Matthew J. Palczynski, Ph.D.
Art History Lecturer
FOUR "ISMS" OF ART HISTORY
Four talks examining four key moments in art history: Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, and Abstract Expressionism.
Live and Learn Bethesda
November/December 2022
Details, clockwise from top left: Pablo Picasso, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), 1910, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Claude Monet, Impression Sunrise, 1872, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris; Paul Cézanne, Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1904, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Mark Rothko, Orange and Tan, 1954, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
GREAT ART ABOUT WOMEN BY 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.
MyHealthAngel
November 2022
Detail, Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait, ca. 1630, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
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ART & WW2
Four-part lecture series exploring how WW2 impacted Germany, France, the UK, and the USA.
"The Nazi Degenerate Art Exhibition"
The Nazi “Degenerate Art” exhibition of 1937 codified precisely which artists the Nazis deemed undesirable and sparked a systematic purging of artists and artworks. Investigate how the exhibition created an inhospitable climate for vanguard artists in Germany, especially those affiliated with The Bauhaus.
"WW2 and French Art"
WW2 profoundly impacted art and artists in France, precipitating an exodus of the most important artists of the era from France to the USA. Explore how this shift led by Chagall, Léger, and others laid the foundation for new directions in modernist art, ultimately opening the doors to a radically different artistic epicenter in New York.
"WW2 and British Art"
British-born and mainland European artists alike came together during WW2 to change the course of British art. From Sir Herbert Read’s circle to the idyllic coastal community of St. Ives in Cornwall, examine how the War effected artists working in the UK.
"WW2 and American Art"
Artists working in America during and after WW2 grappled with the War from a variety of perspectives. From depictions inside Japanese internment camps to Hopper’s nighttime scenes, explore how different viewpoints come together to frame a larger narrative of an American response to the War.
Road Scholar
October/November 2022
Detail, Jacob Lawrence, No. 2, Main Control Panel, Nerve Center of Ship, 1944, U.S. Coast Guard Museum, New London, CT
RENAISSANCE WEEKEND
"Garden of Earthly Delights" and "Great Art About Women By Women"
Renaissance Weekend, Autumn, 2022, Boston
October 2022
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.
One Day University
September 2022
Detail, Marc Chagall, Paris through the Window, 1913, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
GARDEN of EARTHLY DELIGHTS: ART and NATURE
Explore various dimensions of how we might define “nature” in art. Our definition will include nature as a subject (such as Leonardo’s rocks and Bierstadt’s soaring vistas), the iconography of nature (Caravaggio’s luscious fruits), abstractions of nature (Brancusi’s birds), nature as an ingredient (the earth in Smithson’s jetty and Ofili’s elephant dung), nature as a concept (Viola’s ocean), and more.
MyHealthAngel
September 2022
Albert Bierstadt, Merced River, Yosemite Valley, 1866, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
INDIVISIBLE: THREADS OF AMERICAN ART
What are some of the central themes running through the history of American art and architecture? And do those threads suggest a “united” history? This four-part series explores these and other questions, along the way unpacking why American art is so fascinating. Each of four stand-alone lectures unites disparate artists and artworks across space and time around a central topic: the ideas of nature, architectural imagery, capitalism, and icon. Taken together, the series hopes to encourage viewers to continue to explore what makes American art so special.
The Barnes Foundation
September 2022
Winslow Homer, Fox Hunt, 1893, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
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.
One Day University
August 2022
Detail, Jimmy Carter with Andy Warhol, 1977, National Archives and Records Administration
MODIGLIANI: A LIFE
In conjunction with the exhibition Modigliani Up Close and through a close reading each week in the Barnes galleries of Merle Secrest’s biography Modigliani: A Life (2011), this four-part series examines the remarkable life and career of Amedeo Modigliani. 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 Modigliani’s life and work is indeed the stuff of legend.
The Barnes Foundation
October/November 2022
Detail, Amedeo Modigliani. Young Woman in a Yellow Dress (Renée Modot), 1918. Collection Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti per l’Arte. Long-term loan to Castello di Rivoli, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino
WWII EXILES, ABOARD AEGEAN ODYSSEY
Three-part lecture series aboard Aegean Odyssey, part of Odyssey at Sea: World War II in France and the British Isles. Examine key artists and intellectuals who fled Europe during the Second World War. Trace the impact of the war on artists on a journey to some of the most important historical sites of WW2.
Road Scholar, aboard Aegean Odyssey, U.K., France, and Ireland
July/August 2022
Detail, Paul Klee, Red Balloon, 1922, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
IMPRESSIONISM and JAPONISME
Four-part lecture series highlighting the paradigmatic influence of Japanese art on Impressionism. In the 1850s, trade between France and Japan resumed for the first time in nearly 250 years. The resulting syncretic impact of Japanese art and design on Impressionist art was extraordinary. Investigate how Monet, Whistler, Van Gogh, and others incorporated Japanese themes and imagery into their respective work.
The Barnes Foundation
July 2022
Edgar Degas. Three Dancers with Hair in Braids (detail), ca. 1900. BF143. Public Domain.
INDIVISIBLE: THREADS OF AMERICAN ART
What are some of the central themes running through the history of American art and architecture? And do those threads suggest a “united” history? This four-part series explores these and other questions, along the way unpacking why American art is so fascinating. Each of four stand-alone lectures unites disparate artists and artworks across space and time around a central topic: the ideas of nature, architectural imagery, capitalism, and icon. Taken together, the series hopes to encourage viewers to continue to explore what makes American art so special.
Road Scholar
June 2022
Frederic Church, Niagara, 1857, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
VINCENT VAN GOGH: HIS ART AND LIFE
Highlights the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh. 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
May 2022
Vinent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, Museum of Modern Art, New York
20TH CENTURY ARCHITECTURE
Four-part lecture series surveying the foundations, highlights, philosophies, and still-vigorous legacy of vanguard architecture after ca. 1900. Trace the impact of Louis Sullivan’s “form follows function” decree and unpack the conceptual underpinnings of the “skin-and-bones” and “less-is-more” International Style tenets employed by Mies van der Rohe and other modern giants. See how Frank Lloyd Write moved modernism into an organic direction and how Robert Venturi interrogated it with his “less-is-a-bore” scholasticism. We conclude with a look into the most dazzling and profound architecture of our own time.
The Barnes Foundation
April 2022
Zaha Hadid, Vitra Fire Station, Weil em Rhein, Germany, 1990-93
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.
Road Scholar
April 2022
Francisco Goya, The Third of May 1808, 1814, Museo del Prado, Madrid
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GEORGIA O'KEEFFE: MOTHER OF AMERICAN MODERNISM
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.
One Day University
March 2022
Detail, Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, 1918, Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
ART AND INNOVATION, FOR UNITED AIRLINES RISE
Now more than ever, we need to see things from different perspectives and understand that our perceptions form our own realities. Luckily art helps us to do that. This talk uses Chicago masterworks to promote revolutionary over evolutionary change for United Airlines.
United Airlines Chicago and Art Institute of Chicago
March 2022
Ferris Bueller's Day Off scene with Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, detail, 1884-86, Art Institute of Chicago
O'KEEFFE'S VISIONS
Where many people saw bones in America's southwestern deserts, Georgia O'Keeffe saw the transcendent passage of time. Explore why her beloved works are still so powerful.
Road Scholar
January 2022
Georgia O'Keeffe, Lake George Reflections, ca. 1921-22, Private collection
CUBISM AND ITS IMPACT
Simply put, there is art before Cubism, and art after it. With Analytic Cubism, Picasso, Braque and others deconstructed traditional imagery – drawn from the observable world – and reconstructed it into the celebrated Cubist “grid,” a series of interlocking geometric lines that harmoniously held together a cacophony of competing shapes. Two-dimensions no longer mimicked the real world; but instead suggested a fourth-dimension, one where shapes – recognizable or not – seemed to be in motion, kinetically fluctuating between different perspectives and moments in time. Here an ear; there a guitar string. Synthetic Cubism, its successor, pushed Cubism even more through a synthesis of objects from the real work and/into the Cubist grid. This four-part lecture series examines how Cubism’s twin styles dominated the early 20th century vanguard and continue to inspire on, even today.
The Barnes Foundation
January 2022
Georges Braque, Houses at l’Estaque, 1908, Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France