Release Date: January 8, 2014

Spring Lecture Program at the National Gallery of Art Celebrates Exhibitions, New Books by Noted Authors, 63rd A.W. Mellon Lectures, Annual Elson Lecture with Allan McCollum, and More

Neil Harris, Preston and Sterling Morton Professor Emeritus of History and of Art History, University of Chicago, presents a lecture titled Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience on Sunday, January 26, at the National Gallery of Art. Book signing of Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience follows.

Washington, DC—This spring, the National Gallery of Art offers an array of public lectures featuring a distinguished group of artists, authors, curators, and scholars. Highlights include three public symposia, three book signings, the annual Elson Lecture, and the 63rd A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts.

On January 12, Gallery conservators and curators Daphne Barbour, Melanie Gifford, Lisha Glinsman, Alison Luchs, and Kimberly Schenk introduce Facture, the Gallery's new biennial journal featuring the latest in conservation research on works in the permanent collection. Named for "the manner in which all things are made," Facture addresses aspects of conservation from treatment and technical art history to scientific research.

Three symposia are presented this season. On February 28, Ways of Seeing Byzantium brings together noted scholars to explore themes of the exhibition Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections (on view through March 2). On March 8, the Gallery hosts the Middle Atlantic Symposium in the History of Art, featuring recent scholarship by graduate students in art history. On March 22, El Greco: 400 Years After honors the 400th anniversary of the artist's death. Scholars will discuss El Greco's career, focusing on his early years in Greece and Italy, as well as his renowned work completed in the city of Toledo, Spain.

The Gallery celebrates African American History Month with three programs. On February 9, Ruth Fine discusses the collecting of African American art in a conversation with collector Rodney Merritt Miller. On February 23, a panel discussion between David Bindman, Ruth Fine, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Richard J. Powell, and Sharmila Sen, is moderated Faya Causey. A book signing of The Image of the Black in Western Art: The 20th Century: The Impact of Africa follows the lecture. Collector Kenneth Montague appears in conversation with curator Trevor Schoonmaker and collection manager Maria Kanellopoulos to discuss the Wedge Collection on March 9.

Following the release of the film The Monuments Men, Gallery staff and acclaimed author Lynn H. Nicholas present the lecture program The Inside Story: Monuments Men and the National Gallery of Art on March 16. Maygene Daniels, Gregory Most, and Nicholas (author of The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War) reveal the Gallery's role with the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program and the Roberts Commission, in a program moderated by Faya Causey.

On March 27, Allan McCollum will deliver the 2014 Elson Lecture, part of a series of annual lectures featuring distinguished contemporary artists whose work is represented in the Gallery's permanent collection.

Beginning on March 30, the Gallery's acclaimed A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts returns for the 63rd year with Anthony Grafton, whose six-part lecture series is titled Past Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe.

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. Programs may move to other locations as the East Building undergoes renovations; for the latest information, check www.nga.gov/programs/lectures.

Public Symposia

Ways of Seeing Byzantium
Friday, February 28, 2:00–5:00 p.m., West Building Lecture Hall
Illustrated lectures by Glenn Peers, professor of art and art history, University of Texas, Austin; Bissera Pentcheva, associate professor of art and art history, Stanford University;
William Tronzo, professor of visual arts, University of California, San Diego; Alicia Walker, assistant professor of the history of art, Bryn Mawr College

Middle Atlantic Symposium in the History of Art
Saturday, March 8, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., West Building Lecture Hall
Illustrated lectures by graduate students in art history
This program is jointly sponsored by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art and the University of Maryland Department of Art History and Archaeology.

El Greco: 400 Years After
Saturday, March 22, noon–4:00 p.m., West Building Lecture Hall
Illustrated lectures by Fernando Marías, professor of art history, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid-RAH, and exhibition curator of The Greek of Toledo, Museo Santa Cruz, Toledo; Jeongho Park, Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow, The Frick Collection; Luis Alberto Pérez, curator, Museo del Greco; Livia Stoenescu, visiting assistant professor, University of Houston-Clear Lake
This program is coordinated with and supported by the Embassy of Spain, Washington, DC.

The 63rd A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts

Past Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe,
presented in six lectures by Anthony Grafton, Henry Putnam University Professor of History, Princeton University

I. How Jesus Celebrated Passover: The Jewish Origins of Christianity
Sunday, March 30, 2:00 p.m.

II. Bearers of Memory and Makers of History: The Many Paths to Christian Antiquity
Sunday, April 6, 2:00 p.m.

III. Christian Origins and the Work of Time: Imagining the First Christians
Sunday, April 13, 2:00 p.m.

IV. Relics and Ruins: Material Survivals and Early Modern Interpretations
Sunday, April 27, 2:00 p.m.

V. Martyrdom and Persecution: The Uses of Early Christian Suffering
Sunday, May 4, 2:00 p.m.

VI. Constantine and Conversion: The Roles of the First Christian Emperor
Sunday, May 11, 2:00 p.m.

Elson Lecture

The Elson Lecture Series features distinguished contemporary artists whose work is represented in the Gallery's permanent collection. The Honorable and Mrs. Edward E. Elson generously endowed this series in 1992.

Thursday, March 27, 3:30 p.m.
Allan McCollum, artist

Lectures

Speaking across Disciplines: Introducing "Facture," a New Gallery Journal
Sunday, January 12, 2:00 p.m.
Daphne Barbour, senior object conservator; Melanie Gifford, research conservator; Lisha Glinsman, conservation scientist; Alison Luchs, curator of early European sculpture; Kimberly Schenk, head of paper conservation, National Gallery of Art

Conservation of the Shaw Memorial: The Long Journey
Wednesday, January 15, 12:30 p.m.
Shelley Sturman, senior conservator and head of the department of object conservation, National Gallery of Art

Witnessing Byzantium: The Greek Perspective
Thursday, January 16, 3:30 p.m., West Building Lecture Hall
Sharon E. J. Gerstel, professor of Byzantine art history and archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles
This program is coordinated with and supported by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience
Sunday, January 26, 2:00 p.m.
Neil Harris, Preston and Sterling Morton Professor of History and of Art History Emeritus, University of Chicago
Book signing of Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience follows.

Van Gogh: The Face in the Mirror
Sunday, February 2, 2:00 p.m.
George T. M. Shackelford, deputy director, Kimbell Art Museum

The Collecting of African American Art X: Rodney Merritt Miller: Reflections on Collecting
Sunday, February 9, 2:00 p.m.
Ruth Fine, curator (1972–2012), National Gallery of Art; Rodney Merritt Miller, collector

Image of the Black in Western Art, Part III
Sunday, February 23, 2:00 p.m.
Panel discussion includes David Bindman, emeritus professor of the history of art, University College London; Ruth Fine, curator (1972–2012), National Gallery of Art; 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; Richard J. Powell, John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History, Duke University; Sharmila Sen, executive editor-at-large, Harvard University Press. Moderated by Faya Causey, head of academic programs, National Gallery of Art
Book signing of The Image of the Black in Western Art: The 20th Century: The Impact of Africa
(vol. 5, part 1) follows.

"Fair Greece, Sad Relic": How Did Byzantium Reform Classical Greek Art?
Thursday, February 27, 3:30 p.m., West Building Lecture Hall
Robin Cormack, professor emeritus of art history, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London

Introduction to the Exhibition: Garry Winogrand
Sunday, March 2, 2:00 p.m.
Leo Rubinfien, guest exhibition curator of Garry Winogrand and photographer
Book signing of Garry Winogrand follows.

The Collecting of African American Art XI: The Wedge Collection: Kenneth Montague in Conversation with Trevor Schoonmaker
Sunday, March 9, 2:00 p.m.
Maria Kanellopoulos, collection manager and exhibition coordinator, Wedge Curatorial Projects, Kenneth Montague, collector, curator, and director, Wedge Curatorial Projects; Trevor Schoonmaker, chief curator and Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Curator of Contemporary Art, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University

The Inside Story: Monuments Men and the National Gallery of Art
Sunday, March 16, 2:00 p.m.
Maygene Daniels, chief of Gallery Archives, National Gallery of Art; Gregory Most, chief of library image collections, National Gallery of Art; Lynn H. Nicholas, author of The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War

Dutch Paintings in a New Age: The Debut of NGA Online Editions
Sunday, March 23, 2:00 p.m.
The inaugural publication in the National Gallery of Art Online Editions is demonstrated and discussed by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque paintings, and the curatorial, technical, and publishing team behind this innovative program initially funded by the J. Paul Getty Foundation.

Introduction to the Exhibition: Andrew Wyeth: Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In
Sunday, May 4, noon
Nancy Anderson, curator and head, department of American and British paintings, National Gallery of Art; Charles Brock, associate curator, department of American and British paintings, National Gallery of Art

Introduction to the Exhibition: Degas/Cassatt
Sunday, May 11, noon
Kimberly Jones, associate curator, department of French paintings, National Gallery of Art

Works in Progress

All lectures are offered on Mondays in the East Building Small Auditorium at 12:10 and 1:10 p.m.

Introducing "Facture," the Gallery's New Journal for Conservation
January 13
Daphne Barbour, senior object conservator; Melanie Gifford, research conservator, National Gallery of Art

The 17th-Century Dutch Painter's Studio and the Legacy of Saint Luke
January 27
Perry Chapman, professor of northern baroque art, University of Delaware

Martin Johnson Heade: The Magnolia Paintings
March 17
Lynn Russell, head of education, National Gallery of Art

Patrons, Artists, and Saints: El Greco in the Chapel of San José in Toledo
March 24
Felix Monguilot Benzal, docent, Borghese Gallery, Rome, and Kress Interpretive Fellow (2012–2013), National Gallery of Art

Producing Digital Knowledge about Analog Art: The Case of Frederick Sommer
March 31
Jeremy Cox and Naomi Lyons, trustees, Frederick and Frances Sommer Foundation; Ksenya Gurshtein, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow, National Gallery of Art

The "Besloten Hofjes" of Mechelen and the Social Dynamics of Early Modern Devotional Art
April 14
Andrea Pearson, associate professor of art history, American University