National Gallery Of Art | Audio

May 2011 - June Hargrove, professor of 19th-century European painting and sculpture, University of Maryland at College Park. Professor June Hargrove discusses artist Paul Gauguin's struggle in the final months of his life, after moving to the Marquesas Islands, to show the world his contributions to the creative process. Recorded on May 15, 2011, and held in conjunction with the exhibition Gauguin: Maker of Myth, this lecture examines the paintings from 1902 and attests that, for all his talk of savagery and cannibalism, Gauguin created some of his most serene masterpieces during this time.

May 2011 - Ellsworth Kelly, artist, in conversation with Marla Prather, curator and head of the department of 20th-century art, National Gallery of Art. Contemporary artist Ellsworth Kelly joins curator Marla Prather in this podcast recorded on April 21, 1999, at the National Gallery of Art. Spanning more than 60 years, Kelly's career has shown commitment to abstraction and humanism. His intuitive ability to merge space, color, and shape has positioned him as one of the leading post-war American artists working today. The Gallery has more than 200 works by Kelly in its collection including paintings, prints, and sculptures. Kelly's Stele II was one of the 17 major works to be included in the Gallery's Sculpture Garden when it first opened a month after this Elson Lecture program.

May 2011 - Helen Vendler, A. Kingsley Porter University Professor, Harvard University. This six-part lecture series considers the final works of five modern American poets, as they "take the last look"�reconciling the interface of life and death, without the promise of an afterlife.In this audio podcast of the third lecture, originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on April 29, 2007, the esteemed poetry critic and professor Helen Vendler surveys select works by Sylvia Plath, as she moves from autobiographical violence to impersonal objectivity.

May 2011 - Terry Winters, artist. A prodigious painter, draftsman, and printmaker, Terry Winters has pushed the boundaries of modern art while he has maintained a keen sense of its history and craft. In this podcast recorded on April 14, 2011, for the Elson Lecture Series at the National Gallery of Art, Winters explains his use of the "low-tech, shape-shifting capabilities" of paint, as he puts it, to engage the complex experience of a high-tech world. The Gallery owns two important paintings by Winters: Bitumen (1986) and Composition (1991).

May 2011 - Gerald Peary, director; Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader; David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor. With newspapers and periodicals downsizing and devoting less space than ever to film criticism, what is happening to professional critics? After a screening of his 2010 film For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism at the National Gallery of Art on March 5, 2011, director Gerald Peary joined film critics Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader) and David Sterritt (Christian Science Monitor) to discuss the role and importance of film criticism.

May 2011 - Jim Dine, artist, in conversation with Judith Brodie, curator of modern prints and drawings, National Gallery of Art. Marking the opening of the Drawings of Jim Dine exhibition on March 21, 2004, Dine discussed his career and work with exhibition curator Judith Brodie at the National Gallery of Art. The artist has embraced drawing since the 1970s and is considered one of America�s greatest living draftsmen. His images of tools, self-portraits, and studies from nature and after antiquity are among the most accomplished and beautiful drawings of our time.

May 2011 - Helen Vendler, A. Kingsley Porter University Professor, Harvard University. This six-part lecture series considers the final works of five modern American poets, as they "take the last look"�reconciling the interface of life and death, without the promise of an afterlife.In this audio podcast of the second lecture, originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on April 22, 2007, the esteemed poetry critic and professor Helen Vendler discusses Wallace Stevens' The Rock, a collection of poems reflecting on "the last face of being, when life faces death."

May 2011 - Venice during the time of Canaletto was examined in this public symposium held in conjunction with the Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals exhibition, on view at the National Gallery of Art from February 20 through May 30, 2011. Recorded on April 2, 2011, this podcast includes lectures by exhibition curators David Alan Brown, Dawson Carr, and Charles Beddington. Scholars William Barcham, Emanuela Pagan, and Oliver Tostmann are also featured.

May 2011 - David J. Getsy, Goldabelle McComb Finn Distinguished Professor of Art History, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Rodin's touch grew to be infamous, infecting each of the sculptures he created and becoming the metaphor for his famously eroticized persona. David Getsy, author of Rodin: Sex and the Making of Modern Sculpture, joins us for this podcast, recorded on March 20, 2011, at the National Gallery of Art. He examines Rodin's material practices and demonstrates how the artist's persona was disseminated through them. Getsy also discusses unexpected and contradictory traces of the legendary Rodin touch in his often-overlooked marble sculptures of the 20th century.

May 2011 - Millicent Marcus, professor of Italian, Yale University. The film series Neorealismo 1941�1954: Days of Glory, presented in early 2011, focused on iconic works from the neorealism movement, including Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini's Miracle in Milan (1951). Millicent Marcus, professor of Italian at Yale University, introduced this unique work on February 5, 2011, placing it within the context of a tumultuous, postwar Italy.

May 2011 - Helen Vendler, A. Kingsley Porter University Professor, Harvard University. This six-part lecture series considers the final works of five modern American poets, as they "take the last look"�reconciling the interface of life and death, without the promise of an afterlife. In this audio podcast of the first lecture, originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on April 15, 2007, the esteemed poetry critic and professor Helen Vendler frames the binocular styles of modern and premodern poets as they examine life and death "in a single steady gaze." The accompanying publication, Last Looks, Last Books: Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill, is available for purchase in the Gallery Shop.

May 2011 - Paul R. Jones, collector, and Amalia K. Amaki, professor of art history, University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. For the third program in the National Gallery of Art lecture series The Collecting of African American Art, recorded on February 24, 2008, Paul R. Jones discusses collecting with Amalia K. Amaki, editor and contributing author of A Century of African American Art: The Paul R. Jones Collection, which features his acquisition of works by nearly 70 artists, most of which he has given to the University of Delaware. Jones discusses his dedication to supporting emerging African-American artists, including his efforts to see that they are better represented in public collections. Jones also reveals how he began collecting art while he was pursuing a career in public service, including working in civil rights, housing and urban development, and the Peace Corps.

May 2011 - Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator, northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, and Pieter Roelofs, curator of 17th-century paintings, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. One of the leading painters of 17th-century Holland and a contemporary of Johannes Vermeer, Gabriel Metsu was a gifted visual storyteller who infused his narrative paintings with suspense, drama, and emotion. On the occasion of the first monographic exhibition of Metsu's work in the United States, Wheelock talks with Roelofs about the artist's ability to capture ordinary moments with spontaneity and unerring realism.

April 2011 - Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, director of Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, and Walter O. Evans, collector. In this conversation recorded on February 17, 2008, as part of the National Gallery of Art lecture series The Collecting of African American Art, retired surgeon Walter O. Evans discusses his extraordinary collection with Andrea Barnwell Brownlee. Brownlee was the primary author of The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art, a catalogue that accompanied an international exhibition of mid-19th- to late-20th-century works from Evans' holdings. Their conversation explores how Evans began acquiring African American art, his friendships with artists and writers, and his future plans for the collection.

April 2011 - Wayne Thiebaud, artist, in conversation with Kathan Brown, president, Crown Point Press, and Ruth Fine, curator of modern prints and drawings, National Gallery of Art. In this podcast recorded on June 8, 1997, to celebrate the opening of the Gallery�s Thirty-Five Years at Crown Point Press exhibition, artist Wayne Thiebaud discusses his career with Kathan Brown, president of Crown Point Press, and curator Ruth Fine of the National Gallery of Art. The conversation focuses on Theibaud's prints, which feature themes that also appear in his paintings and drawings. These works depict a wide variety of sumptuous foodstuffs as well as the colorful California landscape.

April 2011 - I. M. Pei, architect, in conversation with Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art Legendary architect I. M. Pei appears in conversation with Gallery director Earl A. Powell III to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the opening of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. In this podcast recorded on March 26, 1998, Pei discusses the evolution of the East Building�s design and construction from the time Pei was awarded the commission until the building was dedicated by President Jimmy Carter on June 1, 1978.

April 2011 - Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head, department of photographs, National Gallery of Art, and Matthew S. Witkovsky, exhibition guest curator. Featured are some 50 Prototypes�on view together for the first time�and the mural-sized 12-panel color work Ronde de Nuit. Greenough and Witkovsky discuss the artist�s interest in the postwar American landscape, as revealed in Prototypes, and his continuing preoccupation with industrially manufactured environments and how they are used to control contemporary society, as shown in Ronde de Nuit.

April 2011 - Paul Barolsky, commonwealth professor, University of Virginia. Paul Barolsky discusses the self-conscious artfulness of Ovid's Metamorphoses and its relation to the visual wit of major European artists. Beginning with a discussion of Ovid's myth of Io and Correggio's rendering of the subject, Barolsky then explores Ovidian threads in the fabric of works by Perugino, Michelangelo, Cellini, Poussin, Rubens, and Vel�zquez. This podcast was recorded on November 9, 2003, at the National Gallery of Art, as part of the Sydney J. Freedberg Lecture on Italian Art series.

April 2011 - Elizabeth Murray, artist, in conversation with Marla Prather, curator and head of the department of 20th century art, National Gallery of Art. Elizabeth Murray (1940�2007) is one of the few artists to be credited with both rehabilitating the abstract movement and bringing new energy to figuration. Her sculpted canvases blur the line between the painting as an object and the painting as a space for depicting objects. In this podcast recorded on October 9, 1996, at the National Gallery of Art, Murray discusses her personal connection to painting with curator Marla Prather�and how being a woman in a field generally dominated by men has influenced her work.

March 2011 - Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, artists. Working in collaboration since 1976, husband and wife artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen (1942�2009) redefined the nature of outdoor sculpture in public spaces. In this podcast recorded on October 12, 1995, at the National Gallery of Art, Oldenburg and Van Bruggen discuss the design and installation of their larger-than-life sculptures. These works have been installed all over the world and have become iconic images of large-scale public art. This program was presented in conjunction with the traveling exhibition Claes Oldenburg: An Anthology, which was on view at the Gallery from February 12 to May 7, 1995.