Call for applications.

Each year the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA) awards multiple Fellowships to support research on and the study of Italian modern and contemporary art for doctoral and post-doctoral scholars. Citizens of all nationalities are eligible. CIMA offers a unique experience to its fellows: its exhibition program serves as a hub for scholars from different academic backgrounds to share—with each other and with the public—research that speaks to the artworks on view. The fellowship has two main components: 1) research conducted through close examination of the artworks and individualized study of a topic raised by the exhibition; 2) community engagement, through public programming in collaboration with CIMA staff and in-person exhibition tours. During their residency, fellows also have the opportunity to pursue their own research and connect with scholars and other professionals in and around New York.

Fall-Winter 2023-24 Fellowships
CIMA’s Fall-Winter 2023-24 exhibition will be dedicated to Italian artist Corrado Cagli and focus on the human and intellectual trajectory of the years he spent in the United States, between 1938 and 1948. As a Jewish and openly gay artist, starting in 1937 Cagli became the target of antisemitic attacks from reactionary critics within the fascist regime. As Italy promulgated its racial laws in 1938, Cagli left the country for the United States, where he became a protagonist of the New York émigré artistic scene; as World War II raged, he enrolled in the US Army, training on the West Coast, and traveled back to Europe, where he participated in historical events such as D-Day and the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. At the end of the war, he played a key role in re-establishing cultural relationships between Italy and the US thanks to his collaboration with Irene Brin and the Roman Galleria L’Obelisco. During the ten years of his American stay, Cagli continued to produce and exhibit drawings—a medium that became a particularly apt instrument to interrogate and critique the magniloquence of the fascist rhetoric that Cagli himself had contributed to delineate. Besides the themes of war, exile, and discrimination, the drawings in the exhibition will also address Cagli’s multifaceted engagement with the New York Surrealist and Neo-romantic milieu, as well as his collaboration with George Balanchine and the Ballet Society.

Some of the possible research subjects include (but are not limited to):
• Monographic approaches to Cagli’s work.
• Cultural responses to the promulgation of Italy’s racial laws.
• The reflection on Jewish identity in the work of Corrado Cagli and in art.
• Anti-fascist Italian and Italian American activism in the United States.
• The community of émigré artists in New York during the 1930s and 1940s.
• Art as a form of political resistance.
• The politics of cultural diplomacy between Italy and the United States after WWII.
• Corrado Cagli’s cultural network: George Balanchine, Eugene Berman, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Charles Olson, Leo Steinberg.
• Corrado Cagli and the Surrealist and Neo-romantic cultural scene in New York.
• The gay cultural scene in New York in the late 1940s.
• Art in times of war; the status of art as a wartime document.
• The memory and witnessing of the Holocaust through the visual arts.

The deadline for this CIMA Fellowship application is Friday, June 30, 2023. The selection process will be completed by mid-July 2023 and may include a phone or video interview if necessary. Application materials must be submitted in English.

Fellowship Details
• Fellowship Duration: the 2023-24 CIMA Fellowships will last four months, encompassing the Fall semester of the 2023-24 academic year, from October 1st, 2023 to January 31st, 2024. Graduate and Post-Graduate Fellows from the disciplines of Art History, Italian Studies, Jewish Studies, History, Holocaust Studies, and other fields in the Humanities may apply.
• Stipend and Benefits: Fellowship stipends vary in range, based on need and length of term, and typically include a living allowance of $3,750 per month. If appropriate, health insurance coverage will also be reimbursed, as well as travel costs from a fellow’s permanent residence to and from CIMA. CIMA fellows’ tax liability to the U.S. government will be determined in accordance with the tax regulations of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
• Resources: Fellows are given a desk at CIMA but are also encouraged to work at a desk provided for them in the main gallery, surrounded by the works that they are researching. They may apply to receive privileges at New York City research libraries through the MaRLI program, and through the research branch of the New York Public Library.
• Responsibilities: Fellows are expected to be present in New York during the term of their fellowship and to participate in the intellectual life and programming of CIMA, though a small research budget to support short research trips to archives elsewhere in the United States will be made available. Fellowship responsibilities include but are not limited to leading CIMA’s public tours (which occur twice a week on Fridays and Saturdays) as well as private guided visits for school groups and special constituents (on average once or twice a week, with the possibility of tours for children or other special activities) and to participating in the public and members’ programming through the run of the exhibition; these duties are shared evenly among the fellows. Fellows interact with a wide variety of public audiences, sharing their research in many different ways, including through guided tours. For this reason, CIMA is seeking candidates who have the ability to express themselves clearly in English.
• CIMA fellows will be present for the installation and de-installation of the exhibition and will collaborate on the planning of the season’s public programs. The fellows work together with CIMA staff to organize the exhibition’s Study Days—an international conference that brings together the fellows and other scholars to share research that stems from the exhibition on view. Fellows are encouraged to contribute to CIMA’s blog and to propose public programming; they are also invited to pursue their own projects and take advantage of the rich cultural life of New York. CIMA makes every effort to assist the fellows in making professional contacts during their residency.

The Selection Process
A committee of experts drawn from CIMA’s advisory board and CIMA’s university partners will meet to select the 2023-24 fellows. Candidates for CIMA Fellowships are chosen based on their academic potential and curriculum vitae, their proposed plans of study, their spoken and written English and Italian language abilities, and the correlation between their proposals and CIMA’s annual study topic. At CIMA we wish to foster a mix of emerging scholars from different schools of thought, who employ different methodologies and approaches, in order to encourage dialogue and exchange. All other factors being equal, preference will be given to those applicants who have not had extensive prior experience living, studying, and/or working in New York. CIMA selects fellows on an objective and non-discriminatory basis without regard to race, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. For this application, CIMA will accept pre-doctoral candidates, and post-doctoral candidates who have attained their PhD within the past 7 years.

The Application
The application should be emailed to infoitalianmodernart.org by Friday, June 30, 2023. The email subject line should state “Corrado Cagli fellowship” and the applicant’s first and last name. If the applicant does not receive confirmation or receipt within one week, please contact CIMA by phone or email. Please submit the following information in a single PDF document in 12pt Times font. Please do not send multiple attachments.

• Cover letter with applicant information and project summary
Name, Email, Phone, Address, Current Position
Brief statement describing your background, relevant experience, and particular interests (250-word limit)
Brief summary of proposed study, also relating your project to CIMA’s study theme (350-word limit)

• Proposal
Project Statement (1,500-word limit)

• Curriculum Vitae
A curriculum vitae (maximum of three pages)

• References
Please provide the names, phone numbers, and email addresses for three references. Please instruct your references to submit their letters directly to CIMA by Friday, June 30, 2023.
CIMA prefers letters as single-page PDFs sent to infoitalianmodernart.org with the applicant’s first name and last name in the email subject line.