Art Talk

Fox Hunt Art Talk

 
Register Now
 
Event Information
–
Rhoden Arts Center
Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building
Join Us
General Admission
$25, Museum Admission included
Register Now
Contact
Center for Art Education
arteducation@pafa.edu
In celebration of A Nation of Artists and We’ve Only Just Begun, join us for a conversation exploring the enduring legacy of Winslow Homer’s iconic Fox Hunt and its resonance for artists today.
 
Painted in 1893, Fox Hunt depicts a fox struggling through deep snow as a flock of crows circles ominously overhead. With its dramatic composition, stark winter landscape, and unsettling reversal of predator and prey, the painting raises questions about survival, vulnerability, and the natural world.
 
Philadelphia-based artist Kati Gegenheimer and Sylvia Yount, Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator in Charge at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, join Lea C. Stephenson, PAFA’s Kenneth R. Woodcock Curator of Historical American Art, to consider the painting’s making, its 1894 acquisition by PAFA, and its evolving interpretations. This conversation will also explore Gegenheimer’s exhibition We’ve Only Just Begun, which examines love, care, and connection through vibrant color and symbolism, alongside an homage to Fox Hunt.
 
Throughout the evening, the three ask: How has Fox Hunt shaped generations of American artists? What inspired Gegenheimer’s contemporary homage to the painting? And what enduring questions about American art, artistic influence and national identity does it continue to raise?
 
Register Now
 

Fox hunt by Winslow Homer

Fox hunt

 

Winslow Homer

Fox Hunt, 1893.

Oil on canvas, 38 x 68 1/2 in,

Joseph E. Temple Fund, 1894.4.

 

About the speakers

Yount headshot
Sylvia Yount is the Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator in Charge of the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
 
In her leadership role, she is responsible for the administrative and curatorial oversight of the department of historical art and design by a wide range of African American, Asian American, Euro-American, Latin American, and Native American makers, from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century, with some contemporary expressions.
 
Before moving to The Met, Dr. Yount served as Chief Curator and the Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator of American Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Margaret and Terry Stent Curator of American Art and department head at the High Museum of Art. She began her curatorial career at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, America’s oldest art school and museum. In addition to strategically expanding holdings and completing pivotal collection reinstallations at her former institutions, Dr. Yount has organized major exhibitions, with accompanying publications, on Winslow Homer, Jacob Lawrence, historical Native American art, Cecilia Beaux, Maxfield Parrish, and American modernism, among other topics focused on women and artists of color in regional and national contexts. She recently conceived and directed the American Wing’s centennial reinstallation, The American Wing at 100, highlighting the department’s ongoing evolution. A graduate of New York University (BA) and the University of Pennsylvania (MA and PhD), Dr. Yount continues to lecture and publish widely on American art and culture as well as on issues of curatorial responsibility and museum practice.
 
gegenheimer headshot
Kati Gegenheimer (b. 1984, Bucks County, PA) lives and works in Philadelphia, PA, where she is an Associate Adjunct Professor at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture. 
 
She received an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University in 2013 and a BFA in Printmaking with a minor in Art History from the Tyler School of Art in 2007. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Kristen Lorello, New York, NY, (2024, 2026), North Orange, Montclair, NJ, (2022) and Gross McCleaf, Philadelphia, PA, (2021). Group and two-artist exhibitions include The Lair, curated by Libby Rosa, Peep Projects, Icebox Project Space, (2026), Kati Gegenheimer | Chenlu Hou, Kristen Lorello, New York, NY, (2023), Mars in Cancer, David Peterson Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, (2023), and Good Pictures, curated by Austin Lee, Jeffrey Deitch, New York, NY, (2020). Her work is in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
 
Gegenheimer’s work has been featured in Sensus, Precog, The American Scholar, Create Magazine, and Maake Magazine, and she has been interviewed on Yale Radio’s Praxis Interview Series with Brainard Carey as well as the I Like Your Work Podcast. Her exhibitions have been reviewed in Impulse Magazine, Space on Space, and Title Magazine. She has received grants from the Joseph Robert Foundation, Yaddo, and smART Ventures, and has participated in artist residencies at The Edward F. Albee Foundation, Goldey House, the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, and Yaddo as a Pollock-Krasner Residency grant recipient.
 
Gegenheimer is a member of the National Advisory Council for the Berman Museum, Collegeville, PA, as well as the Yale School of Art Alumni Advisory Council, New Haven, CT.
 
Gegenheimer is represented by Kristen Lorello, New York, NY.
stephenson headshot

Dr. Lea Stephenson is an art historian, who is currently the Kenneth R. Woodcock Curator of Historical American Art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. 

She oversees PAFA’s collection from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century and serves as the co-curator of A Nation of Artists, a landmark exhibition and reinstallation that explores new ideas and interpretations of American art through the 18th century to the contemporary world.

Stephenson’s work has focused on nineteenth-century American art, particularly American artists traveling and working internationally. Her work has appeared in academic journals, edited volumes, and exhibition catalogs, where she explored topics including PAFA’s first 1807 exhibition, Aesthetic Movement interiors, and Gilded Age portrait miniatures. Prior to joining PAFA, Stephenson held curatorial positions and fellowships at Historic Deerfield, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Preservation Society of Newport County, Dallas Museum of Art, and the Clark Art Institute.

She recently completed her PhD in Art History at the University of Delaware in 2025, where her dissertation explored late nineteenth-century Egyptomania among American artists and collectors. Before her PhD, Stephenson completed her BA in Art History at Temple University and MA at the Williams Graduate Program in the History of Art.

Related Events
Art At Noon

George Washington Talk with Jill Vaum Rothschild

Join us for a talk about George Washington with Dr. Jill Vaum Rothschild, Associate Curator of Fine and Decorative Arts at Mount Vernon.
A Nation of Artists

Horizons: American Landscapes from Tradition to Tomorrow

Join us for an illuminating conversation between curators from two distinguished art institutions as part of A Nation of Artists. Dr. Lea Stephenson, Curator of Historical American Art at PAFA, and Kerry Bickford, Associate Curator at the Brandywine Museum of Art, explore how American artists have depicted landscapes—from the Hudson River School's sublime vistas to the Brandywine tradition's intimate terrain, and contemporary artists reimagining these spaces today.
Art At Noon

Curator and Artist in Conversation: William Trost Richards' Watercolors and Gift Giving

To coincide with the exhibition One After Another: Series and Studies, join us for a conversation about watercolor landscapes and gift giving. 

Lea C. Stephenson, Kenneth R. Woodcock Curator of Historical American Art at PAFA, and artist and instructor in the Fine Arts Certificate Program Douglas Martenson will discuss William Trost Richards and his late nineteenth-century watercolor landscapes of Rhode Island. Richards created jewel-like watercolors for his patron, Philadelphia industrialist and art collector George Whitney, which became a visual testament to the friendship between artist and patron. Sharing their perspectives as a curator and artist, Stephenson and Martenson will illuminate artist-patron relationships and how Richards was at the forefront of the American watercolor movement as artists experimented with the medium to capture natural details and paint outdoors.

Martenson has served the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for thirty years as a professor of Drawing and Painting

Related
A Nation of Artists
Fox Hunt
Winslow Homer

 

We're so excited you're planning to visit PAFA! 

Make time for art — visit us Thursday to Sunday.
Before reserving your tickets, please review helpful information about museum hours, accessibility, building access, and special admission programs. 

BUY TICKETS  Membership

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at visitorservices@pafa.org — we’d love to help!

 

Subscribe to PAFA Happenings

 

Are you a PAFA alum or former student?*

  • Yes
  • No

Are you a PAFA member?

  • Yes
  • No

Send me information about

  • Exhibitions, Programs, and Events
  • Art Classes and Workshops
  • Membership
  • Family and Youth Programs
  • Purchasing Art

Marketing Permissions

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts will use your information to provide updates and marketing.

Please confirm that you would like to hear from us:

You can unsubscribe anytime via email footer or marketing@pafa.org.

We use Mailchimp; your data will be transferred for processing.