Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has named Michaela Rife (BA 2010, MA 2011, 2014) as one of seven 2018-19 Tyson Scholars for her project “Public Art, Private Land: Visual Culture, Land Use, and Settler Colonialism in the American West, 1890-1940.”
The Tyson Scholars Program encourages and supports scholarship that seeks to expand boundaries or traditional categories of investigation into American art, in particular those with the potential to advance understanding of American art and to intersect meaningfully with aspects of Crystal Bridges’ collections, architecture, or landscape. Michaela’s dissertation examines how representations of natural resources in turn of the century festivals and New Deal murals worked to enshrine extractive identities in settler communities, specifically on the Great Plains.
More information on the Tyson Scholars Program and this year’s recipients can be found on their website.
Please join us in congratulating Michaela on receiving this prestigious award!