Tessa Trethowan Dissertation Bursaries
The Tessa Trethowan Memorial Fund was set up in memory of Tessa Trethowan, who graduated from the Department of Art History in 1990. The Fund offers bursaries to help undergraduate students with travel costs and other significant expenses incurred in connection with the preparation of their dissertation.
In 2021–22, the Fund supported the following projects:
Ilaria Bevan: The Self-Portraits of Giorgio di Chirico (1888-1978)
Giorgio de Chirico, the self-proclaimed pictor optimus (best painter), created approximately 250 self-portraits between 1911 and ca. 1960. Those painted during his so-called ‘metaphysical period’ are recognised as some of his most successful works, while those created from the 1940s onwards are often seen as ‘grotesque’, ‘ugly’ and the epitome of kitsch. The artist's self-fascination intended not only to revive the grande pittura (great painting) style, but also fool audiences into believing criticism circulated about him since the mid-1920s. A Trethowan bursary funded a research trip to Rome to allow Ilaria to study these portraits in more detail in the Giorgio and Isa di Chirico Foundation, the National Gallery of Modern Art, and the Carlo Bilotti Museum.
Giorgio di Chirico, Self Portrait with Bust of Minerva, 1948, Carlo Bilotti Museum (Credit: Ilaria Bevan)
Elliot Seth Faber: Kaleidoscopic Synthesis in the Artworks and Films of Sergei Parajanov (Joint Dissertation with Film Studies)
The Armenian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov gained critical acclaim for his work of poetic cinema The Colour of Pomegranates (1969). An influential and provocative figure working in Soviet Ukraine, Parajanov was imprisoned multiple times by the Soviet authorities. During his incarceration he channelled his creativity into making collages, assemblages, sketches, dolls and coins. Elliot’s research addressed the theoretical dialogue between the assemblages, collages and the artist's filmography. With Trethowan support, he was able to travel to Yerevan in Armenia to visit the Parajanov house-museum, experience the works first-hand and interact with scholars and curators who had known Parajanov personally.
Commemorative shrine for Sergei Parajanov, Parajanov Museum, Yerevan (Credit: Elliot Seth Faber)
Grace Kinnersley: The Myth of Belonging: Jordan and The King Abdullah I Mosque
Grace’s dissertation analysed the role of Rasem Badran’s King Abdullah I Mosque (1989) in the development of Jordanian identity and state-building through the lens of its architectural, political, and religious history. With the aid of a Trethowan Memorial Bursary, she was able to fly to Amman to carry out on-site research during Reading Week. The trip provided an immersive experience that deepened her understanding of Jordan and allowed her to examine the Abdullah Mosque as a concrete representation of the ‘needs’ of Jordan in the late 1980s, as a relatively new state forging its identity.
Rasem Badran, King Abdullah I Mosque, Amman, 1989 (Credit: Grace Kinnersley)
Abby Li: Ideas of Progress and Cycle: from 19th-century Landscape Painting to Contemporary Ecological Installations
The Goetheanum, located in Dornach, Switzerland, is the centre for anthroposophy, a spiritual philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner. It was intended to be a Gesamtkunstwerk (the ideal union of all the arts) and serve as an experiential introduction to the philosophical and metaphysical teachings of anthroposophy. Steiner was deeply influenced by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s ideas of nature as the ‘primal source of all existence’ and created the Goetheanum as a model of organic architecture. He believed that in order for architecture to be ‘truthful’, it should be psychologically and physiologically user-friendly and convey ‘transparency of form’. A Trethowan bursary enabled Abby to visit the Goetheanum, experience Steiner’s approach to nature in his principles of organic architecture and explore the relationship to his spiritual philosophy.
Rudolf Steiner, Boiler House, Goetheanum, Dornach, 1914 (Credit: Abby Li)
Hannah Rees-Middleton: Water, Hygiene, and the Bathroom: the Female Bather in France, 1880–1940
Hannah’s research examined how French painters addressed the female nude in the domestic space of the bathroom. Building on feminist art history, she was interested in the ambiguous boundaries between private and public space in depictions of the bathing female, as well as how this related to wider social questions of bathing, hygiene and cleanliness. With the help of the Trethowan Memorial Fund, she was able to travel to Paris to visit the Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre and the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and closely study works by artists such as Émile Bernard, Félix Vallotton, Edgar Degas and Georges Braque.
Frank Gehry, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2008–2-14 (Credit: Hannah Rees-Middleton)
Emilia Sharples: Covid-19 and the Curatorial Space
In the two years since the pandemic began, museums and galleries have been forced to reassess their approach to how visitors view artefacts and negotiate the curatorial space. Accessibility has come to the forefront of user experience, while closures and social distancing have foregrounded the potential of technology in developing new forms of connoisseurship. Trethowan funding enabled Emilia to visit a number of galleries in Scotland during the pandemic, in order to witness and assess different approaches to the altered viewing space and the needs of inclusivity, conservation, interpretation and education.
Ruth Ewan, How Many Flowers Make the Spring? 2021 (Credit: Emilia Sharples)
Lili Szomor: Salvador Dalí’s illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’
In 1969, Salvador Dalí created twelve illustrations for a new publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. These were very different from the novel’s original illustrations by John Tenniel, published in 1865. Instead of literal depiction, they explored themes of identity and transformation, the relationship between children and adults and the nature of dreams, irrationality and memory. To facilitate her research into the relationship between word and image in Alice, Lili applied for a Trethowan bursary to travel to London to visit the V&A Museum’s 2021 exhibition Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser and purchase a number of related books.
V&A exhibition Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, 2021 (Credit: Lili Szomor)
Theodora Wood: Christian Dior’s 1947 ‘New Look:’ Liberating or Restricting?
Inspired by the exhibition Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams at the Brooklyn Museum, Theodora’s dissertation argued that Dior’s designs did not liberate women, but rather symbolised a backwards step for post-war female identity. Prevented from visiting the exhibition by Covid travel restrictions, she was able to purchase the exhibition catalogue and another book with Trethowan support. These gave her a crucial starting point for her critical analysis of Dior’s 1947 collection and its modern-day reception.
Catalogue of the Brooklyn Museum exhibition Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, 2021