Talks & Conversations

Middle Atlantic Symposium

56th Annual Sessions

Drew Lynch presents at the Middle Atlantic Symposium in the History of Art, March 2025

Since 1971 the National Gallery’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts has partnered with the department of art history and archaeology at the University of Maryland to present this annual symposium. The event brings together museum and academic communities and provides a platform for the latest research from graduate students in our region. 

Read the talk abstracts.

Morning session

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Welcome by Peter M. Lukehart, The Center, National Gallery of Art
Moderated by Tess Korobkin, University of Maryland

Chase Helein, American University 
“Cupid’s Palace: Giulio Romano’s Sala di Psiche Frescoes and the Palazzo Te as Courtly Sensorium”
Introduced by Kim Butler Wingfield

Flavia Barbarini, Temple University 
“The Primacy of Disegno and the Commodification of Drawings in 16th-Century Italy”
Introduced by Tracy Cooper

Ryan Foley, George Washington University 
“Longing for the Ghulāmān-e Farangī: European Youths in 17th-Century Safavid Painting”
Introduced by Mika Natif

Zoe Copeman, University of Maryland 
“Mis-Understanding the Anatomy of the Part: How One Image Rewrote the Mastectomy Procedure”
Introduced by Anthony Colantuono

Afternoon session

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Welcome and moderated by Kaira M. Cabañas, The Center, National Gallery of Art

Christine Kim Korkmaz, Johns Hopkins University
“A Victory in Silver: Architectural Representation and Imperial Symbolism Under Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909)”
Introduced by Ünver Rüstem

Weixin Zhou, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“Rebuilding the City, Building Alternatives: Ideals, Tensions, and Politics in André Lurçat’s Reconstruction of Maubeuge”
Introduced by Eduardo de Jesús Douglas

Elnaz Latifpour, University of Virginia 
“Exceptions and Expectations: Pictorial Carpets and the Question of Authenticity in Southern Iranian Weaving”
Introduced by Amanda Phillips

Emily Shoyer, Bryn Mawr College 
“Isabel Katjavivi’s They Tried to Bury Us (2018) and the Environmental Impacts of German Colonialism in Namibia” 
Introduced by Lisa Saltzman

Related event

On the Past and Future of Indian Ocean Art History

Nancy Um, The Getty Research Institute

The symposium begins at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, March 6, at the University of Maryland, College Park, with the George Levitine Lecture delivered by Nancy Um, associate director for research and knowledge creation at the Getty Research Institute. The lecture is open to the public and organized by the University of Maryland.

Learn more

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A sky streaked with azure blue stretches over a gray landscape in this surreal, vertical painting. The sky and land meet halfway up the canvas at a series of short, sharp, charcoal-gray peaks, like canine teeth. Small, diffuse, butter-yellow ovals waft above the peaks. Nine fluffy, cotton-ball like shapes cast narrow shadows across the gray-streaked plane. Three amorphous shapes float over the land closer to us. A ginger-brown, drippy form is to our left, a teal-green, bean-shaped object surrounded with fuzzy white tentacles is to our right, and a peacock-blue, L-shaped drip floats in the distance near the horizon. Thinly painted white and gray lines squiggle or sweep onto the canvas from the left edge. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right, “Yves Tanguy 29.”

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Registration Required
Sheer, vertical, cliffs, brightly lit in cream white and rust orange by the low sun, tower over a band of people riding horses into the distance in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The glowing cliffs dominate the upper right quadrant of the painting. They lighten from burnt orange along the jagged tops to flame orange down the steep sides, and are and warm, parchment white near the earth. One tall, narrow promontory to our right looms over a range of lower, rounded cliffs. As the cliffs move into the distance, they are shrouded with a lavender-purple haze. The land closest to us dips into a shallow valley at the bottom center of the composition, leading away from us. The dirt-packed earth is dotted with pine-green, scrubby bushes and vegetation and a grove of low, gnarled trees a short distance to our right. One chestnut-brown horse walks along the path at the bottom center of the composition, lagging behind a cluster of at least two dozen horses and riders winding into the distance. The horses range from ivory white to tawny brown and charcoal gray. The riders are loosely painted so some details are indistinct, but they all seem to have brown skin and dark hair. They wear feathered headdresses and garments in teal blue, fawn brown, or golden yellow. They ride over a low hill toward a crystal-blue river, and then back along a flat expanse toward a row of minuscule, triangular tepees lining the horizon in the deep distance. The horizon comes halfway up the composition, and the tepees are backed by a row of rose-pink, flat-topped cliffs. A pale yellow disk hangs low in the sky, over the distant cliffs. The sky above deepens from soft, lilac purple along the horizon to ice and sapphire blue along the top. A few wispy clouds are burnished orange in the sunlight. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “TYMoran 1881,” with the T, Y, and M overlapping to make a monogram.

Talks & Conversations:  Finding Awe: Thomas Moran’s Green River Cliffs, Wyoming 

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Registration Required
Sheer, vertical, cliffs, brightly lit in cream white and rust orange by the low sun, tower over a band of people riding horses into the distance in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The glowing cliffs dominate the upper right quadrant of the painting. They lighten from burnt orange along the jagged tops to flame orange down the steep sides, and are and warm, parchment white near the earth. One tall, narrow promontory to our right looms over a range of lower, rounded cliffs. As the cliffs move into the distance, they are shrouded with a lavender-purple haze. The land closest to us dips into a shallow valley at the bottom center of the composition, leading away from us. The dirt-packed earth is dotted with pine-green, scrubby bushes and vegetation and a grove of low, gnarled trees a short distance to our right. One chestnut-brown horse walks along the path at the bottom center of the composition, lagging behind a cluster of at least two dozen horses and riders winding into the distance. The horses range from ivory white to tawny brown and charcoal gray. The riders are loosely painted so some details are indistinct, but they all seem to have brown skin and dark hair. They wear feathered headdresses and garments in teal blue, fawn brown, or golden yellow. They ride over a low hill toward a crystal-blue river, and then back along a flat expanse toward a row of minuscule, triangular tepees lining the horizon in the deep distance. The horizon comes halfway up the composition, and the tepees are backed by a row of rose-pink, flat-topped cliffs. A pale yellow disk hangs low in the sky, over the distant cliffs. The sky above deepens from soft, lilac purple along the horizon to ice and sapphire blue along the top. A few wispy clouds are burnished orange in the sunlight. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “TYMoran 1881,” with the T, Y, and M overlapping to make a monogram.

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Registration Required