Anne Cross in South Africa

This past summer doctoral student Anne Cross spent four weeks traveling throughout South Africa with the support of the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Predoctoral Fellowship for Historians of American Art to Travel Abroad, which was awarded to her by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art. As a scholar of American photography and a curator of contemporary art, Cross was drawn to South Africa because of the history of activist photojournalism during Apartheid, as well as the strong contemporary art scene. While there, she visited four major cities--Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, and Durban--explored the archives of Drum magazine, and even had the opportunity to meet prominent contemporary artists such as William Kentridge and Penny Siopis.