DALLAS, TX.- Today the Meadows Museum, SMU announced two curatorial fellowship appointments. Julia M. Vázquez, who was recently awarded a Ph.D. from Columbia University, has focused her research on the life, career, and historic influence of painter Diego Velázquez, and will serve as the Mellon Curatorial Fellow for a period of two years, starting in October 2020. Akemi Luisa Herráez Vossbrink, a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge, UK, who has focused her research on the Latin American reception of works by Spanish Golden Age painter Francisco de Zurbarán, will join the institution for a one-year term beginning in September 2020 as the first Center for Spain in America (CSA) Curatorial Fellow.

Both fellowships include an annual stipend, of $50,000 and $40,000 respectively. The fellowships provide scholars at different stages of their careers with the opportunity to develop new scholarship in Spanish art and gain invaluable professional experience in the Meadows Museum’s curatorial department. Fellows are selected through a multitiered review process led by the museum’s director and leadership from the curatorial and education teams following an international call for applications.

“We are thrilled to have Julia and Akemi joining the Meadows Museum team this fall,” said Mark A. Roglán, the Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum. “Each of these promising scholars brings important expertise to our study and presentation of Spanish art. They, in turn, will have the opportunity to continue building their knowledge drawing on the art and art-historical resources of the Meadows Museum and SMU. The selection committee was impressed by their energy and passion for Spanish art, which will undoubtedly infuse their work here, to the benefit of our staff and diverse audiences alike.”

Julia M. Vázquez brings to her position as Mellon Curatorial Fellow experience in research, exhibition development, and teaching. She has held curatorial internships and fellowships at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; and the Meadows Museum. Vázquez was also the recipient of a Hilla Rebay International Fellowship, which provides opportunities to undertake in-depth professional training at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. She contributed an essay to the award-winning publication Alonso Berruguete: First

Sculptor of Renaissance Spain, which was developed in tandem with an exhibition of the same name, organized by the Meadows Museum and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. She has also written entries on the works of Diego Velázquez, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and Pablo Picasso for the Meadows Museum collections handbook, slated for publication in spring 2021. Vázquez received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York in 2019, with a dissertation focused on Velázquez’s role as a curator. She is currently working on a book that further explores this subject.

Akemi Luisa Herráez Vossbrink is currently completing a Ph.D. in the history of art at the University of Cambridge in England. Her thesis explores the reception of Francisco de Zurbarán’s work in Latin America, considering such topics as the transatlantic trade, workshop collaboration, and the establishment of Spanish art collections in Latin America. Herráez Vossbrink’s research has appeared in several publications, including the catalogue for the exhibition Zurbarán: Jacob and His Twelve Sons, Paintings from Auckland Castle, which was co-presented by the Meadows Museum and The Frick Collection in New York. Prior to accepting her new role at the Meadows, she served for nearly two years as the CEEH Curatorial Fellow in Spanish Painting at the National Gallery in London, where she provided curatorial support for the exhibitions Bartolomé Bermejo: Master of the Spanish Renaissance and Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light.