The list of speakers includes Tim Barringer (Yale University), Sally Huxtable (Northumbria Unversity), Franny Moyle (autor and producer, BBC), Jason Rosenfeld (Marymount Manhattan College), Alison Smith (Tate Britain), and Madeleine Vala (University of Puerto Rico).

The British Collection of Museo de Arte de Ponce constitutes one of the main strengths of its permanent collection. Its core of Victorian works is considered one of the best outside of London. This symposium will be a landmark in the history of the Museum, as it will provide, for the first time, a context to understand these wonderful artworks outside their native context of Victorian England. By way of this international symposium, the Museum is happy to present this important group of works to a wider audience in the Americas and to continue highlighting its permanent collection as a subject for research and international dialogue.

The symposium will serve as a preamble to a bilingual catalogue edited by Cheryl Hartup (Chief Curator, Museo de Arte de Ponce) and Alison Smith on the museum’s British Collection, to be published later in 2012. This collection, which has traveled to Tate Britain, Museo Nacional del Prado, and the Belvedere Museum includes masterworks such as The Sleep of King Arthur in Avalon (1881-1898), by Sir Edward Burne Jones and Flaming June (c. 1895), by Frederic Lord Leighton. The catalogue of the British Collection will be the first of a multi-volume work on specific areas that make Museo de Arte de Ponce a museum with a world-class permanent collection.

The symposium will be held in English with simultaneous translation to Spanish. This academic program will be made possible thanks to the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. A number of travel grants of up to $600 for U.S. travelers and $900.00 for European travelers are available for graduate students specializing in Victorian art or literature.

To apply, please send a resumé and a cover letter explaining your interest in attending the symposium and how this program or the Museum’s British collection relates to your topic of research. Your cover letter should state your institutional affiliation and the year of acceptance into your M.A./Ph.D. program. Applications should be sent to kjelias@museoarteponce.org with the subject heading TRAVEL GRANT APPLICATION. Applications must be received by Dec. 24, 2011.

For more information, please visit www.museoarteponce.org