The Department of Art History has been triply honored with three of its graduate students—Anna Marley, Sarah Powers and Kerry Roeder—receiving predoctoral fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution. The fellowships include a stipend, office space at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and access to its archives.

“The Department of Art History is enormously proud of our students at all levels,” Bernard Herman, Edward and Elizabeth Rosenberg Professor of Art History and department chairperson, says. “The Smithsonian fellowships received by Sarah, Kerry and Anna are honors not only for them but for the whole departmental community.”

“All three students are impressive and have shown initiative,” David Stone, associate professor and director of graduate study in art history, says. He adds that the three “have reached out in the field of art history.”

Marley is writing about landscape paintings found over the mantel and on furniture in early American homes in the 18th century.

“In some houses, a panel of wood was actually built into the house over the mantel to be used for a painting later,” Marley says. “Some of the artists, such as Francis Guy of Baltimore and Ralph Earl of Connecticut, are recognized artists, but many of the artists are unknown. I am interested in what influenced the early artists and those who commissioned them. One of the paintings I will be researching was commissioned by George Washington at Mt. Vernon.”

Her adviser is Wendy Bellion, assistant professor of art history, and also Michael Leja, an adjunct art history professor.

Powers is interested in American art between World War I and World War II and the juxtaposition of realism and abstractionism. “These were the years when American art was in a stage of transformation, and I am interested in the issues of modernism and antimodernism in that period and in the work of three well-known artists of that time,” she says.

Her advisers are Ann Gibson, professor of art history, and Leja.Roeder's research focuses on Winsor McCay, known for his Little Nemo in Slumberland Sunday comic strip for the New York Herald in the early 1900s. “McCay’s work was imaginative and inventive, with wonderful layouts, and was part of the popular culture of that period,” Roeder says. “I am exploring McCay's use of fantastic imagery and the cultural preoccupation with the imagination and childhood at the turn of the century.”

Her advisers are Margaret Werth, associate professor of art history, and Leja.

Although the three students are carrying out research in widely diverse areas, they agree that the reason they chose the University of Delaware's art history department was its strong reputation and the number and quality of faculty in the field of American art history.