September 10, 2001

Contact: Mary Jane Dunlap, University Relations, (785) 864-8853.

KU art history student wins second national fellowship

LAWRENCE -- A doctoral student in art history has received a second national fellowship to complete her dissertation "From the Courtroom to the Gallows: Picturing Justice in American Visual Culture, 1850-1880."

Kerry Morgan of Champaign, Ill., has received a Terra Foundation for the Arts fellowship. In 2000, Morgan received an $18,500 Henry Luce / American Council of Learned Societies doctoral fellow to fund work on her dissertation.

The Terra Foundation for the Arts fellowship is awarded nationally for the advanced study of American art. Recipients receive an initial grant of $5,000. Several stipends to facilitate training at the Terra Museum of American Art in Chicago and to fund travel to the College Art Association's Annual Conference where recipients present their dissertations in a Works-in-Progress session are also included.

Morgan's dissertation addresses how the U.S. legal system was pictured before and after the Civil War and the effect those images had in developing perceptions of the legal system. Morgan is exploring a wide-range of visual objects that were produced from 1850 to 1880.

Morgan's dissertation adviser, Charles Eldredge, KU Hall distinguished professor of American art and culture, said: "It is rare in my experience to have a student win more than one national competition. Kerry's success is reflective of the fine quality of her work."