American Identities on Land and At Sea

Shannon Vittoria received her Ph.D. in Art History from the City University of New York’s Graduate Center. She specializes in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American art, with a focus on landscape painting and women artists. Her doctoral dissertation "Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran (1842-1899)" is the first comprehensive study dedicated to the life and work of American painter-etcher Mary Nimmo Moran. In the past, Vittoria held curatorial research positions at the Frick Collection and the New-York Historical Society, where she contributed to The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution. She is currently a Research Assistant in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American Wing and is assisting with the forthcoming exhibition Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings, which opens at The Met in January 2018 and The National Gallery, London, in June 2018.

Eva McGraw is a doctoral candidate in Art History at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, specializing in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American art.  Her research interests include maritime art and attendant issues of warfare and global trade.  Eva’s dissertation, “Xanthus Russell Smith and Maritime Imagery in America,” is the first focused study on Xanthus Smith, a nineteenth-century marine painter who served in the Union Navy and created naval views of the Civil War for approximately forty years.  Her project examines Smith’s work at key moments of reconciliation and remembrance, considering the ways that artists and post-war audiences grappled with the war’s legacy of violence and disunion.  Eva’s dissertation has been supported by several fellowships, including the Catherine Hoover Voorsanger Fellowship, CUNY Graduate Center University Fellowship, the N-YHS Graduate Archival Research Fellowship and the Marian Goodman Travel Grant.  Eva has held numerous research positions and contributed to The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution at the New-York Historical Society.  She received her A.B. in Art History from Smith College. 

Bree Lehman is a Ph.D. Candidate in Art History at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, specializing in American landscape and portraiture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Her dissertation is entitled “Ancestors and Heirlooms: The Reception, Collection, and Display of Early American Portraiture, 1876–1941.” In the past, Bree has worked in the curatorial departments of the Terra Foundation for American Art, the New-York Historical Society, the Williams College Museum of Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Miami University Art Museum. She was also a Graduate Teaching Fellow at Brooklyn College and the Judith M. Lenett Memorial Fellow at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center. Bree holds a Master’s Degree in Art History from Williams College.