Release Date: January 25, 2011

National Gallery of Art 2011 Lecture Program Celebrates Canaletto and Gauguin Exhibitions, New Systematic Catalogue, 60th Mellon Lectures, and More

Washington, DC—As 2011 begins, the National Gallery of Art lecture program welcomes a distinguished group of artists and scholars to the podium. Two symposia, the 60th A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, the annual Elson Lecture, and five book signings highlight the season.

The exhibition Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals, on view from February 20 through May 30, 2011, is the inspiration for the public symposium Sights and Sounds of 18th-Century Venice on Saturday, April 2, and Sunday, April 3, but also a number of lectures, including an opening day introduction by Charles Beddington, guest curator, and David Alan Brown, curator of Italian paintings, National Gallery of Art (February 20); Canaletto's Venice: The Art of Fiction by Gallery lecturer Eric Denker (March 13); and Shakespeare's Italy by Michael Kahn, artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company (May 22). Also timed to coincide with the exhibition Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals and these related lecture programs is La Dolce DC, a citywide celebration of all things Italian, from March 1 to May 30.

Among the Gallery's distinguished author lectures and book signings is the January 30 program The Sculpture of Edgar Degas at the National Gallery of Art: Launch of a Landmark Publication, which celebrates the Gallery's newest systematic catalogue, Edgar Degas Sculpture. Gallery conservators Shelley Sturman and Daphne Barbour and Suzanne G. Lindsay, adjunct associate professor in the history of art, University of Pennsylvania, will discuss their extensive research on the art, history, and techniques of Degas' sculptures. Barbour and Sturman will also offer presentations of their conservation research for this systematic catalogue on February 7 and 14, respectively, as part of the Gallery's Works in Progress series. The Gallery holds the greatest collection in the world of lifetime sculptures by the artist, and the volume presents this unique collection of 52 works in wax, clay, and plaster, as well as a dozen cast bronzes and a plaster, produced posthumously. Also celebrating the publication of her latest biography is author Meryl Secrest, who will returns to the Gallery on June 19 to give a lecture titled The Unknown Modigliani.

The Gallery's acclaimed lecture series bring rich offerings in 2011. The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts continue for the 60th year with Mary Beard, professor and chair of the faculty board of classics, University of Cambridge delivering The Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from Ancient Rome to Salvador Dalí, beginning March 27. On April 14, Terry Winters, one of the leading artists of the generation following Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, will discuss his work in the annual Elson Lecture, titled Notes on Painting.

All lecture programs are presented free of charge and take place on Sundays at 2:00 p.m. in the East Building Auditorium unless otherwise noted. Seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis.

Public Symposium

Sights and Sounds of 18th-Century Venice
Saturday, April 2, 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. (Art and Culture: Sights)
Sunday, April 3, 11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. (Art and Culture: Sounds)

The 60th A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts

The Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from Ancient Rome to Salvador Dalí
Mary Beard, professor and chair of the faculty board of classics, University of Cambridge

Julius Caesar: Inventing an Image
March 27

Heroes and Villains: In Miniatures, Marble, and Movies
April 3

Warts and All? Emperors Come Down to Earth
April 10

Caesar's Wife: Above Suspicion?
April 17

Dynasty: Collecting, Classifying, and Connoisseurship
May 1

Rough Work? Emperors Defaced and Destroyed
May 8

Elson Lecture

Notes on Painting
Thursday, April 14, 3:30 p.m.
Terry Winters, artist

Lecture Programs

The Sculpture of Edgar Degas at the National Gallery of Art: Launch of a Landmark Publication
January 30
Daphne Barbour, senior conservator, department of object conservation, National Gallery of Art; Suzanne G. Lindsay, adjunct associate professor in the history of art, University of Pennsylvania; and Shelley Sturman, senior conservator and head of the department of object conservation, National Gallery of Art
Book signing of Edgar Degas Sculpture follows

"We Build Our Temples for Tomorrow": Writing African American Art History
February 6
Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, associate professor of American Art, University of Pennsylvania

Charles Burnett
February 13
Charles Burnett, filmmaker

Introduction to the Exhibition—Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals
February 20
Charles Beddington, guest curator, and David Alan Brown, curator of Italian paintings, National Gallery of Art

Introduction to the Exhibition—Gauguin: Maker of Myth
February 27
Mary Morton, curator and head of the department of French Paintings, National Gallery of Art, and Belinda Thomson, guest curator

Artists and Archives: The Early History of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome Online and in Print
March 6
Peter Lukehart, associate dean, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art

Canaletto's Venice: The Art of Fiction
March 13
Eric Denker, lecturer, National Gallery of Art

Romare Bearden, American Modernist: An Introduction
Ruth Fine, curator, department of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art

Romare Bearden and the Aesthetic of the Grotesque
Mary Schmidt Campbell, dean, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
Monday, March 14, 4:30 p.m.

The Rodin Touch
March 20
David J. Getsy, Goldabelle McComb Finn Distinguished Chair in Art History and associate professor of art history, theory, and criticism, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Book signing of Rodin: Sex and the Making of Modern Sculpture follows

Meeting Metsu: ANOTHER Dutch Master
Friday, April 22, 3:00 p.m.
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., curator of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art; Pieter Roelofs, curator of 17th-century paintings, Rijksmuseum; and Adriaan E. Waiboer, curator of northern European art, National Gallery of Ireland

The Poetics of Dislocation: Narrative in the Painting of Caravaggio
April 24
Lorenzo Pericolo, Robert H. Smith Senior Research Associate, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art
Book signing of The Poetics of Dislocation: Narrative in the Painting of Caravaggio follows

Calling the Earth to Witness: Paul Gauguin in the Marquesas
May 15
June Hargrove, professor of 19th-century European painting and sculpture, University of Maryland at College Park

Michael Kahn and Shakespeare's Italy
May 22
Michael Kahn, artistic director, Shakespeare Theatre Company

My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, 1915–1933
June 5
Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head of the department of photographs, National Gallery of Art
Book signing of My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, Volume 1, 1915–1933 follows

The Unknown Modigliani
June 19
Meryl Secrest, author
Book signing of Modigliani: A Life follows

Works in Progress

Mondays and selected Tuesdays in the East Building Small Auditorium at 12:10 and 1:10 p.m.

Figural Topography and History: Renaissance Italy's Limited Ottoman Imagery
January 31
Rosamond Mack, independent scholar

Degas the Sculptor and His Technique
February 7
Daphne Barbour, senior conservator, department of object conservation, National Gallery of Art

More Than Ninety Miles Away: A Dialogue with the Cuban Artists Los Carpinteros
February 8
Michelle Bird, curatorial assistant, department of French paintings, National Gallery of Art, in conversation with artists Dagoberto Rodríguez Sánchez and Marco Antonio Castillo Valdés

Degas' Bronzes Analyzed
February 14
Shelley Sturman, senior conservator and head of the department of object conservation, National Gallery of Art

Possessing the Past? The Bronze Doors of San Clemente a Casauria (Abruzzo)
February 28
Jessica N. Richardson, research associate, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art

Americans Collect Italian Renaissance Art
March 7 at 12:10 p.m. only
David Alan Brown, curator of Italian paintings, National Gallery of Art

Scientific Examination of Photographs
March 14
Christopher Maines, conservation scientist, scientific research department, National Gallery of Art

Spies in the Library: Representations of West Berlin in the 1960s
April 11
Emily Pugh, research associate, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art

Bernini as a Court Artist
April 18
Carolina Mangone, Joseph F. McCrindle Foundation Graduate Curatorial Fellow, National Gallery of Art

How Byzantine! Renaissance Venice and Byzantium
April 25
Debra Pincus, independent scholar

Hendrick ter Brugghen's "Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene" from Oberlin College
May 2
Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., curator of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art, and Andria Derstein, curator of collections and curator of European and American art, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College

Gauguin's Myths
May 9
Mary Morton, curator and head of the department of French Paintings, National Gallery of Art

Humor Since Homer: The Legacy of the Ridiculous in Western High Art
May 16
David Essex, assistant, department of Italian paintings, National Gallery of Art

Portraiture and the Moving Image
June 6
Joanna Raczynska, assistant head of film programs, National Gallery of Art

New Developments for the Scientific Analysis of Illuminated Manuscripts
June 13
Paola Ricciardi, Samuel H. Kress Fellow, scientific research department, National Gallery of Art