GREAT ART BY GREAT WOMEN

In 1971, Art historian Linda Nochlin’s iconic essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” sent shock waves through the art establishment, triggering a massive reevaluation of the history of art. This talk explores art by women about women. How did O’Keeffe feel about her imagery in relation to her gender? How did Neel push the reclining nude into innovative territory? What does the work of Weems, Sherman and others reveal about gender roles against the backdrop of mid-20th century Hollywood narrative cinema?

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Road Scholar

 

November 2023

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Detail, Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait, ca. 1630, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

ANDY WARHOL: WINDOW ON THE WORLD

Andy Warhol saw sublime beauty in the ubiquitous things many of us take for granted, from what we eat and drink to the icons we admire. For him, art was everywhere, and he revealed this reality to his viewers one work, one performance, one film at a time. In a postwar world where mass production and commercialism threatened to chip away at uniqueness, he celebrated the assembly line, in what he created and how he made it. For these and other reasons we’ll explore, Warhol was one of the great visionaries and mirrors of his time.

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MyHealthAngel

 

November 2023

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Andy Warhol (left) and Tennessee Williams (right) talking on the S.S. France, in the background: Paul Morrissey. World Journal Tribune photo by James Kavallines.

20TH CEN AMERICAN PAINTING

How did American painting go from Robert Henri to Jackson Pollock to Andy Warhol in only a half century? Thinking more broadly, what are the best ways to identify each of the styles of 20th century painting in America? What makes Precisionism, Precisionism; and how do artworks associated with the style reflect the American industrial zeitgeist at that time? From the Ashcan School to great contemporary painters like Bryce Marden and Jordan Casteel, we’ll explore these and other questions in a one-day roundup of some of the most compelling treasures of American painting.

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The Barnes Foundation

 

October 2023​

 

Marsden Hartley, Flowerpiece, 1916, The Barnes Foundation

QM2 TRANSATLANTIC SERIES

Lecture series aboard the iconic transatlantic crossing of the QM2.

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Cunard

 

October 2023

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Detail, QM2, New York

ANDY WARHOL: WINDOW ON THE WORLD

Andy Warhol saw sublime beauty in the ubiquitous things many of us take for granted, from what we eat and drink to the icons we admire. For him, art was everywhere, and he revealed this reality to his viewers one work, one performance, one film at a time. In a postwar world where mass production and commercialism threatened to chip away at uniqueness, he celebrated the assembly line, in what he created and how he made it. For these and other reasons we’ll explore, Warhol was one of the great visionaries and mirrors of his time.

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Independence Blue Cross presents One Day University at Moore College of Art & Design

 

September 2023

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Andy Warhol (left) and Tennessee Williams (right) talking on the S.S. France, in the background: Paul Morrissey. World Journal Tribune photo by James Kavallines.

MARC CHAGALL: AN ARTFUL LIFE

Throughout Marc Chagall’s long career, his work retained a kind of youthful exuberance, one of the many reasons his imagery is so beloved. His scenes reflect the many important historical and artistic moments he experienced, including both World Wars and Paris at the heyday of Cubism. Along the way he merged subjects and themes recollected from a childhood in modern-day Belarus with the complexities inspired by of the avant-garde communities around him, ultimately visualizing a world filled with love, wonder, and imagination.

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MyHealthAngel

 

September 2023​

 

Detail, Marc Chagall, Paris through the Window, 1913, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

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GREAT ARTISTIC PAIRINGS

Among the most fascinating stories of art history are those involving artistic pairings. This has led to intense rivalries – as with Ingres and Delacroix and perhaps even Picasso and Matisse – and luckily has also spawned outrageously good art. This series unpacks four of the most intriguing pairings, spanning the essential century of modern art, ca. 1850-1950. How did Monet and Pissarro develop and steer Impressionism? Where did van Gogh and Gaugin’s lives and careers overlap? How did O’Keeffe and Stieglitz change the course of American modernist art? How did psychology impact Pollock and Rothko? Join us for an in-depth journey through the twists and turns of these and other topics.

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"Claude Monet/Camille Pissarro: Masters of Impressionism"

Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro were as essential to Impressionism as the paint tube. How did Japonisme impact their work? Where can we see traces of Haussmanization in Monet and Pissarro’s work? Through a close examination of some of Monet and Pissarro’s masterworks we’ll explore a massive advancement in late 19th century French art.

 

"Vincent van Gogh/Paul Gauguin: A World Full of Color"

There are few connections in art history as legendary as Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin. In their brief friendship the pair influenced each other’s work and made lasting impressions on each other’s lives. For 63 days in 1888 they lived together in Arles and documented that stay with paintings that reveal the intensity between them. When Gauguin left Arles, it brought van Gogh to despair. Discover how these and other events changed the course of art history.

 

"Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz: The Apex of Early American Modernism"

Georgia O’Keeffe was at the center of American modernist art. Alfred Stieglitz was a pioneering gallerist, an innovative photographer, and a main proselytizer for American modernism. Their wedding in December 1924 enhanced those two fates, symbolically cementing the careers of two brilliant artists. Investigate how they met, fell in love, and left a profound pair of legacies on American art.

 

"Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko: Psychologizing Abstraction"

Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko were in some ways so alike and in other ways so different. Pollock promoted a kind of art where the very act of its making is the art, naturally pushing art further in abstraction. Mark Rothko hoped his canvases would poke at our inner archetypal selves, eliciting cathartic experiences, ones needed even more before, during, and just after World War Two. Unpack how their passion for art and for Psychology cemented their legacies together.

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Road Scholar 

 

August 2023​

 

Detail, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh Painting Sunflowers, 1888, van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

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PAUL CÉZANNE: THE FATHER OF MODERN ART

Paul Cézanne is among the most celebrated painters in the canon. As Henri Matisse noted: “In modern art, it is undoubtedly to Cézanne that I owe the most.” With his portraits, still-lives, and landscapes, he sought to – as he famously quipped – “treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone.” Cézanne’s work bridged the gap between Impressionism and the pioneering developments in the School of Paris during the first decade of the 20th century. Discover why Pablo Picasso believed he was “the father of us all,” and how his remarkable paintings had such a profound impact on generations of artists.

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MyHealthAngel

 

July 2023​

 

Detail, Paul Cézanne, Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1904, Philadelphia Museum of Art

AUGUSTE RODIN, IMPRESSIONISM and BEYOND

Auguste Rodin is deservedly among the most celebrated artists in the canon. A pair of talks ("Auguste Rodin and Impressionism" and "Rodin in Context") in conjunction with the exhibition True Nature: Rodin and the Age of Impressionism exploring how the Janus-like Rodin at once looked backward and forward in time, bridging the gap between academic and avant-garde, linking disparate figures like Michelangelo and Cézanne. As he famously quipped: “I invent nothing, I rediscover.” Unpack what Rodin gleaned from Impressionism and how his work contributed to the modernist sculptural developments in the School of Paris during the first decade of the 20th century.

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Oklahoma City Museum of Art

 

June 2023​

 

Detail, Auguste Rodin by George Charles Beresford, half-plate glass negative, 1902

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Watch on YouTube

 

AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE ca. 1900 to the PRESENT

Two-part series highlighting key themes of American architecture ca. 1900 to the present. Part 1 focuses on residences and commercial buildings. Why is Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater so iconic? What do major skyscrapers reveal about commercialism? Investigate how architects of the period reimagined spaces. Part 2 investigates spaces for enrichment and reflection; and public buildings, monuments, and memorials. What does Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia Rotunda reveal about his philosophies concerning governance? How does Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial speak to its target audiences? Interrogate how great architects of the period thought outside the box.

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Live and Learn Bethesda

 

May/June 2023​

 

Detail, WTC1 and WTC Path Station, New York

GEORGIA O'KEEFFE: WHERE RECOGNIZABLE MEETS ABSTRACTION

Georgia O’Keeffe’s life and work continues to resonate today, perhaps even more so. This talk explores the many phases of O’Keeffe’s remarkable career, paying particular attention to how her pictorial style evolved with each one her moves around the country, most notably to New York and New Mexico. Inspired by both town and country, O’Keeffe’s profoundly rich paintings mirrored the depth of her surroundings – wherever she happened to be – and positioned her at the forefront of American modernist art.

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MyHealthAngel

 

May 2023​

 

Detail, Georgia O'Keeffe, Lake George Reflections, ca. 1921-22, Private collection 

PILLARS OF FRENCH MODERNISM

What are some of the most important artists of Parisian modernism? And what are the threads that run through the work of those artists? This four-part lecture series explores these and other questions, along the way unpacking why the School of Paris is so universally beloved. Each of four stand-alone lectures explores some of the kingpins of modernist art. Taken together, the series hopes to encourage viewers to continue to experience what makes the most innovative late 19th and early 20th century French art so extraordinary.

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"Paul Cézanne: The Father of Modern Art"

Paul Cézanne is among the most celebrated painters in the canon. As Henri Matisse noted: “In modern art, it is undoubtedly to Cézanne that I owe the most.” With his portraits, still-lives, and landscapes, he sought to – as he famously quipped – “treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone.” Cézanne’s work bridged the gap between Impressionism and the pioneering developments in the School of Paris during the first decade of the 20th century. Discover why Pablo Picasso believed he was “the father of us all,” and how his remarkable paintings had such a profound impact on generations of artists.

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"Henri Matisse: The Armchair Painter"

Henri Matisse picked up where Paul Cézanne left off, continuing to make art that at once straddled the real and imagined world. “What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity,” he famously said, “something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.” Explore highlights of Matisse’s career, from his early triumphs with Fauvism, to the culmination of a lifelong interest in architectural imagery with the Vence Chapel.

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"Amedeo Modigliani: The Mythic Modernist"

Amedeo Modigliani is among the most mythologized artists in the canon. Inspired by his love of poetry, his portraits are direct and honest, cutting through to the marrow of his sitters. With his iconic images of female nudes, he dared to show women unapologetically as agents of their own bodies and sexualities. His sculptures similarly pushed the envelope, stylistically merging Parisian modernism with African-inspired iconographies. From his groundbreaking work to his early death at the age of thirty-five, discover why Modiglaini’s life and work is indeed the stuff of legend.

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"Marc Chagall: Transcending the Here and Now"

Throughout Marc Chagall’s long career, his work retained a kind of youthful exuberance, one of the many reasons his imagery is so beloved. His scenes reflect the many important historical and artistic moments he experienced, including both World Wars and Paris at the heyday of Cubism. Along the way he merged subjects and themes recollected from a childhood in modern-day Belarus with the complexities inspired by of the avant-garde communities around him, ultimately visualizing a world filled with love, wonder, and imagination.

 

Road Scholar

 

May 2023​

 

Detail, clockwise from top left: Henri Matisse, La Musique, 1910, The Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg; Amedeo Modigliani, Head, 1911-12, Minneapolis Institute of Art; Paul Cézanne, Still Life with Apples, 1893-94, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; and Marc Chagall, Paris Through the Window, 1913, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

SCULPTURE ca. 1900 to the PRESENT

Two-part series celebrating key themes of modern and contemporary sculpture, from 3D to 4D and beyond. Part 1 focuses on figuration and abstraction. What made Auguste Rodin’s work so different? How did Constantin Brâncuşi link carving and essence? Discover the new territory carved out by innovative sculptors from the period. Part 2 unpacks two additional themes: assemblage and conceptual work. How did Marcel Duchamp force a reexamination of what art is? Are Happenings sculpture? What do traditional “3D” sculptures have in common with contemporary performance, video, and conceptual pieces? Explore how sculptors of the period interrogated sculptural ideas and objects.

 

Live and Learn Bethesda

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April/May 2023​

 

Detail, Donald Judd, Marfa, TX

CAMILLE PISSARRO

Four-part lecture series unpacks why Camille Pissarro is so revered as a pater familias of both Impressionism and Post Impressionism. The only artist to exhibit work in all eight Impressionist exhibitions, Pissarro was loved not only for his pioneering imagery, but also for his personal connections to some of the most important French artists of his time. Investigate how his scenes of architecture, figures, and nature pulled from mid-19th century French Realism and helped lay the foundation for major developments in early 20th century French modernist painting.

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The Barnes Foundation 

 

April 2023​

 

Detail, Camille Pissarro, The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning, 1897, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

SELECT MASTERWORKS OF PABLO PICASSO

“When I was a child, my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll become a general. If you become a monk, you’ll end up as the Pope.’ Instead, I became a painter and wound us as Picasso.” This talk examines key highlights from Picasso’s long career, from his precocious early portraits to his final depictions of a legend preoccupied with his own mortality and posthumous legacy. With nearly 50,000 works to his credit, Picasso indeed became Picasso.

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MyHealthAngel

 

March 2023​

 

Detail, Pablo Picasso, Self-Portrait with Palette, 1906, Philadelphia Museum of Art

PART 2: LIVE AND LEARN BETHESDA

A trio of talks:

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"Great Art By Women About Women"

This talk examines some of the many women artists that have made the history of art so special. Topics include how Georgia O’Keeffe felt about the southwestern landscape, and how Cindy Sherman unpacked gender roles in mid-20th century Hollywood narrative cinema.

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"Art and War"

Unfortunately, war is still with us. Fortunately, so too is art that engages with it. This talk explores the complex relationship between war and art from a variety of perspectives, including art made in direct response to war (Picasso’s Guernica), to art swept up in its dreadful currents.

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"Marc Chagall: An Artful Life"

Throughout Marc Chagall’s long career, his work retained a kind of youthful exuberance, one of the many reasons his imagery is so beloved. His scenes reflect the many important historical and artistic moments he experienced, including both World Wars and Paris at the heyday of Cubism. Along the way he merged subjects and themes recollected from a childhood in modern-day Belarus with the complexities inspired by of the avant-garde communities around him, ultimately visualizing a world filled with love, wonder, and imagination.

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Live and Learn Bethesda

 

February 2023​

 

Detail, Marc Chagall, Paris through the Window, 1913, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

ICONIC AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

Four-part lecture series surveys some of the most beloved works of American architecture through the lens of four thematic categories: residences; commercial buildings; spaces for enrichment and reflection; and public buildings, monuments, and memorials. Explore how the iconic architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, Zaha Hadid, and so many others continues to inspire our spaces for living, working, learning, and respite.

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The Barnes Foundation 

 

January 2023​

 

The Gateway Arch, St. Louis

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PAUL CÉZANNE: "THE FATHER OF US ALL"

Paul Cézanne is among the most celebrated painters in the canon. As Henri Matisse noted: “In modern art, it is undoubtedly to Cézanne that I owe the most.” With his portraits, still-lives, and landscapes, he sought to – as he famously quipped – “treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone.” Cézanne’s work bridged the gap between Impressionism and the pioneering developments in the School of Paris during the first decade of the 20th century. Discover why Pablo Picasso believed he was “the father of us all,” and how his remarkable paintings had such a profound impact on generations of artists.

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One Day University 

 

January 2023​

 

Detail, Paul Cézanne, Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1904, Philadelphia Museum of Art

VAN GOGH: ART, LIFE, & LETTERS

Survey Van Gogh’s most celebrated works, set within the context of Impressionism and its offspring, the budding Post-Impressionism. Learn why Van Gogh’s color is always about setting the mood. Delve deeper into Van Gogh's work as we read and unpack some of the highlights from the collection of 903 letters written and received by Van Gogh, including the correspondence with Paul Gauguin.

One Day University 

 

January 2023​

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MyHealthAngel

 

Detail, Vincent van Gogh, The Night Café, 1888, Yale University Art Gallery