Release Date: September 30, 2005

CHRONOLOGICAL LISTING OF 2005–2006
FALL AND WINTER LECTURE SERIES PROGRAM

October 7
10:15 a.m.
J. Russell Sale
East Building Auditorium
Adam, Eve, and the Patriarchs
This lecture is part of the six-part series Christian Imagery in European Art

October 9
2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
East Building Auditorium
The Beginnings of Image Printing in Europe
Peter Parshall, the Gallery’s curator of old master prints, will introduce the newly-opened exhibition Origins of European Printmaking: Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Their Public. It is the first major international exhibition to be devoted to the earliest images printed on paper in the Western world.

October 16
2:00 p.m.
East Building Auditorium
The Art of Frank Lloyd Wright
What did one of America’s greatest architects collect? Anthony Alofsin, Roland Roessner Centennial Professor, School of Architecture, University of Texas at Austin, will present his recent research on Frank Lloyd Wright’s art collection.

October 17
12:10 and 1:10
East Building Small Auditorium
Elephants Bearing Ladies in a Fifteenth-Century Italian Pageant and an Eastern Manuscript
The rich artistic interchange between the Islamic World and Europe is illuminated by imagery such as the paintings and manuscripts is discussed by Rosamond E. Mack, independent scholar, Washington, DC, and author of Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300–1600.

October 21
10:15 a.m.
J.Russell Sale
East Building Auditorium
Heroes and Heroines of the Old Testament
This lecture is part of the six part series Christian Imagery in European Art

October 23
2:00 p.m.
East Building Auditorium
Renaissance Art Discovers the Icon
Alexander Nagel, Andrew W. Mellon Professor, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, will present a reevaluation of how Byzantine art was received by Italian Renaissance artists and collectors as a part of his look at “Alternative Antiquities in the High Renaissance.”

October 27 and 29
12:00 noon
West Building Lecture Hall
Being Buhot: Discovering a Master Printmaker’s Process
Gregory Jecmen, assistant curator, old master prints, National Gallery of Art; Marian Dirda, paper conservator, National Gallery of Art; Kimberly Schenck, director of conservation and paper conservator, The Baltimore Museum of Art. In this series, lecturers present illustrated talks that give a behind-the-scenes glimpse into ongoing projects and programs at the National Gallery of Art

October 28
J. Russell Sale
10:15 a.m.
East Building Auditorium
Images of the Youth and Public Ministry of Jesus
This lecture is part of the six part series Christian Imagery in European Art series

October 30
2:00 p.m.
East Building Auditorium
Rethinking the European Installations at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Ronni Baer, senior curator of European paintings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will discuss the new installation of paintings, sculpture and decorative arts in the venerable Boston institution, giving the audience a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges presented by a
major museum reinstallation.

October 31
12:10 and 1:10 p.m.
East Building Small Auditorium
Monuments of Modernity: George Bellows’ Excavated City
Sarah Newman, graduate curatorial intern, National Gallery of Art, will discuss her recent research on Bellows’ iconic picture of New York at the turn of the 20th century.

November 4
10:15 a.m.
East Building Auditorium
Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus
This lecture is part of the six part series Christian Imagery in European Art

November 6
2:00 p.m.
East Building Auditorium
Titian Paints Isabella d’Este
What is behind Titian’s brilliant portrayal of Isabella d’ Este, one of the most powerful rulers of Renaissance Italy? Joanna Woods-Marsden, professor of art history, University of California, Los Angeles, and author of numerous publications on Renaissance portraiture, will present the audience a new look at a superb portrait.

November 11
10:15 a.m.
East Building Auditorium
Mary, Angels, and the Saints
This lecture is part of the six part series Christian Imagery in European Art

November 13
2:00 p.m.
East Building Auditorium
The Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art:
Illuminated Choral Manuscripts of the Italian Renaissance
Jonathan J.G. Alexander, Sherman Fairchild Professor of Fine Arts, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, is an expert on Italian manuscript illumination. This is the ninth lecture offered by the Gallery in a series named after the great specialist of Italian art,
Sydney J. Freedberg. The subject of this year’s lecture coincides with the newly opened exhibition, Masterpieces in Miniature: Italian Manuscript Illumination from the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Monday, November 14
12:10 and 1:10 pm
East Building Small Auditorium
The Mermaid in the Study: Renaissance Bronzes of Hybrid Sea Creatures
Fantastic sea creatures abound in the Renaissance art of Venice and its subject city Padua. Alison Luchs, the Gallery’s curator of early Europeans sculpture, is working on a book on the subject, and will discuss the purposes and meanings of some bronze examples in the Gallery’s collection.

November 18
10:15 a.m.
East Building Auditorium
More Saints and The Last Judgment
This lecture is part of the six part series Christian Imagery in European Art

Saturday, November 19
12:00 noon
New Art City: Adventures Among the Painters and Poets of Mid-Century Manhattan
Jed Perl, art critic, The New Republic and author of New Art City, will discuss his new book, which explores art and culture in mid-twentieth century New York City. Through a combination of social history, biographical portraiture, and criticism, Perl addresses the work of such figures as Jackson Pollock, David Smith, Willem de Kooning, Joseph Cornell, Andy Warhol, and Donald Judd.
A book signing will follow.

November 20
2:00 p.m.
East Building Auditorium
Rediscovering a French Romantic Artist: Félicie de Fauveau
Independent scholar Charles Janoray will demonstrate that it is still possible to rediscover a “new” artist, in this case a French sculptor of enormous range, living in exile in Italy, who enjoyed a great following during her lifetime.

November 27
2:00 – 5:00 p.m.
East Building Auditorium
The Still Lifes of Pieter Claesz: Visual Feasts That Delight the Eye and Whet the Appetite
Arthur K. Wheelock, curator, northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art, talks about one of the most important Dutch still-life painters of the 17th century.

Food in Pieter Claesz’s Paintings: Reflections of Reality?
Peter G. Rose, author and food historian
Just in time for the season of feasting! This two-part lecture program will present the newly opened exhibition of still life masterpieces by Claesz and a mouth-watering appreciation of the imagery. Leave room for dessert!

Saturday, December 3
2:00 p.m.
Champion of the Avant-Garde: Katharine Kuh and the New York School
Avis Berman, writer and art historian will discuss her new book on this great figure of 20th-century art. Katharine Kuh (1904–1994) was a pioneering curator, critic, and writer, who devoted much of her career to the advocacy of modern art. The lecture will reprise various episodes from Kuh’s life and career and focus on her close relationships with artists Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Franz Kline, and other members of the New York School. The illustrated presentation will include photographs of Kuh and the artists she knew, as well as relevant works of art. A book signing will follow.

December 4
2:00 pm
East Building Auditorium
Louis Malle's Reinventions
Margarita de la Vega-Hurtado, executive director, International Film Seminars, presents an illustrated lecture. A film will follow.

Monday, December 5
12:10 and 1:10 pm
East Building Small Auditorium
The Art of the Name: Some Sixteenth-Century Italian Artists’ Names
Robert G. LaFrance, research associate, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art
What’s in a name? Names reveal status, style, place of origin and even sexuality. In this lecture, LaFrance explores the relationship between some Italian Renaissance artists’ names and their practices.

December 11
2:00 p.m.
The Domenichino Affair: Novelty, Imitation, and Theft in Seventeenth-Century Rome
Elizabeth Cropper, dean, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art
Imitation was the basis of artistic invention and education for centuries. How was it possible then for the painter Giovanni Lanfranco to accuse his Bolognese contemporary Domenichino of having stolen the idea for his altarpiece, The Last Communion of St. Jerome, from another artist? Professor Cropper lectures and reads from her new book, The Domenichino Affair, which examines this issue in the context of the obsession with novelty in early seventeenth century Italy, and considers its reverberations into the twentieth century, and its implications for the history of art. A book signing will follow.

Monday, December 12
12:10 and 1:10 pm
East Building Small Auditorium
From Jerusalem to Paris with the Volto Santo of Lucca
The miracle-working statue of the crucified Christ known as the Volto Santo of Lucca offers the faithful a vision of God here on earth. Areli Marina, visiting assistant professor, department of art, music, and theater, Georgetown University, examines a lavishly illustrated but little-known Vatican Library manuscript which recounts the image’s history from its legendary supernatural origins in first-century Jerusalem to its cult among Parisian courtiers at the dawn of the Renaissance.

Saturday, December 17
12:00 noon
The Story of a Missing Caravaggio
Jonathan Harr, best-selling author of A Civil Action and, more recently, The Lost Painting, discusses his latest book. In his slide lecture, Harr talks about Caravaggio’s long-lost painting The Taking of Christ, both its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance. Caravaggio scholars estimate that between 60 and 80 of the artist’s works are in existence today; many others have been lost to time. A book signing will follow.

December 18
2:00 p.m.
East Building Auditorium
Looking at Winslow Homer's Watercolors
Barbara Ernst Prey, artist, and Judy Walsh, associate professor of paper conservation, Buffalo State University, New York, will talk about how Homer worked, and the impact of his choice of papers and technique on the finished products.

General Information

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov.

Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon entering the East and West Buildings. Checkrooms are free of charge and located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances. For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried into the Gallery on a visitor's back. Any bag or other items that cannot be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 x 26 inches cannot be accepted by the Gallery or its checkrooms.

For additional press information please call or send inquiries to:

Press Office
National Gallery of Art
2000B South Club Drive
Landover, MD 20785
phone: (202) 842-6353 e-mail: pressinfo@nga.gov

Deborah Ziska
Chief of Press and Public Information
(202) 842-6353
ds-ziska@nga.gov

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CHRONOLOGICAL LISTING OF 2005–2006 FALL AND WINTER LECTURE SERIES PROGRAM

CHRONOLOGICAL LISTING OF 2005–2006
FALL AND WINTER LECTURE SERIES PROGRAM