National Gallery Of Art | Audio

Meryl Gordon, director of magazine writing, Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, New York University, and author of The Phantom of Fifth Avenue: The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death of Heiress Huguette Clark (2014) and Mrs. Astor Regrets: The Hidden Betrayals of a Family Beyond Reproach (2008). Rachel Lowe Lambert Lloyd Mellon (1910–2014), also known as Bunny Mellon, was an American gardener, horticulturalist, philanthropist, and art collector. She represented the epitome of American aristocratic self-taught taste. With an unerring eye and an unlimited budget, she brought a modern sensibility to the extraordinary art collection that she and her husband Paul Mellon amassed, which included many works now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art. Acclaimed for designing the White House Rose Garden for her friend John F. Kennedy and famed as a garden designer and fashion trendsetter, Mellon was press shy during her lifetime. To write Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend, the first biog

Kathleen A. Foster (Philadelphia Museum of Art and former Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor at the National Gallery of Art) focuses on the Winslow Homer watercolor Boys Wading (1873). Foster describes Homer’s surprising turn to watercolor, a medium he learned first as a commercial illustrator and one that he embraced as a fine artist for the next thirty years.

Carl Brandon Strehlke (Philadelphia Museum of Art, adjunct curator, John G. Johnson Collection, and former Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor at the National Gallery of Art) discusses Domenico Veneziano, Saint John in the Desert (c. 1445/1450). Strehlke describes the history of the altarpiece of which this painting was originally a part and how the painting came to the National Gallery of Art.

Anna Ottani Cavina (Università di Bologna, emerita; Fondazione Federico Zeri, presidente onorario; and former Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor at the National Gallery of Art) focuses on John Robert Cozens, Cetara on the Gulf of Salerno (1790). Ottani Cavina describes Cozens’s visionary approach to watercolor painting, which inspired the romantic painters of the next generation.

Jacqueline Lichtenstein (Université Paris-Sorbonne, emeritus, and former Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professor at the National Gallery of Art) discusses Edgar Degas, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (1878–1881). Lichtenstein touches on issues such as the hierarchy of painting and sculpture, originals and copies, and the value of seeing works of art in person.

Amy Sherald, artist, in conversation with Erin Christovale, assistant curator at the Hammer Museum Amy Sherald (b. Columbus, Georgia, 1973) received her BFA from Clark Atlanta University in 1997 and her MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2004. Sherald paints dynamic portraits designed to divulge an erudite understanding of the psychological consequences of stereotyping and racism. Each portrait depicts a friend or acquaintance suspended in vivid fashions before a nondescript background; skin tones are represented using a grayscale as a way of challenging the concept of color-as-race. Sherald is critical of African American cultural history and the representation of black bodies, and her portraits are satirical manifestations of identities shaped by political, social, economic, and cultural influences. In 2016 Sherald was the first woman to win the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition grand prize from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. The Outwin 2016: American Portraiture Today exhibition

Harriet Stratis, former research conservator, Art Institute of Chicago Dedicated to Edgar Degas (1834–1917) in the centennial year of his death, Volume 3 of the conservation division's biennial journal Facture: Conservation, Science, Art History focuses on the tremendous wealth of works by Degas in the National Gallery of Art collection. The first to feature the work of a single artist, this issue includes essays by conservators, scientists, and curators. It presents insights into Degas's working methods in painting, sculpture in wax and bronze, and works on paper, as well as a sonnet he wrote to his "little dancer." The Gallery has the third largest collection in the world of work by Degas, comprising 21 paintings, 65 sculptures, 34 drawings, 40 prints, 2 copper plates, and 1 volume of soft-ground etchings. Its extensive Degas holdings and conservation resources have inspired not only groundbreaking Gallery exhibitions—such as Degas, the Dancers (1984), Degas at the Races (1998), Degas's Little Dancer (2014)

Ann Hoenigswald, senior conservator of paintings, National Gallery of Art. Dedicated to Edgar Degas (1834–1917) in the centennial year of his death, Volume 3 of the conservation division's biennial journal Facture: Conservation, Science, Art History focuses on the tremendous wealth of works by Degas in the National Gallery of Art collection. The first to feature the work of a single artist, this issue includes essays by conservators, scientists, and curators. It presents insights into Degas's working methods in painting, sculpture in wax and bronze, and works on paper, as well as a sonnet he wrote to his "little dancer." The Gallery has the third largest collection in the world of work by Degas, comprising 21 paintings, 65 sculptures, 34 drawings, 40 prints, 2 copper plates, and 1 volume of soft-ground etchings. Its extensive Degas holdings and conservation resources have inspired not only groundbreaking Gallery exhibitions—such as Degas, the Dancers (1984), Degas at the Races (1998), Degas's Little Dancer (2

Kimberly Schenck, senior conservator and head of paper conservation, National Gallery of Art. Dedicated to Edgar Degas (1834–1917) in the centennial year of his death, Volume 3 of the conservation division's biennial journal Facture: Conservation, Science, Art History focuses on the tremendous wealth of works by Degas in the National Gallery of Art collection. The first to feature the work of a single artist, this issue includes essays by conservators, scientists, and curators. It presents insights into Degas's working methods in painting, sculpture in wax and bronze, and works on paper, as well as a sonnet he wrote to his "little dancer." The Gallery has the third largest collection in the world of work by Degas, comprising 21 paintings, 65 sculptures, 34 drawings, 40 prints, 2 copper plates, and 1 volume of soft-ground etchings. Its extensive Degas holdings and conservation resources have inspired not only groundbreaking Gallery exhibitions—such as Degas, the Dancers (1984), Degas at the Races (1998), Degas

Cécile Whiting, University of California, Irvine. In this lecture, presented on October 25, 2017, speaker Cécile Whiting of the University of California, Irvine, analyzes the ways in which artists depicted landscapes joining the national and the international. Whiting's research focuses on how American artists recast the terms of landscape painting as it had been practiced in the 1930s, broadening its scope from the local to the international and from the pastoral to the antipastoral. During World War II, maps that pictured troops advancing and retreating across national borders, along with photographs and newsreels documenting death and destruction in locations around the world (including the naval base of Pearl Harbor, the tropical rain forests of Guadalcanal, and the beaches of North Africa), prompted a change in painted representations of landscape in the United States. In particular, the lecture examines paintings by Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry, who adopted a panoramic mode, literally and m

Walter Isaacson, president and chief executive officer, The Aspen Institute, and author of The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (2014), Steve Jobs (2011), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992). In this lecture held on November 6, 2017, at the National Gallery of Art, Walter Isaacson discusses his newly published biography, Leonardo da Vinci, on history’s most creative genius. Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo’s astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, the book weaves a narrative that connects Leonardo’s art to his science. Leonardo produced the two most famous paintings in history: The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and technology. Isaacson demonstrates how Leonardo’s genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagina

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art. Johannes Vermeer, the unprecedented exhibition that featured 21 of the existing 35 works known to have been painted by the Dutch artist, was on view from November 12, 1995, through February 11, 1996, at the National Gallery of Art. It was drawn from museums and private collections in Europe and the United States. Among the paintings on display was View of Delft, on loan from the Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague, which had never been seen outside Europe. In the winter of 1995/1996, the Gallery was closed during two federal government shutdowns and a blizzard, which severely affected public access to the exhibition. As a result, the Vermeer exhibition was inaccessible for 19 days of its run at the Gallery. After 10 days of the second government furlough (on December 27), the exhibition was reopened using private funds. The rest of the Gallery remained closed to the public. In this presentation held on Novemb

Maygene Daniels, chief of Gallery Archives, National Gallery of Art. Johannes Vermeer, the unprecedented exhibition that featured 21 of the existing 35 works known to have been painted by the Dutch artist, was on view from November 12, 1995, through February 11, 1996, at the National Gallery of Art. It was drawn from museums and private collections in Europe and the United States. Among the paintings on display was View of Delft, on loan from the Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague, which had never been seen outside Europe. In the winter of 1995/1996, the Gallery was closed during two federal government shutdowns and a blizzard, which severely affected public access to the exhibition. As a result, the Vermeer exhibition was inaccessible for 19 days of its run at the Gallery. After 10 days of the second government furlough (on December 27), the exhibition was reopened using private funds. The rest of the Gallery remained closed to the public. In this presentation held on November 15, 2015, to cel

Richard Kendall, independent art historian and curator Dedicated to Edgar Degas (1834–1917) in the centennial year of his death, Volume 3 of the conservation division's biennial journal Facture: Conservation, Science, Art History focuses on the tremendous wealth of works by Degas in the National Gallery of Art collection. The first to feature the work of a single artist, this issue includes essays by conservators, scientists, and curators. It presents insights into Degas's working methods in painting, sculpture in wax and bronze, and works on paper, as well as a sonnet he wrote to his "little dancer." The Gallery has the third largest collection in the world of work by Degas, comprising 21 paintings, 65 sculptures, 34 drawings, 40 prints, 2 copper plates, and 1 volume of soft-ground etchings. Its extensive Degas holdings and conservation resources have inspired not only groundbreaking Gallery exhibitions—such as Degas, the Dancers (1984), Degas at the Races (1998), Degas's Little Dancer (2014), and Degas/Cass

Adriaan Waiboer, head of collections and research, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art. The landmark exhibition Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry 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, or depictions of daily life. The introduction of quiet scenes unfolding in private household spaces, featuring elegant ladies and gentlemen, was among the most striking innovations of Dutch painting of the Golden Age, a time of unparalleled innovation and prosperity. The exhibition brings together nearly 70 works by Vermeer and his fellow painters, including Gerard ter Borch, Gerrit Dou, Pieter de Hooch, Gabriel Metsu, Frans van Mieris, Caspar Netscher, and Jan Steen, who lived in various towns throughout the Dutch Republic, from Delft and Devente

Michelle Facini, conservator of paper, National Gallery of Art, and Kathryn A. Dooley, research scientist, scientific research department, National Gallery of Art Dedicated to Edgar Degas (1834–1917) in the centennial year of his death, Volume 3 of the conservation division's biennial journal Facture: Conservation, Science, Art History focuses on the tremendous wealth of works by Degas in the National Gallery of Art collection. The first to feature the work of a single artist, this issue includes essays by conservators, scientists, and curators. It presents insights into Degas's working methods in painting, sculpture in wax and bronze, and works on paper, as well as a sonnet he wrote to his "little dancer." The Gallery has the third largest collection in the world of work by Degas, comprising 21 paintings, 65 sculptures, 34 drawings, 40 prints, 2 copper plates, and 1 volume of soft-ground etchings. Its extensive Degas holdings and conservation resources have inspired not only groundbreaking Gallery exhibition

Yuriko Jackall, assistant curator, department of French paintings, National Gallery of Art. Combining art, fashion, science, and conservation, the exhibition Fragonard: The Fantasy Figures brings together for the first time some 14 of the paintings known as the fantasy figures by Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806). Fragonard is considered among the most characteristic and important French painters of his era, and this series—several rapidly executed, brightly colored paintings of lavishly costumed individuals—includes some of his most beloved works. The revelatory exhibition explores the many interpretations of the fantasy figures in the context of the artist's career and elucidates the development of that career, the identity of Fragonard’s sitters and patrons, and the significance of his innovative imagery. To celebrate its opening on October 8, 2017, at the National Gallery of Art, Yuriko Jackall introduces the exhibition, which is on view through December 3, 2017.

Julia Bryan-Wilson, associate professor of modern and contemporary art, University of California, Berkeley; Lynne Cooke, senior curator, special projects in modern art, National Gallery of Art On October 1, 2017, at the National Gallery of Art, Julia Bryan-Wilson joined Lynne Cooke to discuss the publication of Fray: Art and Textile Politics, which explores textiles and their role at the forefront of debates about process, materiality, gender, and race in times of economic upheaval. Closely examining how amateurs and fine artists in the United States and Chile turned to sewing, braiding, knotting, and quilting amid the rise of global manufacturing, Bryan-Wilson argues that textiles unravel the high/low divide and urges us to think flexibly about what the politics of textiles might be. Her case studies from the 1970s through the 1990s are often taken as evidence of the inherently progressive nature of handcrafted textiles. Fray, however, shows that such methods are recruited to often-ambivalent ends, leaving t

Matthias Mansen, artist, and John A. Tyson, assistant professor of art, University of Massachusetts Boston. Born in 1958 in Ravensburg, Germany, Matthias Mansen studied painting with Georg Baselitz and Markus Lüpertz at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe. Although he trained as a painter, Mansen shifted his focus exclusively to printmaking in the second half of the 1980s. He advances the tradition of woodblock printing by transforming pieces of scavenged wood into printing blocks, which he progressively carves and recarves, using them to create large-scale compositions. The special installation Matthias Mansen: Configurations, on view in the West Concourse Gallery from July 23 through December 13, 2017, presents 13 woodcuts from the collection of the National Gallery of Art. John Tyson curated the installation during his Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Gallery. In this conversation, held on September 24, 2017, Mansen and Tyson discuss the artist’s career, his distinctive proces

Valerie Hellstein, independent scholar, and Elizabeth Prelinger, Keyser Family Professor of Art History and Modern Art, Georgetown University, in conversation with Mollie Berger, curatorial assistant, department of prints and drawings, National Gallery of Art. This conversation, held on September 10, 2017, in conjunction with the exhibition Edvard Munch: Color in Context, aims to connect the highly charged and personal art of Edvard Munch (1863–1944) with contemporary notions of spirituality. Mollie Berger, Valerie Hellstein, and Elizabeth Prelinger explore how theosophy influenced Munch’s art, specifically his use of color. In addition, the discussion examines the ways in which advances in various scientific fields impacted the spread of spiritualism and how artists responded to these cultural shifts. Edvard Munch: Color in Context is on view at the National Gallery of Art from September 3, 2017, through January 28, 2018.