 Cronin's ongoing relationship to Italian art history and literature has continued past her Rome Prize year at the American Academy in Rome.Looking at the global financial crisis and conflict areas, Cronin felt a need for a new humanism, which she has integrated into her artistic practice.Cronin turned to Dante Alighieri's "Inferno" as a point of departure for a series of expressive figurative oil paintings, watercolors and bleach portraits of corrupt politicians and religious leaders.