Salt Lake City – The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) at the University of Utah is pleased to announce that Emily Izzo has been named the Museum’s 2015-16 Kress Interpretive Fellow. The Museum was recently awarded a major $30,000 grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to fund the one-year position.
Izzo is currently an audience engagement specialist at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and has an MA in museum studies from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She will begin work this fall with the UMFA’s education and curatorial departments, working primarily to develop new ways for visitors to deepen their understanding of the Museum’s European art collection.
The Kress Interpretive Fellowship program provides competitive grants to American art museums to sponsor mentored internships for either future museum educators or curators. The program is meant to encourage exploration of interpretive careers in art museums, strengthen the profession of museum education as well as ties between educators and curators, and expand the range of career options for students of art history and related fields.
“We’re thrilled about this prestigious grant and about the opportunity to have such a talented museum professional working with us this year,” says Gretchen Dietrich, UMFA executive director. “Emily will be integral in helping us find innovative ways to display work from our European collection, integrate smart educational materials into our galleries, and work collaboratively across departments to enhance our visitors’ experiences.”
The UMFA’s European art collection makes up a substantial portion of the Museum’s objects on view and offers many visitors their first encounter with global works of art.
Other institutions awarded funding for Kress Interpretive Fellowships this year include Cornell University’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Frick Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Past Interpretive Fellowship recipients include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
For more information call (801) 581-7332 or visit www.umfa.utah.edu