PAFA Announces  Fall 2009 Art-at-Lunch Lecture Series

PHILADELPHIA—The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ (PAFA) Art-at-Lunch series of talks on American art and culture take place every Wednesday from Noon to 1 p.m. Visitors are invited to bring their lunch or purchase it in the Academy Café and enjoy discussions and lectures with scholars and artists covering a variety of topics related to PAFA’s exhibitions, collections, and areas of interest.

   

The schedule for the Fall 2009 Art-at-Lunch lectures is as follows:

 

Widely considered a masterpiece of American scenic views, Thomas Cole’s Oxbow is currently on view in PAFA’s historic galleries. Kevin Avery, Associate Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, discusses the multivalent meanings of this icon of American painting, including the contemporary cachet and significance of the site itself; Cole’s own musings on the national landscape; and the painting’s physical evidence in relation to his most ambitious historical landscape cycle.

 

Over the centuries, artists have celebrated the various ways love unfolds in the human experience. Typically, love of country, family love, erotic love, spiritual love, love of nature, love of learning, and even love of self have been expressed in works by Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Cassatt, Picasso, and other great figures. Join Burt Wasserman, Emeritus Professor of Art at Rowan University, for an illuminating talk about this much-celebrated topic.

 

October Art-at-Lunch lectures are supported by the Behrend Family in memory of Rose Susan Hirschhorn Behrend, a former docent at PAFA and great supporter of its education programs.

 

How do artists use systems? Why do we accept some systems while rebelling against others? Who owns images? How do artists invent new grammars and logics in today’s supercharged, information-based society? This episode of Art 21, PBS’ groundbreaking series on contemporary art, features artists who realize complex projects, whether through acts of appropriation, accumulation, living as an artist-nomad, or creating projects so vast in scope as to elude comprehension. Featured in this world premier episode are artists John Baldessari, Kimsooja, Allan McCollum, and Julie Mehretu.

 

This event is part of Art21 Access ‘09, a celebration of contemporary art and Season 5 of Art:21-Art in the Twenty-First Century sponsored by Art21. Art21 Access ‘09 is held at over 300 museums, schools, libraries, art spaces, and community centers and is organized in collaboration with Americans for the Arts’ National Arts and Humanities Month. Visit art21.org for more information.

 

In the post-industrial environment, complex design problems have emerged in rebuilding neighborhoods, and the Urban Workshop at Temple University is committed to engaging local communities in imagining and creating places that are beautiful, sustainable, and humane. Sally Harrison, Architect and Associate Professor at Tyler School of Art, discusses collaborations between Temple University and community partners in public art making, architectural and landscape design, and urban design.

 

Cynthia Veloric, independent art historian and researcher at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, gives a focused lecture on the early life of Barkley L. Hendricks, including his family, friends, neighbors, military experience, and his training here at PAFA. Veloric wrote Hendricks’ biography for the Oxford African American National Biography and believes that “There is another context for Hendricks’ work which lies at its core. It is deeper, yet simpler, than the socio-political context in which the paintings are usually read.”

 

W.E.B. DuBois viewed art largely through the lens of racial politics and felt the chief aim of the Black artist was to combat racist White propaganda with Black aesthetics. Through an analysis of DuBois’s published books and essays on art and literature in The Crisis, the NAACP magazine he edited from 1910-1934, Dustin Kidd, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Temple University, explores the philosophies of this influential thinker and the limits of political art.

 

November Art-at-Lunch lectures are made possible in memory of Mildred T. Lefkoe, a beloved member of the docent corps, having been its first vice president, 1987-89, and president, 1989-91.

 

Before the sublime and romantic images of the Hudson River School in the nineteenth century, American landscape painting was often commissioned by property owners and consisted of images of grand country houses, busy ports, and picturesque views of plantation agriculture. Curator of Historical American Art, Anna Marley, makes her PAFA Art-at-Lunch debut discussing how these early paintings challenge our traditional understanding of landscapes as an allegory of national and regional identity by considering the impacts of imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism in the works.

 

Do the revolutionary polished steel sculptures of David Smith and the grand, compelling wood and metal horses of Deborah Butterfield teach us something important about the drama of strength and grace in ourselves? Marcia Rackow and Donita Ellison, two New York artists and educators, address this question by looking at their works through the lens of Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism: “All beauty is a making one of opposites and the making one of
opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”

 

Trained at PAFA, Henry Ossawa Tanner was one of the first African American artists to receive international recognition. Tanner’s mature works retain a profound originality by combining a preference for religious painting with a marked taste for a restricted palette associated to night settings. Hélène Valance, Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses how in an era transformed by such overwhelming discoveries as flash photography, X-rays, and electricity, Tanner recast traditional religious scenes under a new, radically modern light.

 

 

This day marks the 150th anniversary of the hanging of John Brown, one of the most controversial and celebrated men of the nineteenth century. For years, artists have depicted these events in myriad ways, including an iconic painting by Horace Pippin titled John Brown Going to His Hanging. Join art historian and Pippin expert Judith Stein on this historic anniversary for a discussion of Pippin’s painting and the quietly heroic figure of John Brown that it portrays.

 

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Founded in 1805, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is America's first school of fine arts and museum.  A recipient of the 2005 National Medal of Arts presented by the President of the United States of America, PAFA is a recognized leader in fine arts education.  Nearly every major American artist has taught, studied, or exhibited at the Academy. The institution's world-class collection of American art continues to grow and provides what only a few other art institutions in the world offer: the rare combination of an outstanding museum and an extraordinary faculty known for its commitment to students and for the stature and quality of its artistic work.

 

Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Academy is located at 118-128 N. Broad Street in Philadelphia. Admission to the Permanent Collection is Adults $10, Seniors & Students with I.D. $8, Youth ages 5-18, $6. Admission to Special Exhibitions (includes Permanent Collection) is Adults $15, Seniors & Students with I.D. $12, Youth Ages 5-18, $8. Admission is free for members and children under age of 5. Admission to Morris Gallery exhibitions is free.