Release Date: September 27, 2010

National Gallery of Art Fall Lecture Series Showcases American Modernism and New Books on Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and The Image of the Black in Western Art

Washington, DC—The National Gallery of Art Lecture Series offers a broad spectrum of programs this fall. On Sunday, October 17, Dimitrios Pandermalis, president of the board of directors, Acropolis Museum, and professor of archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, will join Selma Holo, professor of art history, director of the International Museum Institute, and director of the Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California, and Faya Causey, head of academic programs, National Gallery of Art, in The New Acropolis Museum: A Conversation with Dimitrios Pandermalis. On Sunday, October 31, in the lecture Michelangelo: In the Beginning, John T. Spike will chronicle the early career of the Renaissance master, and afterward he will sign copies of his most recent publication, Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine.

In early November the Gallery hosts a weekend-long celebration of lectures, film, and music in conjunction with American Modernism: The Shein Collection, on view in the East Building through January 2. On Saturday, November 6, The Early Modernists and America symposium presents lectures by an international slate of scholars, including Debra Bricker Balken, Jay Bochner, Michael C. FitzGerald, Didier Ottinger, and Carol Troyen. On Sunday, November 7, at 4:00 p.m., Salute to Iris Barry, featuring Andrew Simpson on piano, recreates one of the events that Barry staged at the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford in the 1930s, including avant-garde short films by Walter Ruttmann, Ivor Montagu, Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter, and Charles Sheeler as well as King Neptune by Walt Disney. That same evening at 6:30 p.m., jazz pianist Terry Waldo and his ensemble will offer an entertaining mix of Ragtime and other early 20th-century jazz.

Also on Sunday, November 7, Michael Fried, J. R. Herbert Boone Professor of Humanities, The Johns Hopkins University, delivers the Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art. In his lecture, Thoughts on the Caravaggisti, Fried explores the achievements of the overlooked followers of Caravaggio. This is the 14th lecture in an endowed series named after the great scholar of Italian art, Sydney J. Freedberg (1914–1997). Fried will sign copies of his newest book, The Moment of Caravaggio, based on the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts that he delivered at the National Gallery of Art in 2002.

On December 12 David Bindman, emeritus professor of the history of art, University College London, and associate of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University; Faya Causey, head of academic programs, National Gallery of Art; Ruth Fine, curator of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art; Alison Luchs, curator of early European sculpture, National Gallery of Art; Sharmila Sen, general editor for the humanities, Harvard University Press; and Lou Stovall, master printmaker, present the new editions and volumes of The Image of the Black in Western Art. A book signing of The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volumes I–III follows.

All lecture programs are presented free of charge and take place in the East Building Auditorium unless otherwise noted. Seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis.

Public Symposium

The Early Modernists and America
Saturday, November 6, 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Illustrated lectures by noted scholars including Debra Bricker Balken, Jay Bochner, Michael C. FitzGerald, Didier Ottinger, and Carol Troyen

Sunday Lectures

All Sunday lectures take place at 2:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted.

Arcimboldo: Lombard Painter between Leonardo and Caravaggio
September 19
Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, curator of Italian Renaissance art, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Book signing of Arcimboldo: 1526-1593 follows

Edvard Munch: Understanding His Master Prints
September 26
Elizabeth Prelinger, Keyser Family Professor of Art History and Modern Art, Georgetown
University, and Andrew Robison, senior curator of prints and drawings, National Gallery of Art Book signing of Edvard Munch: Master Prints follows

What I Saw: An Art Critic’s Report on Forty Years in Washington
October 3
Paul Richard, art critic 1967–2009, The Washington Post

The Greatest Unknown Work of Art in America
October 10
Richard Brettell, Margaret McDermott Distinguished Chair of Art and Aesthetics, Interdisciplinary Program in Arts and Humanities, University of Texas at Dallas
Book signing of James Magee: The Hill follows

The New Acropolis Museum: A Conversation with Dimitrios Pandermalis
October 17
Dimitrios Pandermalis, president of the board of directors, Acropolis Museum, and professor of archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in conversation with Selma Holo, professor of art history, director of the International Museum Institute, and director of the Fisher Museum of Art, University of Southern California, and Faya Causey, head of academic programs, National Gallery of Art

Puvis de Chavannes and the Invention of Modernism: Parsing the National Gallery of Art Paintings
October 24
Aimée Brown Price, art historian, curator, and critic
Book signing of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Volume I: The Artist and His Art and Volume II: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work follows

Michelangelo: In the Beginning
October 31, 12:30 p.m.
John T. Spike, faculty of the masters in sacred architecture, arts, and liturgy, organized by the European University of Rome and the Pontifical Athenaeum, “Regina Apostolorum”
Book signing of Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine follows

The Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art

Thoughts on the Caravaggisti
November 7
Michael Fried, J. R. Herbert Boone Professor of Humanities, The Johns Hopkins University Book signing of The Moment of Caravaggio follows

The Evidence of Garden History
November 14
Therese O’Malley, associate dean, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art
Book signing of Keywords in American Landscape Design follows

Uncompromising Truth: British Photography and Pre-Raphaelitism
November 21
Diane Waggoner, associate curator of photographs, National Gallery of Art
Book signing of The Pre-Raphaelite Lens: British Photography and Painting, 1848–1875 follows.

Dutch Paintings at the National Gallery of Art: The Untold Stories Behind the Acquisitions of the Rembrandts, Vermeers, and Other Treasures
November 28
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art

Film Design: Translating Words into Images
December 5
Patrizia von Brandenstein, production designer

The Image of the Black in Western Art
December 12
Panel discussion includes David Bindman, emeritus professor of the history of art, University College London, and associate of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University; Faya Causey, head of academic programs, National Gallery of Art; Ruth Fine, curator of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art; Alison Luchs, curator of early European sculpture, National Gallery of Art; Sharmila Sen, general editor for the humanities, Harvard University Press; and Lou Stovall, master printmaker. Book signing of The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volumes I–III follows.
(Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University, will no longer participate in the program in person.)

Scapigliatura, an Italian Avant-Garde
December 19
Annie-Paule Quinsac, professor emerita of art history, University of South Carolina

Works in Progress

All lectures take place on Mondays and selected Tuesdays in the East Building Small Auditorium at 12:10 and 1:10 p.m.

Mark Rothko: You Have to Start Somewhere
September 27
Ruth Fine, curator of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art

Material as Metaphor: Non-Conscious Thinking in Seventeenth-Century Painting Practice
October 4
Melanie Gifford, research conservator, National Gallery of Art

Why Artists Plant Trees: Nature, Sculpture, and Public Art
October 18
Mechtild Widrich, lecturer, Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna

More than Ninety Miles Away: A Dialogue with Cuban Artists Meira Marrero and José Toirac
October 19
Michelle Bird, curatorial assistant for French paintings, National Gallery of Art, in conversation with artists Meira Marrero and José Toirac

Why Make Prints? An Artist’s Epiphanies
October 25
Charles Ritchie, associate curator of modern prints and drawings, National Gallery of Art

Michelangelo and Anatomy
November 1
John T. Spike, faculty of the masters in sacred architecture, arts, and liturgy, organized by the European University of Rome and the Pontifical Athenaeum, “Regina Apostolorum”

More than Ninety Miles Away: A Dialogue with Cuban Artist Yoan Capote
November 2
Michelle Bird, curatorial assistant for French paintings, National Gallery of Art, in conversation with artist Yoan Capote

Still Searching for Square Eggs: Studio Paintings 2009–2010
November 15
Peter Dueker, digital assets manager, National Gallery of Art

Papers Used by Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century British Watercolorists
November 29
Michelle Stein, technician for paper conservation, National Gallery of Art

Identity and Technique: Recent Research on Bronzes by Giovanni Francesco Susini
December 6
Dylan Smith, Robert H. Smith Research Conservator, National Gallery of Art

Collector and Dealer: Alessandro Contini Bonacossi
December 13
Fulvia Zaninelli, Samuel H. Kress History and Conservation Research Fellow, National Gallery of Art