Matthew Palczynski, Ph.D.
Art History Lecturer and Consultant
WHAT IS MINIMALISM?
In the late 1950s, Frank Stella’s “what you see is what you see” black stiped 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. Trace 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 (online). Click photo to register.
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 (online). Click photo to register.
June 2021
Edgar Degas. Three Dancers with Hair in Braids (detail), ca. 1900. BF143. Public Domain.
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 (online). Click photo to register.
April 2021
Willem de Kooning. Untitled XIII (detail), 1975. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. Katharine Ordway Collection. Artwork © 2021 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Image © Yale University Art Gallery, 2010
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 (online). Click photo to register.
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.
Online with Art Institute of Chicago collection
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 (online). Click photo to register.
January 2021
Zaha Hadid, Vitra Fire Station, Weil em Rhein, Germany, 1990-93
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 (online)
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 (online). Click photo for YouTube of the talk.
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 (online). Click photo for YouTube of the talk.
August 2020
Helen Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea, 1952, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
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 (online)
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 (online)
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 (online)
June 2020
Alberto Giacometti Sitting with his sculptures, via Gagosian Gallery, New York (left); with Homme Assis by Alberto Giacometti, 1950
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 Virtual Learning (online). Click the photo to watch the YouTube of the first talk.
May 2020
Pablo Picasso, south of France, 1949, Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
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
Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1906, Art Institute of Chicago
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 (online)
October 2020
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 (online)
April 2020
Paul Klee, Ad Parnassum, 1932, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland
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 (in-person). Click photo to register.
April 2022
Zaha Hadid, Vitra Fire Station, Weil em Rhein, Germany, 1990-93
CHICAGO MASTERWORKS 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.
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 (online). Click photo to register.
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 (online). Click photo to register.
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 (online). Click photo to register.
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 (online). Click photo to register.
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 (online). Click photo to register.
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 (online). Click photo to register.
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 (online). Click photo to register.
April 2021
Willem de Kooning. Untitled XIII (detail), 1975. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. Katharine Ordway Collection. Artwork © 2021 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Image © Yale University Art Gallery, 2010
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 (online). Click photo to register.
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.
Online with Art Institute of Chicago collection
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 (online). Click photo to register.
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 (online)
October 2020
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 (online). Click photo for YouTube of the talk.
September 2 and 16, 2020
Vinent van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, Museum of Modern Art, New York
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 (online)
September 2020
Martin Lazarus/Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Duchamp in 1961 with readymades Fountain and Bicycle Wheel.
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 (online). Click photo for YouTube of the talk.
August 2020
Helen Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea, 1952, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
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 (online)
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 (online)
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 (online)
June 2020
Alberto Giacometti Sitting with his sculptures, via Gagosian Gallery, New York (left); with Homme Assis by Alberto Giacometti, 1950
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
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 Virtual Learning (online). Click the photo to watch the YouTube of the first talk.
May 2020
Pablo Picasso, south of France, 1949, Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
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 (online)
April 2020
Paul Klee, Ad Parnassum, 1932, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland