National Gallery Of Art | Audio

Molly Donovan, curator of art, 1975–present, National Gallery of Art, in conversation with artists Janine Antoni, Byron Kim, and Glenn Ligon. At the second annual John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art held on March 23, 2018 at the National Gallery of Art, Janine Antoni, Byron Kim, and Glenn Ligon, whose works are featured in the special installation Bodies of Work, discuss their art with Molly Donovan. The conversation rounded out the symposium’s focus on portraiture and the histories and processes of representing the human figure in the nation’s collection. The John Wilmerding Symposium on American Art is made possible by a grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

Miguel de Baca, Terra Foundation Visiting Professor of American Art, University of Oxford, and associate professor, department of art history, Lake Forest College The studio life of Anne Truitt (1921–2004) is explored in the focus exhibition In the Tower: Anne Truitt, on view from November 19, 2017, through April 1, 2018. The first major presentation of Truitt's work at the National Gallery of Art, the exhibition celebrates the museum's acquisition of several major artworks by Truitt in recent years, including seminal works from the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, as well as several outstanding loans. Bringing together nine sculptures, two paintings, and 12 works on paper representing the different media in which the artist worked, the exhibition traces Truitt's artistic development from 1961 to 2002. One of the most original and important sculptors to emerge in the United States during the 1960s, Truitt is unique in the field of minimalist art. She hand-painted her sculptures in multiple layers to

Anna Lovatt, Marguerite Hoffman Scholar in Residence, Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University The studio life of Anne Truitt (1921–2004) is explored in the focus exhibition In the Tower: Anne Truitt, on view from November 19, 2017, through April 1, 2018. The first major presentation of Truitt's work at the National Gallery of Art, the exhibition celebrates the museum's acquisition of several major artworks by Truitt in recent years, including seminal works from the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, as well as several outstanding loans. Bringing together nine sculptures, two paintings, and 12 works on paper representing the different media in which the artist worked, the exhibition traces Truitt's artistic development from 1961 to 2002. One of the most original and important sculptors to emerge in the United States during the 1960s, Truitt is unique in the field of minimalist art. She hand-painted her sculptures in multiple layers to create abstract compositions of subtle color in th

Jem Cohen, filmmaker The studio life of Anne Truitt (1921–2004) is explored in the focus exhibition In the Tower: Anne Truitt, on view from November 19, 2017, through April 1, 2018. The first major presentation of Truitt's work at the National Gallery of Art, the exhibition celebrates the museum's acquisition of several major artworks by Truitt in recent years, including seminal works from the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, as well as several outstanding loans. Bringing together nine sculptures, two paintings, and 12 works on paper representing the different media in which the artist worked, the exhibition traces Truitt's artistic development from 1961 to 2002. One of the most original and important sculptors to emerge in the United States during the 1960s, Truitt is unique in the field of minimalist art. She hand-painted her sculptures in multiple layers to create abstract compositions of subtle color in three dimensions. Her art is infused with memory and feeling, unlike much minimalist art, and

Rachel Harrison, artist The studio life of Anne Truitt (1921–2004) is explored in the focus exhibition In the Tower: Anne Truitt, on view from November 19, 2017, through April 1, 2018. The first major presentation of Truitt's work at the National Gallery of Art, the exhibition celebrates the museum's acquisition of several major artworks by Truitt in recent years, including seminal works from the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, as well as several outstanding loans. Bringing together nine sculptures, two paintings, and 12 works on paper representing the different media in which the artist worked, the exhibition traces Truitt's artistic development from 1961 to 2002. One of the most original and important sculptors to emerge in the United States during the 1960s, Truitt is unique in the field of minimalist art. She hand-painted her sculptures in multiple layers to create abstract compositions of subtle color in three dimensions. Her art is infused with memory and feeling, unlike much minimalist art,

Carol Troyen, Kristin and Roger Servison Curator Emerita of American Paintings, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston In 1929, Georgia O’Keeffe and Rebecca Strand left their homes and famous photographer-husbands to travel to New Mexico in search of artistic independence. O’Keeffe was established by that time but often felt constrained by the artistic circle around Alfred Stieglitz. Beck Strand was trying to find her way as a painter in the shadow of Paul Strand’s growing success and in a community that seemed to have room for only one woman artist. Strand had a little-sister relationship with O’Keeffe, often dressing and wearing her hair like her better-known friend. During the two summers they spent in Taos, O’Keeffe provided Strand with the support she needed to develop an independent artistic voice and a medium—painting on glass—that she could call her own. For Strand, who settled there permanently in 1933, Taos offered an environment that suited both her swashbuckling public persona and her delicate imagery. In th

Zoe Leonard, artist, in conversation with Lynne Cooke, senior curator, special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art. Zoe Leonard, born in Liberty, New York, in 1961, is acclaimed for her work in sculpture and photography made over the past three decades. While the subject matter in her photography ranges widely, it is informed by an incisive critical scrutiny of the conventions, protocols, and politics of image making and display. In 1993 the filmmaker Cheryl Dunye approached Leonard about producing a trove of images recording the life and career of a fictional black lesbian actress working in Hollywood in the early 20th century. Leonard constructed a resonant, multilayered album of the personal and professional life of the actress, Fae Richards, which includes film stills from roles she might have played and snapshots recording casual moments at leisure with friends and lovers. Period-specific costumes and props as well as a variety of photographic processes and faux aging treatments contribute to

Kristen Gonzalez, curatorial assistant, department of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art; Irene Pepperberg, lecturer and research associate, department of psychology, Harvard University, senior lecturer, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, president, the Alex Foundation. The parrot was among many coveted imports to the northern Netherlands in the Golden Age, and its prominence in genre paintings of the period has generated interest not only among art historians, but also in the scientific community. In an interview on January 10, 2018, Kristen Gonzalez, curatorial assistant of northern baroque paintings, and Dr. Irene Pepperberg, Harvard scientist and renowned expert on animal cognition, discuss the lively interactions between parrots and people in Dutch paintings, some of which were examined during the landmark exhibition Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry. Pepperberg’s work with the African grey parrot has revolutionized ideas about animal communication and in

Carrie Mae Weems, artist. Made only a few years after Carrie Mae Weems received her MFA in 1984 from the University of California, San Diego, Kitchen Table Series consists of 20 staged photographs depicting Weems and others seated at a table. Endowed with a keen sense of how to transform her body into an expressive tool, Weems used the photographs to tell the story of a woman’s life as seen through the intimate space of the kitchen—the traditional sphere of women and a site of sanctuary, creation, shared experiences, and emotional honesty. In this performance held on February 6, 2018, in conjunction with the installation of Kitchen Table Series in the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Weems presents this seminal body of work in the context of her career, including images from Grace Notes: Reflections for Now performed recently at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. This program is made possible by the James D. and Kathryn K. Steele Fund for Photography.

Mary Morton, curator and head, department of French paintings, National Gallery of Art. Bringing together some 60 paintings drawn from collections around the world, Cézanne Portraits is the first exhibition devoted exclusively to this often neglected area of Paul Cézanne’s work. To celebrate the exhibition opening on March 25, 2018, Mary Morton introduces the pictorial and thematic characteristics of Cézanne’s portraits, the chronological development of his style and method, and the range and influence of his sitters. Issues of resemblance and identity are addressed across groupings of particular great portraits, which mutually inform each other to reveal arguably the most personal, because most human, aspect of his art. The sole American venue, Cézanne Portraits is on view on through July 1, 2018.

Aaron Cohen, music critic, humanities professor at Wright College, City Colleges of Chicago, and author of the forthcoming Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power. On December 17, 2017, the National Gallery of Art held a 75th birthday tribute to Curtis Mayfield (1942–1999), American singer, writer, producer, and label owner. This program was proposed and made possible by Darryl Atwell. Remarks were presented by Aaron Cohen on the social, cultural, and political changes that shaped soul music in Chicago during the 1960s and 1970s and how musicians themselves were often agents of those very changes. As a singer, songwriter, producer, guitarist, and entrepreneur, Curtis Mayfield stood at the center of this movement. Cohen read excerpts from his forthcoming book Move On Up that describe Mayfield's working methods and his influence. Afterward, DJ Jahsonic presented music related to Mayfield and his legacy. A film screening followed of Urban Soul by Ghanaian British filmmaker John Akomfrah. An examp

John Hand, curator of northern Renaissance paintings, National Gallery of Art Undoubtedly the greatest Renaissance artist from Estonia, Michel Sittow (c. 1469-1525) was born in Reval (now Tallinn in present-day Estonia), quite likely studied in Bruges with Hans Memling, and worked at the courts of renowned European royals such as King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile. Organized by the Art Museum of Estonia, Tallinn, and the National Gallery of Art, the exhibition Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe marks the occasion of the centennial of the Estonian Republic in 2018. On view at the Gallery from January 28 through May 13, 2018, the exhibition represents most of Sittow's small oeuvre through some 20 works. In this lecture held on March 11, John Hand examines Sittow's art in a broader context, including his relationship to Netherlandish contemporaries and a possible collaboration with Juan de Flandes.

Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head, department of photographs, National Gallery of Art. For more than forty years, Sally Mann (b. 1951, Lexington, Virginia) has made experimental, elegiac, and hauntingly beautiful photographs-a broad body of work that includes figure studies, still lifes, and landscapes. Offering both a sweeping overview of Mann's artistic achievement and a focused exploration of the continuing influence of the South on her work, the exhibition Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings presents some 115 photographs, many of which have not been exhibited or published previously. This powerful and provocative work is organized into five sections: Family, The Land, Last Measure, Abide with Me, and What Remains. On view from March 4 through May 28, 2018, the exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog with essays that explore the development of Mann's art; her family photographs; the landscape as repository of personal, cultural, and racial memory; and her debt to 19th-century photograp

Celeste-Marie Bernier, professor of black studies and personal chair in English literature, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh, and co-editor-in-chief, Journal of American Studies, Cambridge University Press. On the bicentenary of Frederick Douglass's birth, we commemorate the many sides of the man: the abolitionist, statesman, autobiographer, orator, reformer, essayist, politician, and, not least of all, father. In this lecture held on February 25, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, Celeste-Marie Bernier traces the activism, artistry, and authorship of Douglass alongside the sufferings and struggles for survival of his daughters and sons: Rosetta, Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr., Charles Remond, and Annie Douglass. As activists, educators, campaigners, civil rights protesters, newspaper editors, orators, essayists, and historians in their own right, his children each played a vital role in the freedom struggles of their father. They were no less afraid to sacrifice everythin

Emily Pegues, curatorial assistant, department of sculpture and decorative arts, National Gallery of Art, and Dylan Smith, Robert H. Smith Research Conservator, department of object conservation, National Gallery of Art. Fatally injured in a hunting accident in 1482, the young Mary of Burgundy lingered on her deathbed long enough to dictate her will, specifying in it the desire to have a tomb erected suitable to her station as Duchess of Burgundy and the richest woman in late 15th-century Europe. Her tomb in Bruges drew on the skills of the best craftsmen in the Burgundian Netherlands to produce a marvel of northern Renaissance art in gilt brass, enamel, and stone. In this presentation held on February 12, 2018, as part of the Works in Progress series at the National Gallery of Art, Emily Pegues and Dylan Smith share their groundbreaking discoveries on the tomb. Using detailed visual examination and scientific analysis, a recent technical study of the tomb-the first ever undertaken-provides new insights into

Joshua Shannon, associate professor and director of graduate studies, art history and archaeology, and director, The Potomac Center for the Study of Modernity, University of Maryland. In this lecture recorded on February 11, 2018, at the National Gallery of Art, Joshua Shannon aims to recover the revealing strangeness of photorealist painting, a movement largely ignored since its heyday around 1970. Drawn from one chapter of Shannon's book The Recording Machine: Art and the Culture of Fact, the presentation focuses on works by the California painter Robert Bechtle. Shannon uses Bechtle's paintings to teach us about the role of photography in shaping everyday experience after World War II, lingering on photorealism's account of modern surfaces and interest in the odd pyschosocial phenomenon of posing. Shannon concludes by proposing a new understanding of the apparent antihumanism of American art in the 1960s and 1970s.

Lynne Cooke, senior curator, department of special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art. In the exhibition Outliers and American Vanguard Art, more than 250 works explore three distinct periods in American history when mainstream and outlier artists intersected, ushering in new paradigms based on inclusion, integration, and assimilation. On view at the National Gallery of Art from January 28 through May 13, 2018, the exhibition aligns work by such diverse artists as Charles Sheeler, Christina Ramberg, and Matt Mullican with both historic folk art and works by self-taught artists ranging from Horace Pippin to Janet Sobel and Joseph Yoakum. It also examines a recent influx of radically expressive work made on the margins that redefined the boundaries of the mainstream art world and challenged the very categories of "outsider" and "self-taught." Historicizing the shifting identity and role of this distinctly American version of modernism's "other," the exhibition probes assumptions about creativity, a

H. Perry Chapman, Professor, Department of Art History, University of Delaware. In the age of Vermeer, virtuous rivalry was thought to inspire painters to do their best; in contrast, envy, or jealous rivalry, was painting’s greatest enemy. Rembrandt's training and early career provide a context for understanding the foundational nature of friendly artistic competition, or emulation. In this lecture held on October 31, 2017, H. Perry Chapman uses two paintings by Johannes Vermeer, A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal and Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (National Gallery, London) as case studies to determine whether such virtuous rivalry could inspire invention and originality. This lecture accompanies the landmark exhibition Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry, on view from October 22, 2017, through January 21, 2018, which examines the artistic exchanges among Johannes Vermeer and his contemporaries from the mid-1650s to around 1680, when they reached the height of their technic

Jennifer Henel, curatorial coordinator for digital content, department of curatorial records and files. When looking at 17th-century Dutch genre painting, we see a story, recall a memory, or marvel at its craftsmanship and beauty. For some, there is yet another layer of experience in hearing these remarkable paintings. What kind of cadence do we see and hear; what is the timing and tempo of the music? What kind of major and minor keys do we see and hear? This lecture, given on December 5, 2017, explores synesthesia and the lens of music to interpret selected works from the landmark exhibition Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry. On view from October 22, 2017, through January 21, 2018, the exhibition examines the artistic exchanges among Johannes Vermeer and his contemporaries from the mid-1650s to around 1680, when they reached the height of their technical ability and mastery of genre painting.

Henriette Rahusen, researcher, department of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art. The paintings that portray daily life in the Dutch Republic in the 17th century often include images of alcohol, be it wine or beer. Scenes of festive dinners and boisterous parties in taverns suggest that alcohol flowed freely, whereas in some depictions of intimate gatherings the presence of a single glass of wine merely hints at drinking. In other genre scenes signs of alcohol are totally absent. This lecture, given on October 14, 2017, by Henriette Rahusen, poses a number of questions: Did the Dutch imbibe with gusto or nip with restraint? Were they so wretchedly frugal in all things, excepting alcohol, as the paintings and historical records suggest? This lecture is in conjunction with the landmark exhibition Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry, on view from October 22, 2017, through January 21, 2018, The exhibition examines the artistic exchanges among Johannes Vermeer and his