Matthew J. Palczynski, Ph.D.
Art History Lecturer
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.
MyHealthAngel
November 2023
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.
QM2 TRANSATLANTIC SERIES
Lecture series aboard the iconic transatlantic crossing of the QM2.
Cunard
October 2023
Detail, QM2, New York
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.
The Barnes Foundation
October 2023
Marsden Hartley, Flowerpiece, 1916, The Barnes Foundation
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.
MyHealthAngel
September 2023
Detail, Marc Chagall, Paris through the Window, 1913, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
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.
"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.
Road Scholar
August 2023
Detail, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh Painting Sunflowers, 1888, van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
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.
MyHealthAngel
July 2023
Detail, Paul Cézanne, Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1904, Philadelphia Museum of Art
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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.
Oklahoma City Museum of Art
June 2023
Detail, Auguste Rodin by George Charles Beresford, half-plate glass negative, 1902
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.
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.
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.
"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.
"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.
"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.
"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
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.
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.
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:
"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.
"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.
"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.
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.
The Barnes Foundation
January 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
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
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 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