The Royalty Research Fund (RRF) has supported UW Faculty research since 1992, and this summer Professor Irina Markina was awarded funding based on the strength of her recent proposal. The RRF is a competitive awards program that provides research support to faculty.
In her own words, Irina is "working on a book project on Parisian arrondissement townhall murals commissioned under the Third Republic, between 1870 and 1900. This municipal mural campaign has received very little attention from both art historians and the general public and very few photographs of the panels exist. I will therefore be using RRF funding to visit some archives as well as to hire a professional photographer to take quality photographs of the murals for the book and for a potential virtual exhibition."
These Murals are a crucial milestone in political art of the Third Republic, and often neglected by art historians. Irina hopes filling this gap in scholarship could lead to discussion of French republican rhetoric and identity. What do these murals symbolize and how did they promote the Third Republic's goals? Stay tuned to find out!