Release Date: Oct 18, 2006

Educators from Across the United States Attend 2006 Teacher Institute on Dutch Art in the Golden Age at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and Learn About Image-Enhanced Podcasting as Learning Tool

Washington, DC–Fifty-four educators attended the National Gallery of Art’s 2006 Teacher Institute on 17th-century Dutch art held in July and August 2006. The two six-day seminars brought together teachers of art, social studies, and related subjects from 24 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Jakarta, Indonesia, to explore this aspect of the Gallery’s permanent collection and the ways they can integrate art objects into their teaching, including image-enhanced podcasting.

Generous grants from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, Annetta J. Coffelt and Robert M. Coffelt Jr., the Park Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and the Sara Shallenberger Brown Fund have provided invaluable support for the Teacher Institute.

Through lectures, gallery talks, discussions, and hands-on activities, teachers studied the paintings that were created for a newly affluent middle class. From the beginning of the 17th century and the de facto peace with Spain, Holland flourished as a nation of seafaring traders, their prosperity soon spreading throughout the Netherlands and helping shift the balance of economic and political power from the Mediterranean to northern Europe. Dutch society became known as the most urbanized, international, and literate in Europe, with an unusually large number of people owning works of art. These patrons of the arts championed a range of secular subjects that spoke of social rank, personal accomplishments, and aspirations, as revealed through portraiture, history painting, still life, land- and seascapes, and genre scenes.

Instruction focused on the Gallery's collection of Dutch art, emphasizing direct encounters with original objects. Teachers studied works by Dutch masters such as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Gerard ter Borch, Frans Hals, Judith Leyster, and Pieter de Hooch, and examined paintings within the broader social matrix of 17-century Dutch life, making this seminar particularly appropriate for teachers of history and social studies, as well as studio art and art history.

During the last two days of the program, teachers explored new digital technologies suited for studying and teaching art by creating a podcast about a Dutch painting of their choice.

Image-enhanced podcasting is ideally suited for teaching and studying visual art; it expands learning options for students who are visually, musically, and kinesthetically oriented.

For 18 years the Gallery’s Teacher Institute has offered educators the opportunity for intellectual renewal and professional exchange with colleagues in a museum setting. To date, approximately 2,150 teachers have participated in the program.

The Teacher Institute is a program of the Division of Education, which produces and distributes instructional materials on a free-loan basis to schools throughout the nation. To learn more about the Teacher Institute and other educational resources of the National Gallery of Art, visit the Gallery’s Web site at www.nga.gov. Other educational programs offered by the Division of Education include:

NGA Classroom
www.nga.gov/education/classroom

NGA Classroom is the primary Gallery Web site where teachers and students can connect works of art in the Gallery’s collection with their curriculum. It features online lessons for teachers and interactives for students, and provides easy and immediate access to a variety of educational resources, classroom lessons, exhibition-related materials, and school-specific articles.

NGA Loan Materials
www.nga.gov/education/classroom/loanfinder

The National Gallery of Art’s Division of Education provides free-loan resources to anyone that requests them–from individuals to institutions. Resources include teaching packets with slides, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and videos, intended to foster awareness of the visual arts and make the Gallery’s collections accessible to wider audiences. Materials can be ordered online and can be used either in the classroom or in the home.

NGAkids
http://www.nga.gov/kids

NGAkids online offers an entertaining and informative introduction to art and art history, as well as a variety of art-making tools, games, and kid-friendly narratives suitable for children of all ages. Featuring highlights of the National Gallery's permanent collection, content related to special exhibitions, and Art Zone interactives that encourage artistic exploration and creativity, this Web site, created specially for kids, provides hours of online enjoyment.

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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