ON THE RUN: EUROPEAN ARTISTS/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 (online)
February 2021
VANGUARD ARCHITECTURE after ca. 1900
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 (online)
January 2021
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.” Explore 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 (online)
October 2020
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, questioning what the very nature of art is and indeed how it functions in a modern world sandwiched between two world wars.
The Barnes Foundation (online)
September 2020
VAN GOGH
Two part series celebrating the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh.
Part 1: QUINTESSENTIAL VAN GOGH
Explore 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
As we delve deeper into the life, work, and legacy of one of the most profoundly gifted painters of the 19th century, 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 (online)
September 2 and 16, 2020
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 (online)
July 2020
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 (online)
June 2020
PICASSO'S MASTERWORKS, 1 and 2 (FREE THROUGH ROAD SCHOLAR)
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 Virtual Learning (online)
May 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 (online)
May 2020
ON THE RUN: EUROPEAN ARTISTS/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 (online)
April 2020