During the academic year, the Center organizes scholarly programs that range in size and duration from multiday gatherings to small roundtable discussions. The Center’s programs encourage and support innovative research in the visual arts.
Public Programs
The Center supports lectures, symposia, and discussions that are free and open to the public. These programs are often organized in collaboration with departments across the National Gallery of Art, or with partnering institutions.
Black Modernisms in the Transatlantic World
September 30, 2023
West Building Lecture Hall
A discussion about Black Modernisms in the Transatlantic World with coeditor Huey Copeland and contributing author Kellie Jones, moderated by Steven Nelson. A book signing followed the discussion.
Steven Nelson, Kellie Jones, and Huey Copeland discussing Black Modernisms in the Transatlantic World, September 2023
October 20–21, 2023
Cosponsored with The Juilliard School, New York
The Juilliard School / East Building Auditorium and live streamed
A two-part conference held in two locations: Part 1 on October 18 at The Juilliard School in New York, and Part 2 on October 20–21 at the National Gallery. Presentations and performances thought more broadly about women as creators, as part of the cultural and global economy, and as experts in their chosen fields of art.
October 20
Welcome by Steven Nelson, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, and Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, National Gallery of Art
Lavinia Fontana and the Soundscape of Bologna
Aoife Brady, National Gallery of Ireland
“Lavinia Fontana and the Theater of Painting”
Babette Bohn, Texas Christian University (emerita)
“Women, Painting, and Music in Seicento Bologna: Elisabetta Sirani and Teresa Muratori”
Patricia Simons, University of Michigan (emerita)
“The Tension between Decorum and Opportunity: Lavinia Fontana’s Minerva”
Panel discussion moderated by Eve Straussman-Pflanzer
Performance
Sonnambula, joined by Juilliard students from the music and drama divisions
National Gallery of Art Library
Women Playing Music/Women Playing with Music
Sheila Barker, Studio Incamminati
Eric Bianchi, Fordham University
“The Women to Whom Men Listened: Singers, Sonnets, and Artemisia Gentileschi as Poet”
Sara Salloum, University of Durham
“Fantasy vs. Reality: Female Lute Players in Early Modern Art Analyzed by a 21st-Century Lutenist”
Melissa Hyde, University of Florida
“Rose Ducreux’s Self-Portrait (1791): Harping on the Question of the Woman Artist”
Panel discussion moderated by Elizabeth Weinfield, The Juilliard School
Playing with Patronage
Emily Pegues, National Gallery of Art
“‘Come, Come and Be Crowned’: Louise de Bourbon’s Artistic Authority at Fontevraud”
David Wilkins, University of Pittsburgh (emeritus)
“Looking at Isabella Anew”
Michelle Moseley, Virginia Tech
“Fashioning the Female Collector: Identity, Self-Promotion, and the Early Modern Dutch Dollhouse”
Vrinda Agrawal, University of Michigan
“Heard and Seen: The Rasikā as a Musical Connoisseur in Pahari Painting”
Panel discussion moderated by Gloria de Liberali, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Sonnambula, joined by Juilliard students from the music and drama divisions, performing in the National Gallery of Art Library at Women in Art and Music: An Early Modern Global Conference, October 2023
October 21
Welcome by Steven Nelson, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, and Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, National Gallery of Art
Unconventual Convents and Contexts
Brett Umlauf, Los Angeles
“(Re)formed Icon: Ninth-Century Hymnographer Kassia of Byzantium’s Musical Legacy in Her Hymn to Saint Pelagia”
Craig Monson, Washington University in St. Louis (emeritus)
“Performing Music, Performing Art: Convent Pathways to Social (and Geographic) Mobility in Early Modern Italy”
Carolina Sacristán, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico
“Symbolism and Musical Performance: The Profession of a Nun in Colonial Guatemala”
Vanessa Tonelli, University of Wisconsin–Whitewater
“The Performer’s Voice: Musical Training and Solos of the Venetian Figlie di Coro”
Panel discussion moderated by Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, National Gallery of Art
Intermezzo
Yasemin Altun, Duke University
Meredith Graham, National Humanities Center
Dana Hogan, Project Vox, Duke University
“Project Vox and Early Modern Women’s Collaborations in the Arts”
Panel discussion moderated by Elizabeth Weinfield, The Juilliard School
Performance
Sonnambula, joined by Juilliard students from the music and drama divisions
National Gallery of Art, West Building, West Garden Court
Middle Atlantic Symposium in the History of Art
March 1–2, 2024
Cosponsored with the Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland
University of Maryland / West Building Lecture Hall and live streamed
Since 1971 the Center has partnered with the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland to present this annual symposium that brings together museum and academic communities and provides a platform for the latest research from graduate students in our region.
March 1
George Levitine Lecture in Art History
Stephanie Porras, Tulane University
“How Not to Do Global Art History”
March 2
Morning Session
Welcome by Steven Nelson, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Moderated by Peter M. Lukehart, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Matthew Sova, Johns Hopkins University
“Pilgrimage and Performance in the Tomb of Christ Reconstructions of Mainz”
Introduced by Nino Zchomelidse
Tony Cui, University of Maryland
“Brueghelian Temperature: Pieter Bruegel’s Months and Ideas of Climate Temperance”
Introduced by Anthony Colantuono
Emily DuVall, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“Visualizing Power: François Ier’s Royal Entries”
Introduced by Tania String
Courtney Middleton, George Washington University
“Mickalene Thomas’s Jet Blue and the Complexities of Pleasure”
Introduced by Bibiana Obler
Afternoon Session
Welcome by Kaira M. Cabañas, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Moderated by Tess Korobkin, University of Maryland
Nina Blomfield, Bryn Mawr College
“Ephemeral Decorating: Japanese Paper Goods in American Domestic Space”
Introduced by Lisa Saltzman
Grace McCormick, American University
“Mickalene Thomas’s A Moment’s Pleasure: Reclaiming Black Women’s Place in the History of Black Power”
Introduced by Nika Elder
Ash Duhrkoop, University of Virginia
“The Painter as Geologist: Surface and Depth in the Paintings of Tshibumba Kanda-Matulu”
Introduced by Giulia Paoletti
Erin Riley-Lopez, Temple University
“Utopian Tomorrows”
Introduced by Mariola V. Alvarez
Making and Thinking through Human-Material Interactions
April 11
Edmond J. Safra Lecture
Pamela H. Smith, Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor, spring 2024
West Building Lecture Hall and live streamed
Held in conjunction with the Edmond J. Safra Colloquy
Artists’ materials are not just tools—they also serve to guide the hands and as sources of inspiration. This in-depth presentation examined how European artists and artisans developed their “material intelligence” through handwork. How did (and do) practitioners’ interactions with materials lead them to form concepts?
Braided Histories: Modernist Abstraction and Woven Textiles
May 31, 2024
Held in conjunction with the exhibition Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction
Organized in collaboration with Lynne Cooke, Exhibition Curator and Senior Curator, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Art
East Building Auditorium and live streamed
Keynote Lecture
Jenni Sorkin, University of California, Santa Barbara
“Underwater Basket Weaving”
Presentations and Panel Discussion
Horacio Ramos, CUNY Graduate Center
“Maquiraicu (Thanks to My Hands): Design, Labor, and Indigenous Worldviews in Contemporary Andean Textiles”
Fernanda Pitta, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo
“Short Stories and Missing Threads: Brazilian Modernism and Indigenous Art”
Candice Hopkins, Forge Project, Mahicannituck Valley
“Warped Wefts Short Circuits: Women Weavers and the Manufacture of Early Computer Chips on Navajo Nation”
Panel discussion moderated by Kaira M. Cabañas, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Artist Conversation
Analia Saban in dialogue with Lynne Cooke, National Gallery of Art
Analia Saban
Videos
In collaboration with the National Gallery’s production studio, the Center supports the creation of videos featuring scholars in our community.
5 Pictures for a New World
Series premiered February 2024
Conceived by Aruna D’Souza, Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor, spring 2022
Yearning for a new, more empathetic world? New York Times art critic Aruna D’Souza knows art can lead us there. Watch as D’Souza examines works in the National Gallery’s collection that hold the promise of a better future, in her series 5 Pictures for a New World.
Videos continue to be added to the series through 2024.
Programs by Invitation
The Center organizes small gatherings focused on particular topics throughout the year, ranging from study days to thematic seminars, that bring together scholars from around the world to the National Gallery. Dialogues following public lectures offer informal conversation with the lecturer.
Art History in Translation
May 30–June 2, 2023
Predoctoral seminar organized by Benjamin O. Murphy, A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, 2022–2024
Each year, a Center postdoctoral fellow in residence designs and directs an intensive weeklong seminar for the predoctoral fellows in residence, including readings, discussions, and visits to local institutions.
Participants
Davida Fernández-Barkan, David E. Finley Fellow, 2020–2023
Rheagan Eric Martin, Samuel H. Kress Fellow, 2021–2023
Anthony J. Meyer, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, 2021–2023
Cleo Nisse, Paul Mellon Fellow, 2020–2023
Delphine Sims, Wyeth Fellow, 2021–2023
Zsofi Valyi-Nagy, Twenty-Four-Month Chester Dale Fellow, 2021–2023
Columns of Shame
November 13, 2024
Sydney J. Freedberg Dialogue
Michael Cole, Columbia University
With commentary by Carolyn Yerkes, Princeton University
Considerable scholarship has been devoted to the Renaissance honorific column, a revival of an ancient triumphal form that came to be used widely both as an urban marker and as a pictorial motif. Yet perhaps still more familiar to viewers of the period would have been a seemingly related type of monument that functioned in nearly the opposite way. This dialogue, following Michael Cole’s Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art, looked comparatively at structures sometimes called “columns of infamy” and “columns of justice,” departing from Italian examples and placing these in a broader European and colonial context.
Abstraction in the Landscape of Crisis: Norma Cole and Christina Fernandez
December 4, 2023
Wyeth Lecture in American Art Dialogue
Roberto Tejada, University of Houston
Works by Chicana photographer Christina Fernandez and Canadian American avant-garde poet Norma Cole offer an opportunity to dwell in the specificity of medium and method, economies of desire, the politics of housing, the impossibility of the real, and abstraction as a process of emphasis and vitality. This dialogue followed Roberto Tejada’s presentation of the 2023 Wyeth Lecture in American Art, “Latinx Art and the Intimacy of Dislocation.”
Thinking through Materials
April 11–12, 2024
Edmond J. Safra Colloquy
Organized by Pamela H. Smith, Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor, spring 2024
The Edmond J. Safra Colloquy was designed to bring together thinkers—including art historians, administrators, curators, and emerging professionals—to open an exchange of information and ideas. This year’s Safra Colloquy focused on what practitioners learn by working with and in materials. What is the specific material sense or material intelligence they gain through their work? How did and do practitioners’ interaction with materials lead them to form concepts, and in what terms are these concepts expressed—texts, materials, objects, or in other ways?
Safra Colloquy presenters examining David Drake’s Storage Jar in the objects conservation lab, April 2024
Participants
Kyoungjin Bae, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill*
Sanchita Balachandran, Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute
Meghaa Parvathy Ballakrishnen, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Daphne Barbour, National Gallery of Art
Francesca Bewer, Harvard Art Museums*
Gregory Bryda, Columbia University*
Kaira M. Cabañas, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Stefan Hanß, University of Manchester*
Emily Kaplan, National Museum of the American Indian*
Gloria de Liberali, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Peter M. Lukehart, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Maria Gabriella Matarazzo, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Katy May, National Gallery of Art
Walter Simon Melion, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Kathryn Blair Moore, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Benjamin O. Murphy, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Aleksander Musiał, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Steven Nelson, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Marcy Norton, University of Pennsylvania*
Judy Ozone, National Gallery of Art
Emily Pegues, National Gallery of Art*
Dario Robleto, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Dennis Romano, Syracuse University
Alessandra Russo, Columbia University*
Dylan Smith, National Gallery of Art
Pamela H. Smith, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts*
Donna Strahan, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art*
Molly Superfine, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Matthew J. Westerby, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Adriana Zavala, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
* presenters
A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts Dialogue
May 6, 2024
Anna Deavere Smith, Actress/Writer
A discussion of the 2024 A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, Chasing That Which Is Not Me / Chasing That Which Is Me.
Fellows’ Presentations
Colloquia, presented by Center professors and senior fellows, and shoptalks, given by the postdoctoral and predoctoral fellows, occur throughout the academic year. Colloquia are public programs held in the West Building Lecture Hall. Shoptalks are by invitation.
Colloquia CCCXLIV–CCCLI
October 5, 2023
Nancy J. Troy, Kress-Beinecke Professor
“Mondrian’s Dress”
November 6, 2023
Walter Simon Melion, Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellow
“Meditating the Unbearable in a Customized 15th-Century Prayerbook”
November 30, 2023
Alla Vronskaya, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow
“Modernism on the Frontier: Architecture and Projective Geography in the Interwar Soviet Union”
January 11, 2024
Robb Hernández, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellow
“Terraforming the Gallery: Brown Matters in Art of the Americas”
February 8, 2024
Brian D. Goldstein, Paul Mellon Senior Fellow
“‘In the life of a building our moment is brief’: J. Max Bond Jr.’s Long View”
February 29, 2024
Kathryn Blair Moore, Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellow
“Kufesque, Arabesque, and the Ambiguities of Islamic Art in the Italian Renaissance”
April 18, 2024
Pamela Lee, William C. Seitz Senior Fellow
“The Practice of Everyday War”
April 25, 2024
Adriana Zavala, Andrew W. Mellon Professor
“Black Latinx: Radical Unsettling”
Kathryn Blair Moore presents her colloquium, February 2024
Shoptalks 268–275
October 23, 2023
Benjamin O. Murphy, A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, 2022–2024
“Outside in the Museum”
November 16, 2023
Christopher Daly, David E. Finley Fellow, 2021–2024
“Vincenzo Frediani, Michelangelo Membrini, and the Demands of Lucchese Patrons”
December 7, 2023
Meghaa Parvathy Ballakrishnen, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, 2022–2024
“The Binding: Abstraction and Art’s Work in India, 1970–2000”
January 18, 2024
Aleksander Musiał, Paul Mellon Fellow, 2021–2024
“Excess Underground: Immersive Experience and Climate Control inside Eastern European Bathing Apartments, c. 1760–1780”
February 22, 2024
Bianca Hand, Twenty-Four-Month Ittleson Fellow, 2022–2024
“The Relentless Pursuit of Difference: The Subversive Role of Alterity in the Reliefs and Architecture of Sargon II’s Royal Palace at Khorsabad”
March 7, 2024
Kelvin Parnell Jr., Wyeth Fellow, 2022–2024
“Settler Sculptors: Imperial Visions and Native Imaginings in the Empire State”
March 28, 2024
Erin Dickey, Twenty-Four-Month Chester Dale Fellow, 2022–2024
“‘Computers Never Make Mistakes’: Judy Malloy’s Bad Information”
April 4, 2024
Justin M. Brown, Samuel H. Kress Fellow, 2022–2024
“The Cosmic Calabash: Afro-Surinamese Art and Thought during the Period of Slavery”
Christopher Daly presents his shoptalk, November 2023
Staff Programs
The Center organizes programs to support research and spark dialogue among National Gallery staff.
Works in Progress
Works in Progress offers a platform for National Gallery staff to present their independent research and the projects they pursue outside their regular duties.
October 4, 2023
Abby S. Whitlock, Digital Experience
“The ‘Super-cultural USO’: Wartime Amenities, Morale, and American Identity at the National Gallery of Art”
November 1, 2023
Rosamond Mack, Sculpture and Decorative Arts
“An Enduring Industrial Secret: Was the View of Venice Planned for ‘Full-Baghdadi’ Paper?”
January 3, 2024
Jeanette Ibarra Shindell, Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion
“I Am a Work in Progress: Becoming a Socially Committed Arts Administrator”
March 6, 2024
Caroline Danforth, Paper Conservation
“Mobility and Dispersal: The Poor Clares of Mülhausen and Basel during the Reformation”
April 4, 2024
Jennifer Riddell, Learning and Engagement—Interpretation
“Preserving an American Experience: Thomas Sully’s Eliza Ridgely: Portrait of a Lady with a Harp and Hampton House”
May 1, 2024
Brianna Cooney, Sculpture and Decorative Arts
“The Politics of Portraiture: New Observations on Sperandio’s Medal of Ercole I d’Este and Eleonora of Aragon”
Guest Dialogues
Guest Dialogues are opportunities to engage with speakers invited by the Center.
October 30, 2023
Jean Khalfa, Trinity College, University of Cambridge
“Fanon: Madness, Vision, and Creativity”
December 11, 2023
Ana Gonçalves Magalhães, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo
“The Modern Art Collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC USP) in Fractured Times”
February 26, 2024
Igor Simões, Universidade Estadual do Rio Grande do Sul
“Black Brazilian Artists and the International Debate on Afro-Diasporic Art”
Mapping Our Museum
The series Mapping Our Museum explores mapping and visualization in the digital humanities and digital art history, focusing on museums, archives, and libraries.
October 13, 2023
Dorothy Berry, National Museum of African American History and Culture
“Who Makes the Rules: A Facilitated Conversation on How and Why Digital Description Matters”
November 3, 2023
Susan Elizabeth Gagliardi, Emory University
Constantine Petridis, The Art Institute of Chicago
“Mapping Senufo: Art, Evidence, and Uncertainty”
January 30, 2024
Jean Aroom, Silver Spring, MD
“Elements of GIS”
Additional Staff Programs
October 17, 2023
Marian Pastor Roces, Manila
“Meditative States and the Museological Back-End”
May 13, 2024
Anna Deavere Smith, 73rd A. W. Mellon Lecturer, in conversation with Steven Nelson, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts
Mellon Lectures Dialogue for National Gallery Staff
Anna Deavere Smith and Steven Nelson in conversation with National Gallery staff, May 2024