The Office of Graduate Studies at Rice University has awarded Claire Spadafora Baes, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art History, with the 2021-2022 Lodieska Stockbridge Vaughn Fellowship award.
The Vaughn Fellowship is given annually by the Graduate Council to students who display evidence of outstanding achievement and promise. The selection process is highly competitive and by nomination only. Only five awards are presented each year, one in social sciences, one in humanities and three in any discipline.
Interested in developments in style and taste, travel, and the building of collections, Claire's dissertation, "The Early Work of 'Raphael secundus': William Kent in Italy and England, 1709-1724," considers the training, collecting, and artistic production of 18th-century English artist William Kent in Italy. She has held curatorial internships and fellowships at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Newberry Library, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Blanton Museum of Art, as well as a position at Christie’s; her curatorial interests concern prints and drawings.