Database of Funded Projects

The Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies has generously funded academic research and public history projects that promote an understanding of the historic relationship between the United States and Austria. The following search tools make it possible to explore these projects and to learn more about the scholars and organizations who have received BIAAS grants and fellowships.

2021-09-17T15:02:18+00:00

Megan Brandow-Faller

2021
Topics: Art, Gender, History, Migration
Products: Articles, Book

The cult of child creativity taking root in postwar America—or notions that all children are inherently creative with unique access to expressive powers—remains ubiquitous in contemporary American society. But rarely are such discourses connected to their intellectual roots in Secessionist Vienna. My project spotlights the critical role of pedagogue, craftswoman and designer Emmy Zweybrück-Prochaska (1890-1956), a partially-Jewish Austrian-American émigré, in shaping and popularizing Secessionist ideals of child creativity in postwar America. The goal of the grant is fund research for two peer-reviewed essays on Zweybrück’s American influence while feeding into a book project entitled Inventing Child Art in Secessionist Vienna.

2021-09-17T14:46:00+00:00

Kirsten A. Krick-Aigner

2021
Topics: Art, History
Products: Articles, Digital repository

Dr. Kirsten A. Krick-Aigner received a $10,000 BIAAS grant for “Jewish Austrian Women Artists in Exile: Bettina Ehrlich, Lisel Salzer, and Lisl Weil,” a research project which recognizes the artistic work of three underrepresented 20th-century Jewish Austrian artists, whose contributions to the cultural life of the U.S. was founded in knowledge acquired during their upbringing in Vienna and their training at the Viennese School of Applied Arts. While Ehrlich and Weil went on to write and illustrate children’s books, some documenting their exile experience, Salzer would become a prominent enamel artist in Seattle. Her research on the artists’ contributions will be published in articles and a culminating digital repository highlighting the artists’ work, as well as link to resources, such as oral interviews, art exhibits, manuscripts, and letters.