns 2011-2012:
William Adolph Collection Project
In 1974, The Library Company acquired a large collection of drawings, proof prints, plates, and tools that belonged to William Adolph (1861-1948). Adolph had a long career as an engraver with the American Bank Note Company and the United States’ Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Adolph created hundreds of images for use on items such as stock certificates, postage stamps, and foreign bank notes. Art work like Adolph’s was decorative, but also helped to prevent counterfeiting. A comprehensive graphic archive compiled by and representing the career of an artisan active during the nineteenth century is rare. The Adolph collection would provide an intern a unique opportunity to arrange, describe, and preserve graphic materials important to scholars of the graphic arts, scripology and printmaking. The intern would inventory the collection, including research and providing descriptions of the graphics, into a database and archivally rehouse parts of the collection. The intern would select and digitize items from the collection to be integrated into an online exhibition of his/her design that will provide a biography of Adolph, the provenance of the collection, and an overview of the materials.
American Sunday-School Union Project
Based in Philadelphia, the American Sunday-School Union was the most prolific publisher of American children’s books in the 19th century. In 2009, the Library Company received a collection of some 6,500 woodblocks that the Union used to print the illustrations in their books, plus a proofbook and sample imprints. Because the Union employed skilled artist/engravers such as George Gilbert (fl. 1818-1836), Alexander Anderson (1775-1870), John Warner Barber (1798-1885), and James Barton Longacre (1794-1869), these are important artifacts related to the history of American book illustration. In summer 2011, we conducted a pilot project to digitize sample woodblocks in our online graphics catalog ImPAC (www.lcpdigital.org). The next phase of the project will be to juxtapose images in the proofbook with images of the woodblocks, identify the books in which the illustrations appeared, and – where possible – identify the engravers of blocks from the artists’ monograms. The aim of the project is to create a resource that will especially aid scholars interested in pedagogy and book illustration, but ultimately will relate to many areas of American social history. The intern will work with staff to add images to ImPAC, with appropriate metadata.
For opportunities at BRYN MAWR COLLEGE contact Marianne Weldon, Collections Manager for Art and Artifacts, Thomas Hall, Room 132; e-mail mweldon@brynmawr.edu; phone 610-526-5335
Interns in Bryn Mawr’s Art and Artifact Collections can obtain experience in all aspects of collections work, including research, documentation, cataloguing, collections care and conservation, photography and digital imaging, and exhibition and publication development. Students should develop internship projects in consultation with a faculty member, who will serve as the project supervisor.
During 2011 and 2012, students will continue the development of the Art and Artifact collections database, which currently contains over 27,000 object records and 50,000 digital images. Work on the database includes researching collections, individual object cataloguing, and digital imaging of works of art and archaeological artifacts. Areas of the collection that could be the focus of internship projects include, Egyptian artifacts, Mediterranean and Near Eastern pottery, Old Master prints, Photographs, Asian artifacts, and the collection of approximately 250 paintings.
