The Smithsonian American Art Museum is pleased to announce that JoAnne Mancini, an interdisciplinary historian of the United States and its colonial antecedents at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, is the winner of the 2011 Patricia and Phillip Frost Essay Award, presented annually to the author of the most distinguished contribution to the journal American Art. Mancini's award-winning essay, "Pedro Cambón's Asian Objects: A Transpacific Approach to 18th-Century California," appeared in the Spring 2011 issue (vol. 25, no. 1) of the journal, which is published by the museum in partnership with the University of Chicago Press. A committee of the journal's Editorial Board makes the selection each year.

"The Smithsonian American Art Museum has a long history of encouraging new research and fresh ideas through awards, our robust fellowship program and publications such as the American Art journal," said Elizabeth Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. "I am delighted that the 2011 Frost Essay Award goes to JoAnne Mancini for her excellent essay about the Franciscan missionary Pedro Cambón, which investigates a rarely examined subject area, the visual and material culture of 18th-century California."

For a complete press release about the prize, please visit http://americanart.si.edu/pr/.

Amelia Goerlitz, Fellowship and Academic Programs Coordinator

Smithsonian American Art Museum