African Arts Scholar Named 2021–22 Postdoctoral Fellow in Modern and Contemporary Art History by UMD, Phillips Collection

The University of Maryland Center for Art and Knowledge at the Phillips Collection has named a scholar of African arts as the 2021–22 postdoctoral fellow in modern and contemporary art history.

Perrin M. Lathrop, who this year received her Ph.D. from the Department of Art & Archaeology and graduate certificate in African American studies at Princeton University, will work with the Phillips’ modern art collection in Washington, D.C. and UMD’s programs in art historical scholarship, interdisciplinary experimentation and virtual technologies.

Lathrop’s research and teaching explore the interlocking intellectual histories and networks of nationalism, Pan-Africanism and modernism that informed art produced under the strictures of colonialism in Africa. This work has been supported by Princeton University, the Smithsonian, the Paul Mellon Centre,and the Warhol Foundation and has appeared in African Arts, The Journal of African History, Critical Interventions and Savvy Journal; and in volumes produced by the Newark Museum, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Harvard University, Phaidon, Bookcraft Nigeria and Skira.

She is co-curator of the traveling exhibition “African Modernism in America, 1947-1967” with Fisk University Galleries and the American Federation of Arts. Opening in fall 2022, the show has been awarded grants from the Warhol Foundation, the Sotheby’s Prize, and the National Endowment for the Arts. As the UMD-Phillips postdoctoral fellow, she will focus on this exhibition and its catalogue.

During the academic year, fellows also teach one undergraduate or graduate course, present at least one public lecture, and participate in other programs and discussions with scholars, critics, museum staff, and students at the museum and the university.