National Gallery Of Art | Audio

January 2012 - Philip Conisbee, senior curator of European paintings, National Gallery of Art. The exhibition Cézanne in Provence—on view from January 29 to May 7, 2006, at the National Gallery of Art—marked the centenary of the artist's death and showcased more than 115 paintings, watercolors, and lithographs by Paul Cézanne of the landscape and people of Provence. In this podcast recorded on January 29, 2006, curator Philip Conisbee highlights the Provençal sites that Cézanne depicted, including the Cézanne family estate, the fishing village of L'Estaque, the countryside hamlets of Gardanne and Bellevue, the isolated landscape of Bibémus, the Château Noir near Aix-en-Provence, and Montagne Sainte-Victoire. He also discusses a group of late landscapes and the monumental painting Large Bathers, on loan from the National Gallery, London. The exhibition was co-organized by the National Gallery of Art; Musée Granet, Communauté du Pays d'Aix, Aix-en-Provence; and the Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris.

December 2011 - Barbara von Barghahn, professor of art history, The George Washington University The Pastrana Tapestries are among the finest surviving Gothic tapestries in the world and are on view for the first time in the United States in the exhibition The Invention of Glory: Afonso V and the Pastrana Tapestries at the National Gallery of Art from September 18, 2011, through January 8, 2012. From Jan van Eyck's commemoration in Ghent of the 1415 conquest of Ceuta to Passquier Grenier's documentation in Tournai of the 1471 taking of Tangiers, Portuguese and Spanish art specialist Barbara von Barghahn considers "portraits of power" in the context of chivalric ideals; the imaging of triumph in the clash of arms; the palatine display of tapestries as a visual chronicle of a contemporary epic; and the fame accrued from the North African campaigns that initiated an age of navigation and a transformation of the medieval world picture in this lecture recorded on December 18, 2011.

December 2011 - David Bindman, emeritus professor of the history of art, University College London; Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University; and Sharmila Sen, executive editor-at-large, Harvard University Press. Moderated by Faya Causey, head of academic programs, National Gallery of Art. Since the initial Washington launch of the Image of the Black in Western Art series at the National Gallery of Art in December 2010, two new volumes have been published, bringing the total to six of the ten planned. This panel discussion celebrates the publication of the latest two volumes in this landmark series, which examines the 16th through the 18th century. The 18th century, in particular, was a significant period that saw European slavery reach its apogee and the rise of the abolition movement. Recorded on December 11, 2011, this podcast features Professor David Bindman, who briefly introd

November 2011 - Leonard Barkan, Class of 1943 University Professor and chair, department of comparative literature, Princeton University. Michelangelo is justly revered not only for his painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, his Moses sculpture, and the plans for St. Peter's Basilica, but also for having produced one of the most exquisite collections of drawings the art world has ever known. It is rarely noticed, however, that fully a third of his drawings also contain his handwriting, including everything from poetry to letters to throwaway memos. In this lecture recorded on October 16, 2011, at the National Gallery of Art, Professor Leonard Barkan discusses the new Michelangelo who emerges when these sheets of paper are examined and attention is paid to the draftsmanship and the poetry, the doodles and the scribbles.

December 2011 - Bryan Draper, Collections Conservator, University of Maryland Libraries; Norvell Jones, retired Chief of the Document Conservation Branch, National Archives; and Sheila Waters, calligrapher. Recalling the 45th anniversary of the catastrophic flood of Florence in 1966, the National Gallery of Art, in association with the University of Maryland Libraries presented a rare screening of Franco Zeffirelli's Florence: Days of Destruction (Per Firenze) on November 5, 2011. The famed Italian director's sole documentary is a heartfelt call to action containing the only known footage of the flood, accented by Richard Burton's voiceover commentary. The film is in the collection of the University of Maryland Libraries, College Park. Program speakers included Bryan Draper, Collections Conservator, University of Maryland Libraries; Norvell Jones, retired Chief of the Document Conservation Branch, National Archives; and Sheila Waters, calligrapher, who participated in the conservation efforts in post-flood F

December 2011 - Eleonora Luciano, associate curator of sculpture; Dylan Smith, Robert H. Smith Research Conservator; Naomi Remes, exhibition officer; Donna Kirk, senior architect and designer; Brad Ireland, publishing designer, National Gallery of Art. Gallery staff reveal behind-the-scenes stories from the making of Antico: The Golden Age of Renaissance Bronzes, a special exhibition organized in association with the Frick Collection on view at the National Gallery of Art from November 6, 2011, through April 8, 2012. This exhibition is the first in the United States devoted to the Mantuan sculptor and goldsmith Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, known as Antico (c. 1455-1528) for his expertise in classical antiquity. Antico also developed and refined the technology for producing bronzes in multiples. Antico's bronzes are so rare that the nearly 40 works--including medals, reliefs, busts, and the renowned statuettes--constitute more than three quarters of the sculptor's extant oeuvre. In this program recorded on Nov

December 2011 - Carmen Bambach, Andrew W. Mellon Professor, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art. Leonardo da Vinci is famous for his masterpieces of painting, such as the Ginevra de' Benci portrait at the National Gallery of Art. He is no less famous for his profoundly modern, inquisitive mind as a thinker and inventor. Little is understood about his activity as an author of sketchbooks and notebooks, which provide an important key to understanding his masterpieces. In this podcast recorded on October 30, 2011 at the National Gallery of Art, Carmen Bambach discusses how the drawings and writings of Leonardo da Vinci offer a moving and intimate insight into the complex and sometimes paradoxical workings of his genius mind.

November 2011 - Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head of the department of photographs, National Gallery of Art. In celebration of the exhibition opening, curator Sarah Greenough introduces Harry Callahan at 100 on view at the National Gallery of Art from October 2, 2011, through March 4, 2012. As Greenough notes, this exhibition celebrates the 100th anniversary of Callahan's birth in 1912. The exhibition explores all facets of Callahan's rich contribution to 20th-century American art from his earliest work made in Detroit during World War II, to photographs made in Chicago in the late 1940s and 1950s, to works made in Providence in the 1960s and 1970s, to his final pieces made during travels around the world in the later 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

November 2011 - David Alan Brown, curator of Italian and Spanish paintings, National Gallery of Art. Curator David Alan Brown discusses the impact that American art historians Paul Sachs (1878-1965) and Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) had on connoisseurship in this Works in Progress lecture recorded on December 7, 2009 at the National Gallery of Art. Sachs and Berenson agreed on the nature of connoisseurship and its importance on the history of art, but disagreed greatly on how to teach it. Brown compares and contrasts how the two men imparted the discipline, and what their methods reveal about their individual personalities and goals.

November 2011 - Mel Bochner, artist, in conversation with James Meyer, associate curator of modern and contemporary art, National Gallery of Art. Mel Bochner is one of the leading figures of conceptual and post-conceptual art. Between 1966 and 1968, he developed a series of portrait drawings based on the thesaurus. These works enlist a private language of synonyms and shapes to depict such contemporaries as Eva Hesse, Robert Smithson, and Sol LeWitt. In 2001, after a hiatus of more than three decades, Bochner again turned to the thesaurus to develop a series of paintings and drawings derived from everyday speech. Boldly colored and impressive in scale, these works are among the most ambitious of the artist's career. To mark the opening of the exhibition In the Tower: Mel Bochner, Bochner appears in conversation with exhibition curator James Meyer in this podcast recorded on November 9, 2011.

November 2011 - Carl Brandon Strehlke, adjunct curator, John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 1895 Bernard Berenson (1865-1959), American art historian and connoisseur, published a long-awaited monograph on Renaissance painter Lorenzo Lotto; it was Berenson's first statement about the then relatively new science of connoisseurship. Toward the end of his life Berenson remembered that since writing that book, in which he had tried to regulate every knowable mood of an artist, he had almost never again "taken creative interest in the private, biological, and sociological lives of painters." As part of the Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art series, recorded on November 13, 2011, at the National Gallery of Art, Carl Brandon Strehlke explores why Berenson selected Lotto as an artist and as a subject for a study that he described as "an essay in constructive art criticism."

November 2011 - James Meyer, associate curator of modern and contemporary art, National Gallery of Art. In the Tower is a series of presentations of works by significant artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Held in the Tower Gallery of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, the series has included installations of works by Philip Guston, Mark Rothko, and most recently, Nam June Paik. The newest presentation, by Mel Bochner, is the first by a living artist. Focusing on his famous Thesaurus portraits of the 1960s and his recent Thesaurus paintings and drawings, the exhibit explores Bochner's reexamination of his early conceptual practice during the last decade. Exhibition curator James Meyer discusses the show within the context of the In the Tower series and the broader arc of Bochner's career in this podcast recorded on November 6, 2011.

November 2011 - The Warhol: Headlines exhibition, on view at the National Gallery of Art from September 25, 2011, through January 2, 2012, defines and brings together works that Andy Warhol based largely on headlines from the tabloid news. Held in conjunction with the exhibition, this symposium features four lectures, each offering new perspectives from which to consider Warhol's multifaceted treatment of the media.

November 2011 - A two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author and recipient of the National Book Award, David McCullough discusses his new book, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. In this podcast recorded on September 26, 2011, at the National Gallery of Art, McCullough tells the story of America's longstanding love affair with Paris through vivid portraits of dozens of significant characters. Notably, artist Samuel F. B. Morse is depicted as he worked on his masterpiece The Gallery of the Louvre. McCullough spoke at the Gallery in honor of the exhibition A New Look: Samuel F. B. Morse's "Gallery of the Louvre," on view from June 25, 2011, to July 8, 2012. The exhibition and program were coordinated with and supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

November 2011 - Peter J. Brownlee, associate curator, Terra Foundation for American Art Samuel F. B. Morse, best known for his role in the development of the electronic telegraph, began his career as a painter. One of his most important works, the newly conserved Gallery of the Louvre, is on view at the National Gallery of Art from June 25, 2011, through July 8, 2012, in the exhibition A New Look: Samuel F. B. Morse's "Gallery of the Louvre." In honor of the exhibition, curator Peter J. Brownlee utilizes facets of the painting's recent conservation as a jumping off point for a discussion of Morse's artistic training, his technique and experimental use of materials, and the theoretical underpinnings of and pictorial sources for his monumental painting.

November 2011 - Charles Dempsey, professor of Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, The Johns Hopkins University In this podcast recorded on November 14, 2004, as part of the Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art series, Charles Dempsey argues that Lombard colorism exemplified by Correggio and Garofalo--ought to be considered the third Italian Renaissance. Giorgio Vasari's 16th-century account of Renaissance and High Renaissance art as bipolar opposites--Renaissance art as the perfect union of Florentine disegno with the legacy of classical art in Rome and High Renaissance art prominent in Venice as a naturalistic style deficient in disegno but worthy in its color-led the art of the Lombard Plain to be unsatisfactorily assimilated into the general history of the period. Dempsey explains that paintings by the Carracci demonstrate their recognition of all three Renaissance styles. In combining these styles, the Carracci made a reform of painting that led to baroque art in the 17th century.

November 2011 - Molly Donovan, associate curator of modern and contemporary art, National Gallery of Art. In 1975 Andy Warhol wrote: "I'm confused about who the news belongs to. I always have it in my head that if your name's in the news, then the news should be paying you." True to form, this quote exemplified the many questions Warhol posed during his celebrated career. The exhibition Warhol: Headlines examines the media, methods, and messages of the news headlines. To mark the exhibition's opening day at the National Gallery of Art, curator Molly Donovan discusses some of Warhol's artistic practices in relation to the headline theme in this podcast recorded on September 25, 2011.

November 2011 - David Alan Brown, curator of Italian and Spanish paintings, National Gallery of Art. As part of the Works in Progress lecture series on March 2, 2011, at the National Gallery of Art, curator David Alan Brown discusses the formation of great collections of Italian Renaissance art in the United States. Brown emphasizes the important role that Bernard Berenson (1865-1959), American art historian and connoisseur, and Joseph Duveen (1869-1939), British art dealer, played in late 19th-century American collections. Equally important were the wealthy industrialists of America's gilded age, including Henry Clay Frick, Samuel H. Kress, Andrew W. Mellon, and Joseph E. Widener, who sought to revamp the country's cultural landscape by collecting these masterpieces and giving them to museum collections for the public.

October 2011 - Nicholas Penny, senior curator of sculpture and decorative arts, National Gallery of Art. For the annual Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art, recorded on November 17, 2002, Nicholas Penny discussed aspects of the relationship between painting and sculpture in the 15th and 16th centuries. In particular, Penny focused on a subject no one has addressed with greater eloquence than Sydney J. Freedberg: the way that figures occupy and define space in early 16th-century Italian art. This contest between the qualities proper to painting and sculpture in the representation of space and linear perspective is explored through works in the National Gallery, London, and National Gallery of Art collections.

October 2011 - Janet Cox-Rearick, distinguished professor of art history, City University of New York. Professor Janet Cox-Rearick reveals the secret of Bronzino's success as the only portrait painter for Eleonora di Toledo, wife of Cosimo de' Medici, duke of Florence, in this Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art recorded on November 12, 2000. In the Renaissance, fashion and the act of fashioning could transform the wearer. Following from the Italian proverb that cloth and color lend honor to a man, the choice of clothing and jewels and their degree of traditionalism, innovation, and luxury was dictated by a social hierarchy. After 1537 under Duke Cosimo I, ceremony clothes became a semiological system designed to present the public persona of their princely wearers. In this lecture, Cox-Rearick explains four types of documentary and visual evidence about the ceremonial dress worn by Eleonora di Toledo.