Release Date: January 5, 2006
NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
UNVEILS 2006 WINTER/SPRING LECTURE PROGRAM
Washington, DC—The National Gallery of Art is presenting more than 20 illustrated lectures through May. The program includes lectures on current exhibitions as well as in-depth examinations of art historical topics, works of art, styles of art, and artists. It also includes lectures and catalogue signings with the curators of the exhibitions Cézanne in Provence and Dada.
All lectures are free and open to the public. Seating is offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Unless noted otherwise, all programs take place Sundays at 2:00 p.m. in the East Building Auditorium. For the most up-to-date information about these programs, visit http://www.nga.gov/programs/lecture.htm.
January 8
2:00 pm
Winslow Homer and the Maine Coast
Franklin Kelly, senior curator of American and British paintings, National
Gallery of Art
This lecture is the first in the January 2006 series of lectures titled A Sense
of Place.
January 9
12:10 and 1:10 pm
East Building Small Auditorium
Changing Versailles into Rome: Antique Sculpture and the French Academy
Karen Serres, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow, National Gallery of Art
January 15
2:00 pm
Norman Lewis in Harlem: "An Inquiry into the Laws
of Nature"
Ruth Fine, curator, special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art
African-American abstract expressionist Norman Lewis was greatly inspired by
his immersion in New York, especially in Harlem. Fine highlights the life and
art of this ‘too-little-known’ painter, a true innovator of the mid-20th century,
whose works engage aesthetic and cultural issues that remain important today.
January 22
2:00 pm
Max Beckmann in California: Exile, Memory and Renewal
Françoise Forster-Hahn, professor of art history, University of California,
Riverside
Beckmann’s California oeuvre reveals his extraordinary capacity to articulate
in paint his experiences in the newest part of the New World.
January 23
12:10 and 1:10 pm
East Building Small Auditorium
Inventing the History of Modern Art in Image and Text:
The Centenary of German Art in Berlin (1906) and Meier-Graefe’s “History of Modern Art” (1904)
Françoise Forster-Hahn, professor of the history of art, University of California,
Riverside
Professor Forster-Hahn examines a critical figure and a text that shifted paradigms
in the Gallery’s Monday lunchtime works-in-progress lecture series.
January 29
2:00 pm
Cézanne in Provence: An Introduction to the Exhibition
Lecture by exhibition co-curator Philip Conisbee, senior curator of European
paintings, National Gallery of Art, exploring how Cézanne’s relationship to
Provence was manifested in his work.
A book signing of the exhibition catalogue will follow the lecture.
February 5
2:00 pm
Cézanne: Between Capital and Province
Nina Kallmyer, professor of art history, University of Delaware
When he left Paris in 1886 and settled in his native Aix-en-Provence, Cézanne
sought to develop a new artistic tradition based on his Provençal heritage.
This lecture explores how Provence served as a distinct and defining cultural
force in Cézanne’s work.
February 6
12:10 and 1:10 pm
East Building Small Auditorium
“A Kiss to You”: The Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, 1915–1946
Sarah Greenough, curator and head of photographs, National Gallery of Art.
Curator Greenough discusses her current research for her forthcoming book about
the correspondence between O’Keefe and Stieglitz in the Monday lunchtime works-in-progress
series.
February 12
2:00 pm
The Lizard in the Landscape
John Elderfield, Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and
Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Landscape paintings of Provence were critical to the birth of modern painting.
What made painting out-of-doors in the south so liberating for Paul Cézanne,
in particular, but also for artists from Vincent van Gogh to Henri Matisse?
February 13
12:10 and 1:10 pm
East Building Small Auditorium
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: William Kentridge and
the Troubled South African Landscape
Leora Maltz, Agnes Mongan Curatorial Intern, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University.
Leora Maltz, 2004–2005 graduate lecturer at the Gallery, discusses her recent
research on the groundbreaking South African artist in the Monday lunchtime
works-in-progress series.
February 19
2:00 pm
What Is Dada?
Leah Dickerman, associate curator of modern and contemporary art, National
Gallery of Art
This is the opening day lecture for the Dada exhibition.
A book signing of the exhibition catalogue will follow.
February 26
2:00 pm
Frans van Mieris: The Artist and His Reputation
Frederik J. Duparc, director, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague
Courtship and Seduction in the Art of Frans van Mieris
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery
of Art
Two distinguished specialists join to shed new light on the much-loved painter
Frans van Mieris, in conjunction with the exhibition of works by the artist
in the Dutch Cabinet galleries.
March 5
2:00 pm
The Return to Unreason: The Meaningful Nonsense of Dada Film and Music
Martin Marks, senior lecturer in music, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Following the lecture, Marks performs original scores of the Dada cinema of
the 1920s and introduces each selection.
March 12
2:00 pm
Dada: Man Ray in Paris
Susan Laxton, assistant professor of modern and contemporary art, Barnard College/Columbia
University
The American Man Ray hit Paris when Dada was in full swing. Laxton takes the
audience to post- World War I Paris, presenting the man and his work with the
benefit of her recent research on this multifaceted artist. Organized in conjunction
with the Dada exhibition currently on view at the Gallery.
March 13
12:10 and 1:10 pm
East Building Small Auditorium
The Likeness That Moved the Pope to Tears? The Conservation of the Gallery’s
Bust of “Lorenzo de’ Medici”
Michael Belman, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in object conservation, National Gallery
of Art
One of the best-known images today of Lorenzo de’ Medici is the Gallery’s bust
of the Florentine. Recent research has much to say about this Renaissance portrait.
This works-in-progress lecture reveals to the public for the first time new
evidence about the sculpture’s date and manufacture.
March 19
2:00 pm
Marcel Duchamp and the Great American Thing
Francis M. Naumann, independent scholar, Yorktown Heights, New York
For many, Marcel Duchamp is the Dada artist par excellence. This public program,
the fourth in conjunction with the Dada exhibition, will bring to the public
the observations of one of Dada’s most distinguished scholars.
March 26
2:00 pm
Cézanne: Impressionist?
John House, Walter H. Annenberg Professor, Courtauld Institute of Art, London
Impressionism challenged both artistic and political authority with its uncompromisingly
modern subject matter and its determinedly secular worldview. In this Sunday
afternoon lecture, John House addresses the question: can Cézanne accurately
be described as an impressionist?
March 27
12:10 and 1:10 pm
East Building Small Auditorium
Jasper Johns and Zen: Post War Cultural Politics in Global Perspective
Seth McCormick, graduate curatorial intern, modern and contemporary art, National
Gallery of Art Jasper Johns’ work of the 1950s and 1960s is illuminated in
this Monday lunchtime works-in-progress lecture.
Each of the 30-minute presentations will be followed by a question-and-answer
session.
April 10
12:10 and 1:10 pm
East Building Small Auditorium
The First African American on a Public Monument? H.K. Brown’s “negro…so truthfully
rendered” (1853)
Karen Y. Lemmey, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow, National Gallery of Art
This little-studied sculpture deserves much greater attention. New research
by the lecturer offers the public an opportunity to discover what may be the
earliest public image of an African American.
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