Matthew J. Palczynski, Ph.D.
Art History Lecturer
MONET'S MODERNISM
Four-part lecture series highlighting Monet's contributions to the history of art. Focus topics include the relationship between Monet's work and its historical context, including the Franco-Prussian war, the opening of Japan, and WWI. This series examines those who directly and indirectly influenced and taught Monet; and also the artists he in turn inspired, from the proto-modernists to the modernists.
The Barnes Foundation
December 2021
Claude Monet, The Japanese Footbridge, Giverny, ca. 1922, MFA Houston
MONET'S IMPRESSIONS
Discover how light, nature, societal changes, Japonisme, and so much more inspired Claude Monet to make some of the most iconic works in the art historical canon.
Road Scholar
December 2021
Claude Monet, La Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
FOUR ART CAPITALS
Traveling lecture program highlighting four art capitals (St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and New York), in addition to lecture series aboard the QM2.
On-site lectures "The Russian Avant Garde” and “Modernist Masterworks at the Hermitage,” St. Petersburg; “Never Turning Back: Origins of Parisian Modernism” and “Modern Master: Pablo Picasso,” Paris; “British Modernism,” London. Gallery presentations at The Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Five-part lecture series Art Afloat 3 (“Origins of American Modernism: The Armory Show and 291 Gallery,” “Skyscraper City: Ashcan and Precisionism,” “Ups and Downs: Harlem Renaissance and American Depression-Era Art,” “The Midas Touch: Art and Consumerism,” and “Who are We? Global Contemporary Art”) aboard the RMS Queen Mary 2. Guided gallery conversations at Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; Musée d'Orsay, Centre Pompidou, Louvre, Paris; Tate Britain/Modern, National Gallery, Courtauld Gallery, London.
Road Scholar
September/October 2021 (Canceled due to Covid-19)
WHAT IS MINIMALISM?
In the late 1950s, Frank Stella’s “what you see is what you see” striped paintings foretold of a new era within art’s vanguard, one in which a focus on surface, materials, and geometric abstraction threatened to finally replace illusionism. Donald Judd’s “specific objects” and Dan Flavin’s fluorescent light-based works pushed the conversation further, interrogating boundaries between an artwork and the space it inhabits, not unlike how Tony Smith and Sol LeWitt similarly questioned the conceptual breathing room between sculpture and architecture. This four-part lecture series traces the roots of Minimalism in the Bauhaus, De Stijl, and Constructivism; and discover how new approaches to the work of Agnes Martin, Carmen Herrera, and other pioneering women have reshaped the Minimalist canon.
The Barnes Foundation
September 2021
Donald Judd, Untitled concrete blocks, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas
FOUR ART CAPITALS
Traveling lecture program highlighting four art capitals (St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and New York), in addition to lecture series aboard the QM2.
On-site lectures "The Russian Avant Garde” and “Modernist Masterworks at the Hermitage,” St. Petersburg; “Never Turning Back: Origins of Parisian Modernism” and “Modern Master: Pablo Picasso,” Paris; “British Modernism,” London. Gallery presentations at The Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Five-part lecture series Art Afloat 3 (“Origins of American Modernism: The Armory Show and 291 Gallery,” “Skyscraper City: Ashcan and Precisionism,” “Ups and Downs: Harlem Renaissance and American Depression-Era Art,” “The Midas Touch: Art and Consumerism,” and “Who are We? Global Contemporary Art”) aboard the RMS Queen Mary 2. Guided gallery conversations at Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; Musée d'Orsay, Centre Pompidou, Louvre, Paris; Tate Britain/Modern, National Gallery, Courtauld Gallery, London.
Road Scholar
July 2021 (Canceled due to Covid-19)
ART ON THE QM2 LONDON-NYC
Traveling lecture program for Road Scholar tracing the major developments in Modern and Contemporary Art after 1863. Six-part lecture series Art Afloat (“Looking Ahead: Forming Modernism in Late 19th Century France,” “Masters Arrive: Picasso and Matisse," "Visualizing Essences: Abstraction Arrives," "Crossing the Pond: The New York School Triumphs," "Consumer Culture Sets In: The Beat Generation and Pop," "Major Developments After 1970") aboard the RMS Queen Mary 2.
Gallery presentations at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Guided gallery conversations at Tate Britain/Modern, National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, Courtauld Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum.
New York, London, and on the iconic transatlantic crossing of the QM2.
Road Scholar
June 2021 (Canceled due to Covid-19)
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
June 2021
Edgar Degas. Three Dancers with Hair in Braids (detail), ca. 1900. BF143. Public Domain.
ART ON THE QM2 LONDON-NYC
Traveling lecture program for Road Scholar tracing the major developments in Modern and Contemporary Art after 1863. Six-part lecture series Art Afloat (“Looking Ahead: Forming Modernism in Late 19th Century France,” “Masters Arrive: Picasso and Matisse," "Visualizing Essences: Abstraction Arrives," "Crossing the Pond: The New York School Triumphs," "Consumer Culture Sets In: The Beat Generation and Pop," "Major Developments After 1970") aboard the RMS Queen Mary 2.
Gallery presentations at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Guided gallery conversations at Tate Britain/Modern, National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery, Royal Academy of Arts, Courtauld Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum.
New York, London, and on the iconic transatlantic crossing of the QM2.
Road Scholar
May 2021 (Canceled due to Covid-19)
GARDEN of EARTHLY DELIGHTS: ART and NATURE
This talk 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.
Duquesne Club, Pittsburgh (cancelled)
May 2021
Cave of Swimmers, Egypt
WILLEM DE KOONING IN CONTEXT
Embedded within Willem de Kooning’s “abstract urban landscapes”—as art critic Thomas Hess described them—are layers of paint, stacked one on top of another, as if to remind us of the physicality of the act of painting. This four-part lecture series examines how De Kooning blurred lines between himself and the object and created freely in the gestural/performative space between the two. Explore how he shaped the iconic abstract expressionists of the New York School and continued to inspire subsequent generations.
Each week, the main lecture is followed by a 30-minute discussion session that allows students the opportunity to ask questions and exchange ideas with the instructor and classmates.
The Barnes Foundation
April 2021
Photo, The Barnes Foundation
ON THE RUN: EUROPEAN ARTISTS and INTELLECTUALS FLEE WW2
Examine key artists and intellectuals who fled Europe during the Second World War and trace the impact of the war on artists, especially those in Germany, Austria, and France. This four-part lecture series also investigates the impact of the exiles on American art.
The Barnes Foundation
March 2021
Paul Klee, Ad Parnassum, 1932, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland
CHICAGO MASTERWORKS FOR UNITED AIRLINES RISE
Online talk promoting revolutionary over evolutionary change for United Airlines, using art to highlight innovation.
United Airlines, Chicago
February 2021
Ferris Bueller's Day Off scene with Georges Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, detail, 1884-86, Art Institute of Chicago
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
January 2021
Zaha Hadid, Vitra Fire Station, Weil em Rhein, Germany, 1990-93