Carolina Hannah
2007-2008 Fellow
Carolina Hannah, a PHD candidate at Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture, was the 2008 James Renwick Fellow at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.
Her research focused on the potter and painter Henry Varnum Poor, who worked during the 1920s and 1930s. Poor's well-known pottery and his soon-to-be better known hand-built home and studio, Crow House, formed two areas of her inquiry. While in Washington, Hannah had the opportunity to investigate Poor's frescoes at both the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior. These works are marvelous to see in context; both buildings were built in the 1930s and have impressive iconographic features that pervade the architecture and the art program. Poor's frescoes relate in many ways to his pottery: both require a similar sense of spontaneity in their execution, both use a sgraffito technique to create the design, and Poor made murals in both mediums at different times during his career.
Her research in Washington brought up new lines of inquiry. With ready access to holdings in the Archives of American Art, Hannah looked at the papers of other artists engaged in craft media between the wars to understand better Poor's own turning towards craft at this time. By focusing on contemporaries of Poor, such as Carl Walters, She was able to formulate a better understanding of the marketplace for studio pottery in the 1920s and 1930s.