Student Spotlight: Ella Langridge '25 | 2023 Jameson Fellow for American Painting and Decorative Arts

As the recipient of the Jameson Fellowship for American Painting and Decorative Arts, rising junior Ella Langridge will spend the next academic year as a researcher at the Bayou Bend Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and receive a $15,000 stipend.

Double majoring in Art History and Medieval/Early Modern Studies, Ella describes what inspired her to apply for the fellowship:

“One of my main passions, and one of my main reasons for pursuing a museum career, is outward-facing museum work. As much as I enjoy academic investigation, I find its true value in communication outside of the realm of academia, and in creating access to knowledge, because access to knowledge is what allowed me to develop my passion for art. I was able to find and make personal meanings with the help of museums and the content they put out into the world, to engage with the humanities and with humanity at large, and I want to spend my career making that passion and that meaning as widely accessible as possible. Working at Bayou Bend would be particularly conducive to this, because of its philanthropic conceit, and its opening to the public of a collection of mostly upper-class, elite, and thus previously inaccessible items. In addition to allowing me to do something I find intrinsically valuable, this fellowship would allow me to find clarity on a specific career path or goal within the museum, to evaluate my own strengths and compatibilities with the work I am doing, and to find a specific place within museum work to which I can add value.”