South Middlesex Times

Julia Katz has always been fascinated by stories of the ancient worlds. When she was 8 or 9, at her grandfather’s recommendation, she read the works of Homer.

“Part of it may be the fantasy element and the creativity required to come up with these stories,” said Katz, who is pursuing her doctorate in art history at Rutgers. “I’ve always been smitten with Greek and Roman mythology and that’s what I continue to return to in my own research.”

Julia Katz, a Rutgers art history doctoral student, is one of 31 artists and scholars awarded this year's Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. Soon, Katz will be able to conduct her research in the place where some of these stories were first told centuries ago.

She is one of 31 artists and scholars awarded this year’s Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, which provides room and board at a residential center on an 11-acre campus on Janiculum Hill in Italy’s capital. Each fellow receives a stipend and workspace to fully immerse themselves in their work.

“The Rome Prize is one of the most storied fellowship programs in the United States,” Peter N. Miller, the academy’s president, said in a press release announcing the 2024-2025 class. “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.”

The academy awards its prizes in 11 disciplines, including Katz’s category in Renaissance and early modern studies. Her research is titled Circe’s Wand: Reimagining Antiquities in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800. In Greek mythology, Circe was a sorceress who could turn humans into wolves, lions, and swine.

“I’m looking at the practice of sculpture restoration as more than just adding a missing nose or reattaching a broken arm to a torso,” said Katz, who at 30 is among the youngest recipients this year. “I’m exploring the practice as the inventive re-creation of absent parts of ancient remains.”

She is researching restored pieces (the physical process) as well as how these restorationists thought pieces could have looked originally (the imagined process).

“I’m looking at how artists specifically in the 17th century – but I’m covering a broad span from 1500-1800 – recycle these ancient fragments imaginatively and realistically,” she said.

Sleeping Hermaphrodite is one piece that Julia Katz will study during her fellowship in Rome. The sculpture is from Ancient Rome but was later sold to France and moved to The Louvre, where it is currently on display.

Katz will spend nearly a year – from September through July 2025 – poring through rare book collections at the academy located just floors beneath her bedroom. She will also visit museums like Borghese Gallery and libraries including Vatican's.

The Rome Prize – described by the academy as “the gift of time and space to think and work” – was especially competitive this year with record high applications totaling 1,106 resulting under three percent acceptance rate.

Katz’s research will serve as her dissertation as she plans to complete her degree by spring 2026. More importantly for her are conversations over meals she'll have with other artists across varied disciplines including design, architecture literature visual arts musical composition.

“I think larger impact fellowship life making connections developing new ways thinking beyond art-historical mode trained important seeing things new ways excited know people living seeing work inspires hopefully vice versa.”