Dalibor Prančević (an assistant professor in the Art History Department of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split, Croatia) and Ingeborg Zechner (while a reasearch assistant at the Gluck Research Center at the University of Salzburg, Austria) were visiting Fulbright Scholars in the Department of Art and Music Histories during the 2017-18 and 2018-19 academic years, respectively. After returning to Europe, and continuing to work during these unprecedented times of COVID-19, both Dalibor and Ingeborg remain actively engaged in furthering their research, writing, publication, and teaching efforts.
During Dalibor's eight-month Fulbright tenure he researched the internationally-acclaimed Croatian artist Ivan Meštrović (1883-1962) and the artist's influence on American culture. Meštrović, who had been imprisoned in by the Nazis Germany during WWII, was invited by former Syracuse University Chancellor William Tolley to become a professor in the School of Art in 1947. Remaining in Syracuse until 1955, Meštrović is credited with having developed the University's fully-formed sculpture program. Hundreds of public and private works by Meštrović are located throughout the U.S., including in the collections of the Syracuse University Art Museum. Several sculptures by Meštrović are prominently displayed on campus. Dalibor, a former curator at the Ivan Mestrović Foundation and Gallery in Split, Croatia, has written extensively about the Croatian artist, including the voluminous Ivan Mestrović i kultura modernizma: ekspresionizam i art deco (2017).
After returning to Split, Dalibor's research has continued to focus on art and visual culture. He is presently teaching courses on contemporary art, art of the 20th century and the end of modernity, visual communication, and art as expressed through contemporary exhibition practice at the University of Split. He also regularly curates contemporary exhibitions and publishes texts, reviews, and articles. In 2019, he authored Frano Missia. Itinerant Painter: Chronoscript of an Artistic Journey, published for the City Museum of Split. Missia was Croatian-born (1924-2018), and lived and practiced in New York for more than four decades. Dalibor was also granted a Croatian Science Foundation award in 2019 to lead a three-year research project: “Manifestations of Modern Sculpture in Croatia: Sculpture on the Crossroads between Socio-political Pragmatism, Economic Possibilities and Aesthetical Contemplation.” This effort will result in a forthcoming book (2021), with Dalibor serving as editor-in-chief.
Ingeborg’s research was focused on the American oeuvre of the German-born Jewish composer Franz Waxman (1906-1967) during her four-month Fulbright tenure. Waxman, who had moved to Hollywood to escape Nazi persecution in the mid-1930s, became an Oscar-winning film composer and the founder, music director, and conductor of the Los Angeles Music Festival. While at Syracuse University, Ingeborg’s work was centered in the Special Collections Research Center at Bird Library which houses the “Waxman Papers.”
In furtherance of her Waxman research, the Austrian Science Fund awarded Ingeborg a four-year grant in 2019 to conduct an expansive research project, “Between Film Music and the Concert Hall.” Based at the University of Graz, the project is structured to more fully examine the scope, interplay and contrast of Waxman’s cinematic works with what some consider his more serious roles as a composer and promoter of the musical arts. Further information about this project can be found at https://www.ingeborgzechner.com/forschungsprojekte/. Stemming from this research, Ingeborg’s preliminary assessments have appeared in the form of an article in the collection Double Lives: Film Composers in the Concert Hall edited by James Wierzbicki (Routledge, 2019).
The Department of Art and Music Histories wishes Dalibor and Ingeborg the very best in their continued academic, scholarly, and professional endeavors.