The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is one of five big American museums to designate undergraduates for the Andrew W. Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellowship Program, and the two new fellows for Houston have been announced; they will start their stint in the fall. Via the MFAH: “The fellowship provides specialized training in the curatorial field to students across the United States who exemplify historically underrepresented minorities and other undergraduates who are committed to promoting inclusive, pluralistic museums.”
This is a two-year, hands-on learning program, where the student fellows are matched with a museum curatorial mentor, and in the museum environment will assist “curators and staff on exhibitions, collections, and programs.” The students are expected to go on to graduate school in their discipline. The fellows for the MFAH are:
Amarie Gipson of St. Edward’s University; her curatorial mentor is Dena Woodall, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings.
Celia Shaheen of the University of Texas at Austin; her curatorial mentor is Malcolm Daniel, Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator, Department of Photography.
The other major museums participating are the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The fellowships are made possible through a grant of $465,000. The fellowship program is in the third year of its five-year pilot phase. For more info, go here.
