A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts

The series was founded “to bring to the people of the United States the results of the best contemporary thought and scholarship bearing upon the subject of the Fine Arts.” Lecturers have included art historians, artists, archaeologists, poets, and musicologists.

The Center partners with Princeton University Press to produce a publication from each series. Beginning in August 2023, 46 Mellon Lectures published between 1953 and 2022 will be available in print and digital formats, including 26 titles that were long out of print. Learn more about this initiative.

2025
America’s Architecture of Freedom and Unfreedom
Mabel O. Wilson, Columbia University

This four-part series will take place in the National Gallery’s East Building Auditorium every Sunday from March 9 to March 30, 2025.

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2024
Chasing That Which Is Not Me / Chasing That Which Is Me
Anna Deavere Smith, Writer/Actress

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2023
Vital Signs: The Visual Cultures of Maya Writing
Stephen D. Houston, Brown University

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2022
Colorstruck! Painting, Pigment, Affect
Richard J. Powell, Duke University

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2021
Contact: Art and the Pull of Print
Jennifer L. Roberts, Harvard University

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Published as Contact: Art and the Pull of Print (2024)

Forthcoming
Transparence and Ambiguity: The Modern Space of Axonometry
Yve-Alain Bois, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ

Press release
Dates to be announced.

2019
End as Beginning: Chinese Art and Dynastic Time
Wu Hung, University of Chicago

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Published as Chinese Art and Dynastic Time (2022)

2018
Positive Barbarism: Brutal Aesthetics in the Postwar Period
Hal Foster, Princeton University

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Published as Brutal Aesthetics: Dubuffet, Bataille, Jorn, Paolozzi, Oldenburg (2020) 

2017
The Forest: America in the 1830s
Alexander Nemerov, Stanford University
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Published as The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s (2023)

2016
The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855‒1280
Vidya Dehejia, Columbia University

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Published as The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Sacred Bronzes from Chola India, 855‒1280 (2021)

2015
Restoration as Event and Idea: Art in Europe, 1814‒1820
Thomas Crow, New York University, Institute of Fine Arts

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Published as Restoration: The Fall of Napoleon in the Course of European Art, 1812‒1820 (2018)

2014
Past Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe
Anthony Grafton, Princeton University

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2013
Out of Site in Plain View: A History of Exhibiting Architecture since 1750
Barry Bergdoll, The Museum of Modern Art/Columbia University

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2012
Chinese Painting and Its Audiences
Craig Clunas, University of Oxford

Published as Chinese Painting and Its Audiences (2017)

2011
The Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from Ancient Rome to Salvador Dalí
Mary Beard, University of Cambridge

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Published as Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern (2021)

2010
Art and Representation in the Ancient New World
Mary Miller, Yale University

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2009
Picasso and Truth
T. J. Clark, University of California, Berkeley

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Published as Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica (2013)

2008
Bosch and Bruegel: Parallel Worlds?
Joseph Leo Koerner, Harvard University

Published as Bosch and Bruegel: From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life (2016)

2007
Last Looks, Last Books: The Binocular Poetry of Death
Helen Vendler, Harvard University

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Published as Last Looks, Last Books: Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill (2010)

2006
Really Old Masters: Age, Infirmity, and Reinvention
Simon Schama, Columbia University

2005
“Great Work”: Terms of Aesthetic Experience in Ancient Mesopotamia
Irene J. Winter, Harvard University

2004
More Than Meets the Eye
Irving Lavin, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ

2003
Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock
Kirk Varnedoe, Institute for Advanced Study

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Published as Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock (2006); new ebook edition (2023)

2002
The Moment of Caravaggio
Michael Fried, The Johns Hopkins University
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Published as The Moment of Caravaggio (2010)

2001
Giorgione and Caravaggio: Art as Revolution
Salvatore Settis, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa

2000
The Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns in the Arts, 1600–1715
Marc Fumaroli, Collège de France

1999
Transitions
Carlo Bertelli, Università della Svizzera Italiana, Accademia di Architettura

1998
Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art
Lothar Ledderose, Universität Heidelberg

Published as Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art (2000); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1997
Paths to the Absolute
John Golding, Painter

Published as Paths to the Absolute: Mondrian, Malevich, Kandinsky, Pollock, Newman, Rothko, and Still (2000); new ebook edition (2023)

1996
From Drawing to Painting: Poussin, Watteau, Fragonard, David, Ingres
Pierre M. Rosenberg, Musée du Louvre

Published as From Drawing to Painting: Poussin, Watteau, Fragonard, David, and Ingres (2000); new ebook edition (2023)

1995
Contemporary Art and the Pale of History
Arthur C. Danto, Columbia University

Published as After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History (1997); first Princeton Classics edition, with a new foreword by Lydia Goehr (2014)

1994
Kings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe
Jonathan Brown, New York University, Institute of Fine Arts

Published as Kings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe (1995); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1993
The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity
John Boardman, University of Oxford, Lincoln College

Published as The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity (1994); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1992
The Laws of the Poetic Art
Anthony Hecht, Georgetown University

Published as On the Laws of the Poetic Art (1995); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1991
Changing Faces: Art and Physiognomy through the Ages
Willibald Sauerländer, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte

1990
Gold, Silver, and Bronze: Metal Sculpture of the Roman Baroque
Jennifer Montagu, Warburg Institute

Published as Gold, Silver, and Bronze: Metal Sculpture of the Roman Baroque (1996); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1989
Intermediary Demons: Toward a Theory of Ornament
Oleg Grabar, Harvard University

Published as The Mediation of Ornament (1992); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1988
Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance
John Shearman, Princeton University

Published as Only Connect: Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (1992); Princeton Legacy Library (2019); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1987
Imago Dei: The Byzantine Apologia for Icons
Jaroslav Pelikan

Published as Imago Dei: The Byzantine Apologia for Icons (1990); new ebook edition (2023)

1986
Confessions of a Twentieth‑Century Composer
Lukas Foss, Brooklyn Philharmonic

1985
The Villa in History
James S. Ackerman, Harvard University

Published as The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses (1990); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1984
Painting as an Art
Richard Wollheim, Columbia University

Published as Painting as an Art (1987); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1983
The Shape of France 
Vincent Scully, Yale University

Published as Architecture: The Natural and the Manmade (1991, St. Martin’s Press, New York)

1982
The Burden of Michelangelo’s Painting
Leo Steinberg, University of Pennsylvania

1981
Palladian Architecture in England, 1615–1760
John Harris, Royal Institute of British Architects

1980
Principles of Design in Ancient and Medieval Architecture
Peter Kidson, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London

1979
Cézanne and America
John Rewald, Graduate Center, City University of New York

Published as Cézanne and America: Dealers, Collectors, Artists, and Critics, 1891–1921 (1989); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1978
The History of Art Collecting
Joseph W. Alsop, Journalist

Published as The Rare Art Traditions: The History of Art Collecting and Its Linked Phenomena Wherever These Have Appeared (1982); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1977
The Sack of Rome: 1527 
André Chastel, Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art/Collège de France

Published as The Sack of Rome: 1527 (1982); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1976
Aspects of Classical Art
Peter von Blanckenhagen, New York University

1975
Music in Europe in the Year 1776
H. C. Robbins Landon, Musicologist

1974
Nineteenth‑Century Sculpture Reconsidered
H. W. Janson, New York University

Published as The Rise and Fall of the Public Monument (1976) by The Graduate School, Tulane University

1973
The Use and Abuse of Art
Jacques Barzun, Columbia University

Published as The Use and Abuse of Art (1974); ebook edition (2020)

1972
Leonardo da Vinci
Ludwig H. Heydenreich, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

1971
Vasari: The Man and the Book
T. S. R. Boase, University of Oxford

Published as Giorgio Vasari: The Man and the Book (1979); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1970
Some Aspects of Nineteenth‑Century Architecture
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, Birkbeck College, University of London

Published as A History of Building Types (1976); new ebook edition (2023)

1969
Art as a Mode of Knowledge
Jacob Bronowski, Scientist

Published as The Visionary Eye: Essays in the Arts, Literature, and Science (1978, MIT Press); paperback (1981)

1968
Imaginative Literature and Painting
Stephen Spender, Poet

1967
On the Parallel of Literature and the Visual Arts
Mario Praz, Università degli Studi di Roma

Published as Mnemosyne: The Parallel between Literature and the Visual Arts (1970); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1966
Dreamer or Visionary: A Study of English Romantic Painting
Lord David Cecil, University of Oxford

Published as Visionary and Dreamer: Two Poetic Painters, Samuel Palmer and Edward Burne-Jones (1969)

1965
Sources of Romantic Thought 
Sir Isaiah Berlin, University of Oxford, All Soul’s College

Published as The Roots of Romanticism (1999); second edition and ebook (2013)

1964
On Quality in Art: Criteria of Excellence, Past and Present
Jakob Rosenberg, Harvard University

Published as On Quality in Art: Criteria of Excellence, Past and Present (1967); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1963
Artist and Individual: Some Aspects of the Renaissance Portrait
Sir John Pope‑Hennessy, Victoria and Albert Museum

Published as The Portrait in the Renaissance (1966); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1962
William Blake and Traditional Mythology 
Published as Blake and Tradition (1968)
Kathleen Raine, Poet

Published as Blake and Antiquity (1968); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1961
Christian Iconography and the Christian Religion in Antiquity
André Grabar, Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes/Collège de France

Published as Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins (1968); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1960
Horace Walpole
Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis, Yale University

Published as Horace Walpole (1960); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1959
A Sculptor’s View of the Fine Arts
Naum Gabo, Artist

Published as Of Divers Arts (1962)

1958
Nicolas Poussin and French Classicism
Sir Anthony Blunt, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London

Published as Nicolas Poussin (1967); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1957
Constancy and Change in Art and Architecture
Sigfried Giedion, Universität Zürich

Published as The Eternal Present: A Contribution on Constancy and Change (1962–1964)

1956
The Visible World and the Language of Art
E. H. Gombrich, University College London

Published as Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (1960); paperback (2001); new ebook edition (2023)

1955
Art and Reality
Etienne Gilson, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

Published as Painting and Reality (1957); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1954
The Art of Sculpture
Sir Herbert Read, Harvard University

Published as The Art of Sculpture (1956); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)

1953
The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art
Sir Kenneth Clark, Arts Council of Great Britain

Published as The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956); paperback (1972); ebook (2023)

1952
Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry
Jacques Maritain, Princeton University

Published as Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (1953); new paperback and ebook editions (2023)