Announcing the Inaugural Recipients of the Marilynn Thoma Fellowship and the Thoma Foundation Research and Travel Awards

The Thoma Foundation is proud to announce the inaugural recipients of the Marilynn Thoma Fellowship in Spanish Colonial Art and the Thoma Foundation Research and Travel Grants. The $60,000 Marilynn Thoma Post-Doctoral Fellowship is awarded to Katherine Moore McAllen, Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande, who will produce a book manuscript examining how winemaking in colonial Mexico and Peru helped fund the production of art and the decoration of churches. Two pre-doctoral fellowships of $45,000 each will also be awarded to Verónica Muñoz-Nájar Luque, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, who will conduct research on the unexamined imagery of the Amazon communities, collectively referred to as “Chunchos,” that inhabited Peru’s tropical lowlands during the viceregal era, and Catalina Ospina, a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago, who will analyze the native Andean image-making process of mopa mopa, comparing it to other, better known oral traditions of the region.

Additionally, three scholars will receive Research and Travel Awards in Spanish colonial art. Jennifer Baez (PhD candidate, Florida State University), Emily Floyd(Lecturer, University College London) and Paul Niell (Associate Professor of Art History, Florida State University) will all receive stipends for self-designed research projects that involve travel to the Caribbean, Chile and Peru. 

The 2019-20 fellows were selected from a competitive pool of international applicants on the basis of their academic accomplishments, their commitment to the field of Spanish colonial art and the relative merit of their project. All awardees were chosen by an international jury of three undisclosed experts in the field.

The next awards cycle for the Marilynn Thoma Fellowship in Spanish Colonial Art and the Thoma Foundation Research and Travel Awards will be announced in late spring, 2019.

To read the press release about this year’s awardees, see here.