Matthew J. Palczynski, Ph.D.
Art History Lecturer
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.
MyHealthAngel
May 2023
Detail, Pablo Picasso, Self-Portrait with Palette, 1906, Philadelphia Museum of Art
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.
The Barnes Foundation
April 2023
Detail, Camille Pissarro, The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning, 1897, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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.
MyHealthAngel
March 2023
Detail, Georgia O'Keeffe, Lake George Reflections, ca. 1921-22, Private collection
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.
The Barnes Foundation
Jan 2023
The Gateway Arch, St. Louis
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.
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
MyHealthAngel
Detail, Vincent van Gogh, The Night Café, 1888, Yale University Art Gallery
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
Nov/Dec 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
Nov 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.
Road Scholar
Oct/Nov 2022
Detail, Jacob Lawrence, No. 2, Main Control Panel, Nerve Center of Ship, 1944, U.S. Coast Guard Museum, New London, CT
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
Oct/Nov 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
RENAISSANCE WEEKEND
"Garden of Earthly Delights" and "Great Art About Women By Women"
Renaissance Weekend, Autumn, 2022, Boston
Oct 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
Sep 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
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
Jul-Aug 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
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
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
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.
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
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 four-part lecture series 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.
The Barnes Foundation
October 2020
Photo of Pablo Picasso
DUCHAMP and DADA
Few artists or groups of artists have altered the course of art to the extent that Marcel Duchamp and his Dada contemporaries did. Championing “anti-art” as a move away from “retinal art,” the Dadaists refused to play by the same rules – and with the same materials – as the painters and sculptors around them. This four-part lecture series examines how Duchamp and the Dadaists questioned the very nature of art and learned to function in a modern world sandwiched between two world wars.
The Barnes Foundation
September 2020
Martin Lazarus/Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Duchamp in 1961 with readymades Fountain and Bicycle Wheel.
VAN GOGH
Two part series celebrating the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh. Part 1: QUINTESSENTIAL VAN GOGH surveys 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. Part 2: READING VAN GOGH’S LETTERS delves deeper into his 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.
Road Scholar
September 2 and 16, 2020
Vinent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, Museum of Modern Art, New York
WHAT IS ABSTRACT PAINTING?
If you’ve ever felt lost when facing an abstract painting, you are not alone. Join us to unlock some of the mysteries of the most celebrated works of abstraction.
Road Scholar
August 2020
Kazimir Malevich, Suprematist Composition: White on White, 1918, Museum of Modern Art
LECTURING IN AN ONLINE WORLD
Conversation with Susan Dackerman, John & Jill Freidenrich Director of the Cantor Arts Center, about the shift from in-person to online lecturing.
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
July 2020
Deborah Kass, OY/YO installed at Cantor Arts Center (Stanford), Palo Alto
GARDEN of EARTHLY DELIGHTS: ART and NATURE
These talks 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.
The Barnes Foundation
July 2020
Albert Bierstadt, Merced River, Yosemite Valley, 1866, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
3D/4D: SCULPTURE 1850 to the PRESENT
Four-part lecture series celebrating the various modes of modern and contemporary sculpture, from 3D to 4D and beyond. What made Rodin’s work so different? How did Brancusi link carving and essence? How did Duchamp force a reexamination of what art is? Are Happenings sculpture? Explore the paradigms of insider/outsider art. Interrogate the intersections between traditional “3D” sculpture and contemporary performance, video, and conceptual pieces.
The Barnes Foundation
June 2020
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
May 2020
Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1906, Art Institute of Chicago
PICASSO'S MASTERWORKS, 1 and 2
Two-part lecture series highlighting only some of Picasso's masterworks. More than a century after Cubism, we are still unpacking his extraordinary career. As the most celebrated artist of his generation, Picasso continued to produce complex masterworks into his nineties. His contribution to the history of art was immeasurable.
Road Scholar
May 2020
Photo of Pablo Picasso
ON THE RUN: EUROPEAN ARTISTS and INTELLECTUALS FLEE WW2
Four-part lecture series exploring the many important European artists exiled during and just before WW2. What does it mean to leave your homeland unexpectedly, during unknown circumstances? How does being exiled impact arts and ideas? Examine key artists and intellectuals who fled Europe during the Second World War. Delve into the zeitgeist and trace the impact of the war on artists, especially those in Germany, Austria, and France. Discover what the exiled Europeans transmitted to their younger contemporaries in the US and conversely, unpack the work of the Europeans who stayed behind, all in a shifting superpowers of ideas.
The Barnes Foundation
April 2020
Paul Klee, Ad Parnassum, 1932, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland