FOUR EUROPEAN ART CAPITALS 

Four-part series explores four iconic European art capitals: Rome, Paris, London, and Amsterdam. Learn more about Rome by examining masterworks of the staggering collection inside the Vatican Museums. From the Louvre to the Musée d’Orsay, unpack why Paris is truly one of the most spectacular places to be with profound art. Journey to London to explore highlights of the National Gallery and the Tate, among other iconic venues. Unpack why the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam never seem to disappoint. A bucket-list journey indeed.

Road Scholar

 

Road Scholar

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August 2026

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Detail, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

DECADES OF CHANGE: AMERICAN ART & CULTURE ca. 1950-70

Four part series that looks into how art is always a product of its era. Between 1950 and 1970, American art vividly reflected a period of rapid technological, political, and social change. The Cold War triggered poignant art of all kinds, inspiring a flourishing moment for creativity and improvisation, w ith Jackson Pollock’s drips flowing to the same beat as Jack Kerouac, Martha Graham, and Charlie Parker. Discover how the Space Age, suburban expansion, and mass media influenced influential artists and shaped new styles like Pop Art. Explore the ideas of electronic age theorists such as Marshall McLuhan and see how the turbulent 1960s, marked by counterculture, Vietnam, and civil rights, are vividly depicted in art and design. The 1970s brought bold experimentation with themes of identity and gender amidst energy crises and societal shifts. This series offers an engaging insight into how art both shaped and responded to a transformative era of innovation, unrest, and cultural change in America.​ 

The Barnes Foundation

 

May-June 2026

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Detail, Jasper Johns, Flag, 1954-55, Museum of Modern Art

AMERICAN ART and CULTURE: 1950s

In the 1950s, art and culture merged more, and on a global scale, with each side reflecting the other. The “space age” was in, and with it came tailfins on cars, sci-fi on television, and Sputnik’s launch in October 1957. A postwar economic boom fueled rapid suburbanization, and a culture increasingly hooked on television and mass-production. “Atomic age” anxieties from The Cold War triggered poignant art of all kinds, thankfully inspiring a flourishing moment for creativity and especially for improvisation, with Jackson Pollock’s drips flowing to the same beat as Jack Kerouac, Martha Graham, and Charlie Parker. The decade really was “far out.”​

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MyHealthAngel

 

May 2026

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Detail, Helen Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea, 1952, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

ART HISTORY: A TRANSATLANTIC VOYAGE ON QM2

A travel program on land and at sea. Discover some of the masterworks of art in Paris, at Claude Monet's gardens in Giverny, and at the Rouen Museum of Art. Part 1 includes the lectures "War, Politics, Haussmann, and Japan: Historical Factors that Shaped Impressionism" at Impressionists Island, Chatou, and "Monet and Pissarro" in Rouen. Next, dig deeper in a six-part lecture series (“Van Gogh and Gauguin," "Cézanne and Seurat," "Picasso,” "Matisse," "Chagall and Modigliani," and "Crossing the Pond: WW2, Parisian Art, and New York”) aboard the RMS Queen Mary 2 on a special westerly crossing from Le Havre to New York.​

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Road Scholar

 

April-May 2026

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Detail, Louvre, Paris

FOUR ICONIC AMERICAN MUSEUMS

What makes a museum a world treasure? What does a museum say about its city? Four-part lecture series unpacks what makes The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), the Art Institute of Chicago, and the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles) so enduring. Explore highlights of each collection. Learn about some of the key figures (benefactors, curators, and so on) that helped make each museum so special. Dig deeper to investigate how the architecture of each museum relates to the city it represents. Remind ourselves why the United States is one of the greatest places in the world for experiencing art. 

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Road Scholar

 

April 2026

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Detail, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

MODERN & CONTEMPORARY SCULPTURE

Discover the dynamic world of sculpture in this four-part lecture series. Explore the evolution of figurative sculpture since 1850, delving into how artists like Auguste Rodin revolutionized the representation of the human body. Learn how contemporary sculptors continue to push boundaries and what Happenings revealed about figuration’s deeper meaning. Unpack the essence of abstract sculpture, from Constantin Brancusi’s quest to capture the soul of things to the minimalist movement’s clean lines and complex challenges. Explore how Marcel Duchamp’s groundbreaking readymades transformed conceptual art, inspiring artists like Yoko Ono to incorporate language and new ideas into three-dimensional work. Additionally, examine assemblage, a vital aspect of modern sculpture, and see how artists Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns use everyday objects and collage techniques to challenge traditional notions of art. Whether you’re an art lover or a curious newcomer, this series will deepen your understanding of how sculpture continues to evolve and reflect our world. Don't miss this opportunity to explore the avant-garde and the everyday in art’s three-dimensional realm.​

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Kendal on Hudson

 

March 2026

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Detail, Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1951 (3rd version after lost 1913 original), Museum of Modern Art

AMERICAN ART and CULTURE: 1940s

Bracketed chronologically by the Great Depression and the postwar boom, the 1940s is among the most profound and widely studied decades of the 20th century. Most popular vehicle of the decade? The Willys Jeep, the ruggedness of which coincidentally mirrors the temperament of a young Jackson Pollock, who by the end of the decade had become perhaps the most famous artist in America. Great art by European artists in exile also stands out for how it encapsulates so much of a moment in time. From Citizen Kane (1941) to Casablanca (1942), see how advances in film documented the era for posterity. Unpack why the phrase “keep calm and carry on” – a slogan coined in 1939 – says so much about the art and culture of the 1940s.​

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MyHealthAngel

 

March 2026

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Detail, Jacob Lawrence, No. 2, Main Control Panel, Nerve Center of Ship, 1944, U.S. Coast Guard Museum, New London, CT

REVOLUTIONARY WAR and ART

Four part series exploring the main highlights of American art ca. 1776. How did Charles Willson Peale, once an officer in the Pennsylvania militia and the Continental Army, impact the museums of our own time? What makes the iconic art of Loyalist John Singleton Copley, who fled to London in 1774, so enduring? What does the architecture of the era reveal about an emerging nation? Celebrate the United States of America's semiquincentennial in 2026 through the looking glass of the most memorable art of the era.

 

Road Scholar

 

February 2026

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Detail, Gilbert Stuart, Landsdowne Portrait, 1796, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

AMERICAN ART and CULTURE: 1930s

Sprouted in the climate fueled by The Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, global economic uncertainty, and the prelude to the Second World War, the art and architecture of the 1930s paradoxically flourished. Floor by floor the great Empire State Building (1930-31) rose at a mindboggling rate, defying the turmoil swirling around beyond 5th Avenue. Art of the period reflected how things seemed to get more “real” in the 1930s. As E. E. Cummings declared in his No Thanks poetry collection (1935): “let’s start a magazine… to hell with literature… we want something redblooded.”   

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MyHealthAngel

 

January 2026

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Detail, The Wizard of Oz, 1939