The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts were inaugurated in 1949. Endowed by a gift of the Old Dominion Foundation and the Avalon Foundation (creations of Paul Mellon and his sister, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, respectively) the lecture series was founded “to bring to the people of the United States the results of the best contemporary thought and scholarship bearing upon the subject of the Fine Arts.” The lecturers were to be, and have been, of “exceptional ability, achievement and reputation.” The National Gallery engages distinguished scholars from all disciplines to lecture on subjects in their fields, as the original gift mandated, “provided such subjects have a relationship to or bearing on the Fine Arts or are important to understanding, appreciation, or promotion of the Fine Arts.” As publication was always an essential part of the vision of the Mellon Lectures, a relationship was established between the National Gallery and the Bollingen Foundation for a series of books based on the lectures. Since 1967 the series has been published by Princeton University Press. For discussions of lectures and lecturers through 2001, see CASVA's publication The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, Fifty Years, edited by Elizabeth Cropper (2002).
A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
Sir Oswald Hornby Joseph Birley, Andrew W. Mellon, 1933, oil on canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mrs. Mellon Bruce
2013
Out of Site in Plain View: A History of Exhibiting Architecture since 1750
Barry Bergdoll, The Museum of Modern Art/Columbia University
2012
Chinese Painting and Its Audiences
Craig Clunas, University of Oxford
2011
The Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from Ancient Rome to Salvador Dalí
Mary Beard, University of Cambridge
2010
Art and Representation in the Ancient New World
Mary Miller, Yale University
This five-part lecture series offers an overview of pre-Columbian art history, with detailed discussion of time, beauty, and truth in the visual cultures of ancient and colonial Mesoamerica.
2009
Picasso and Truth
T. J. Clark, University of California, Berkeley
Centered on a group of paintings by Picasso from the 1920s, a series of six lectures traces the artist's path to Guernica. Published as Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica, 2013.
2008
Bosch and Bruegel: Parallel Worlds
Joseph Leo Koerner, Harvard University
2007
Last Looks, Last Books: The Binocular Poetry of Death
Helen Vendler, Harvard University
This six-part lecture series considers the final works of five modern American poets, as they "take the last look"—reconciling the interface of life and death, without the promise of an afterlife. Published as Last Looks, Last Books: The Binocular Poetry of Death: Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill, 2010.
2006
Really Old Masters: Age, Infirmity, and Reinvention
Simon Schama, Columbia University
2005
“Great Work”: Terms of Aesthetic Experience in Ancient Mesopotamia
Irene J. Winter, Harvard University
2004
More than Meets the Eye
Irving Lavin, Institute for Advanced Study
2003
Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock
Kirk Varnedoe, Institute for Advanced Study
This six-part series examines abstract art over a period of fifty years, beginning with a crucial juncture in modern art in the mid-1950s, and builds a compelling argument for a history and evaluation of late twentieth-century art that challenges the distinctions between abstraction and representation, modernism and postmodernism, minimalism and pop. The accompanying publication, Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock, is available for purchase from the Gallery Shops.
2002
The Moment of Caravaggio
Michael Fried, J. R. Herbert Boone Professor and director of the Humanities Center, The Johns Hopkins University
In a series of six lectures, Michael Fried offers a compelling account of what he calls "the internal structure of the pictorial act" in the revolutionary art of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The accompanying publication, The Moment of Caravaggio, is available for purchase from the Gallery Shops.
2001
Giorgione and Caravaggio: Art as Revolution
Salvatore Settis, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
2000
The Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns in the Arts, 1600-1715
Marc Fumaroli, Collège de France
1999
Transitions
Carlo Bertelli, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Accademia di Architettura
1998
Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art (published 2000)
Lothar Ledderose, Universität Heidelberg
1997
Paths to the Absolute (published as Paths to the Absolute: Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinsky, Pollock, Newman, Rothko, and Still, 2000)
John Golding, Painter
1996
From Drawing to Painting: Poussin, Watteau, Fragonard, David, Ingres (published as From Drawing to Painting: Poussin, Watteau, Fragonard, David, and Ingres, 2000)
Pierre M. Rosenberg, Musée du Louvre
1995
Contemporary Art and the Pale of History (published as After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History, 1997)
Arthur C. Danto, Columbia University
1994
Kings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe (published 1995)
Jonathan Brown, New York University, Institute of Fine Arts
1993
The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity (published 1994)
John Boardman, University of Oxford, Lincoln College
1992
The Laws of the Poetic Art (published as On the Laws of the Poetic Art, 1995)
Anthony Hecht, Georgetown University
1991
Changing Faces: Art and Physiognomy through the Ages
Willibald Sauerländer, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte
1990
Gold, Silver, and Bronze: Metal Sculpture of the Roman Baroque (published 1996)
Jennifer Montagu, Warburg Institute
1989
Intermediary Demons: Toward a Theory of Ornament (published as The Mediation of Ornament, 1992)
Oleg Grabar, Harvard University
1988
Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (published as Only Connect . . . : Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance, 1992)
John Shearman, Princeton University
1987
Imago Dei: The Byzantine Apologia for Icons (published 1990)
Jaroslav Pelikan, Yale University
1986
Confessions of a Twentieth‑Century Composer
Lukas Foss, Brooklyn Philharmonic
1985
The Villa in History (published as The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses, 1990)
James S. Ackerman, Harvard University
1984
Painting as an Art (published 1987)
Richard Wollheim, Columbia University
1983
The Shape of France (published as Architecture: The Natural and the Manmade)
Vincent Scully, Yale University
1982
The Burden of Michelangelo's Painting
Leo Steinberg, University of Pennsylvania
1981
Palladian Architecture in England, 1615–1760
John Harris, Royal Institute of British Architects
1980
Principles of Design in Ancient and Medieval Architecture
Peter Kidson, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London
1979
Cézanne and America (published as Cézanne and America: Dealers, Collectors, Artists, and Critics, 1891–1921, 1989)
John Rewald, Graduate Center, City University of New York
1978
The History of Art Collecting (published as The Rare Art Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and Its Linked Phenomena Wherever These Have Appeared, 1982)
Joseph W. Alsop, Journalist
1977
The Sack of Rome: 1527 (published 1982)
André Chastel, Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art/Collège de France
1976
Aspects of Classical Art
Peter von Blanckenhagen, New York University
1975
Music in Europe in the Year 1776
H. C. Robbins Landon, Musicologist
1974
Nineteenth‑Century Sculpture Reconsidered (published as The Rise and Fall of the Public Monument)
H. W. Janson, New York University
1973
The Use and Abuse of Art (published 1974)
Jacques Barzun, Columbia University
1972
Leonardo da Vinci
Ludwig H. Heydenreich, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
1971
Vasari: The Man and the Book (published as Giorgio Vasari: The Man and the Book, 1979)
T. S. R. Boase, University of Oxford
1970
Some Aspects of Nineteenth‑Century Architecture (published as A History of Building Types, 1976)
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, Birkbeck College, University of London
1969
Art as a Mode of Knowledge (published as The Visionary Eye: Essays in the Arts, Literature, and Science, 1978)
Jacob Bronowski, Scientist
1968
Imaginative Literature and Painting
Stephen Spender, Poet
1967
On the Parallel of Literature and the Visual Arts (published as Mnemosyne: The Parallel between Literature and the Visual Arts, 1970)
Mario Praz, Università degli Studi di Roma
1966
Dreamer or Visionary: A Study of English Romantic Painting (published as Visionary and Dreamer: Two Poetic Painters, Samuel Palmer and Edward Burne-Jones, 1969)
Lord David Cecil, University of Oxford
1965
Sources of Romantic Thought (published as The Roots of Romanticism, 1999)
Sir Isaiah Berlin, University of Oxford, All Soul's College
1964
On Quality in Art: Criteria of Excellence, Past and Present (published 1967)
Jakob Rosenberg, Harvard University
1963
Artist and Individual: Some Aspects of the Renaissance Portrait (published as The Portrait in the Renaissance, 1966)
Sir John Pope‑Hennessy, Victoria and Albert Museum
1962
William Blake and Traditional Mythology (published as Blake and Tradition, 1968)
Kathleen Raine, Poet
1961
Christian Iconography and the Christian Religion in Antiquity (published as Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins, 1968)
André Grabar, Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes/Collège de France
1960
Horace Walpole (published 1960)
Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis, Yale University
1959
A Sculptor's View of the Fine Arts (published as Of Divers Arts, 1962)
Naum Gabo, Artist
1958
Nicolas Poussin and French Classicism (published as Nicolas Poussin, 1967)
Sir Anthony Blunt, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London
1957
Constancy and Change in Art and Architecture (published as The Eternal Present: A Contribution on Constancy and Change, 1962–1964)
Sigfried Giedion, Universität Zürich
1956
The Visible World and the Language of Art (published as Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, 1960)
E. H. Gombrich, University College London
1955
Art and Reality (published as Painting and Reality, 1957)
Etienne Gilson, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
1954
The Art of Sculpture (published 1956)
Sir Herbert Read, Harvard University
1953
The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art (published as The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, 1956)
Sir Kenneth Clark, Arts Council of Great Britain
1952
Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (published 1953)
Jacques Maritain, Princeton University
Fellowships
- About Fellowships
- Senior Fellowships, 2013–2014
- Visiting Senior Fellowships, 2013–2014
- Ailsa Mellon Bruce National Gallery of Art Sabbatical Curatorial Fellowship, 2013–2014
- A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2013–2015
- Predoctoral Dissertation Fellowships, 2013–2014
- Predoctoral Fellowships for Historians of American Art to Travel Abroad, 2013–2014
- Members, 2012–2013
- Member Presentations, Fall 2012
- Apply for a Fellowship Online