The American Academy in Rome (AAR) recently announced the winners of the 2024–2025 Rome Prize, which includes a Ph.D. Candidate from The University of Texas at Austin. These highly competitive fellowships support advanced independent work and research in the arts and humanities. The Rome Prize was awarded to 31 American artists and scholars, who will each receive a stipend, workspace and room and board for five to ten months at the Academy’s eleven-acre campus in Rome, starting this September.
Of the recipients, Crystal Rosenthal, a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Art and Art History at UT, was awarded the Arthur Ross Rome Prize for her dissertation project titled “Agents on the Shore: Harbor Arches in Roman Port Cities”. Her project traces the emergence of monumental freestanding arches in Roman port cities during the early Empire and how they perform a ‘spectacle of the border’ through their siting, construction, design, and transformation via artistic representations.
The Rome Prize winners were presented in-person during the Janet & Arthur Ross Rome Prize Ceremony and Concert, which took place April 25 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York. The program, comprising a selection of innovative works by Rome Prize Fellows in musical composition and an arrangement of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, were performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble under the artistic direction of George E. Lewis, a 2010 prize recipient.
“The Rome Prize is one of the most storied fellowship programs in the United States,” said AAR President Peter N. Miller. “Over a thousand people compete for the chance to live and work in Rome, inspired by the city and one another. The Rome Prize winners represent a bridge between the United States and Italy, but also between a present of potential and a future of achievement.”
Rome Prize winners are selected annually by juries of distinguished artists and scholars through a national competition. This year’s competition received 1,106 applications—a record high—from applicants in 46 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. For more information about the Rome Prize, visit the American Academy in Rome website.