HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM

Known But Unknown: Nancy Holt's Spinwinder: What Lies Beneath

Rebecca Uchill, director of the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at UMBC

(Reception 1 - 1:30 pm)

Known But Unknown is a series on four contemporary artists (three of whom are working today) curated by Kristen Hileman.

In 1991, artist Nancy Holt completed her most personal public sculpture, Spinwinder, a commission for the college campus that is now UMass Dartmouth. For years, rumors circulated of a "time capsule" buried beneath the sculpture. This lecture tells the story of a multi-year curatorial and research project that spanned archives, neighborhood lore, technical reconstructions, and various community engagements to unearth more information about Spinwinder and its buried materials and to restore the artwork in the spirit of Holt's original intention. 

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM

Repatriation, Restitution, Reparations: Explaining Cultural Property Practice in the 21st Century 

Kevin Tervala, chief curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art

(Reception 1 - 1:30 pm)

In the last several years, issues surrounding the repatriation and restitution of cultural heritage have become hot topics in the art world and have made national headlines around the world. This lecture overviews the history of repatriation and restitution in the United States and examines the ways in which museums, state authorities, and private collectors have responded to shifting norms and best practices. 

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

IN-PERSON MEMBERS’ PROGRAM

Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams

Cecilia Wichmann, associate curator of contemporary art, Baltimore Museum of Art

Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams, is a 50-year career retrospective of artist Joyce J. Scott, one of the most significant artists of our time. Co-organized by the BMA and Seattle Art Museum (SAM), this exhibition was developed in close dialogue with the Baltimore-based artist and her collaborators to reveal the full breadth of Scott’s singular vision through more than 120 objects from public and private collections across the United States. The exhibition will feature significant examples of the artist’s sculpture - both stand-alone and wearable pieces - alongside a new installation and performance footage, garments, prints, and materials from Scott’s personal archive.

Joyce J. Scott comes from a long line of makers in her family who created beautiful, functional objects in their quest for freedom out of slavery, sharecropping, migration, and segregation. A companion exhibition of Scott’s mother’s work, Eyewinkers, Tumbleturds, and Candlebugs: The Art of Elizabeth Talford Scott will be presented at the BMA.

No fee, members-only; register via button below.

HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM

Known But Unknown: Resistance and Form: The Matthew Barney Workout

Kristen Hileman, independent curator

(Reception 1 - 1:30 pm)

Known But Unknown is a series on four contemporary artists (three of whom are working today) curated by Kristen Hileman.

Often characterized as an inscrutable artist, Matthew Barney consistently explores the use of resistance to break down and rebuild form both in sculpture and in life experience. Independent curator and educator Kristen Hileman will follow this thread in Barney’s work from his signature Cremaster Cycle through Secondary, a media installation presented in the artist’s studio during the summer of 2023. Hileman will also consider how Barney expands the boundaries of sculpture and develops a unique iconography by entwining landscape, cinema, sound, dance, and popular culture. If you have ever wondered if entertainment guru Martha Stewart, Oakland Raiders safety Jack Tatum, Bond girl Ursula Andress, or author Norman Mailer have influenced the upper echelons of the art world, this is the talk for you.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM - please note time

Peto, Haberle, and the Philosophical Aspects of the Humblest of Paintings

Aneta Georgievska-Shine, professor of art history, University of Maryland

(Reception 10:30 - 11 am)

Among the numerous still-life painters influenced by William Harnett, the two most intriguing ones are John Frederick Peto (1854-1907) and John Haberle (1856-1933). Though both artists were quite prolific, they have only recently begun to receive the critical attention they deserve. Many of Peto’s trompe l’oeil compositions were often misattributed to Harnett despite his subtle stylistic differences such as his models - rendered in softer, more luminous colors - and the almost poetic quality of his compositions. Haberle’s meticulous still lifes are likewise full of details that point to his keen wit and conceptual sensibility. In this lecture, we consider how these two artists used the humble stuff of life to address deeper, philosophical questions about reality and representation.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM - please note time

William Harnett and Trompe l’Oeil Painting

Aneta Georgievska-Shine, professor of art history, University of Maryland

(Reception 10:30 - 11 am)

An Irishman by birth, William Harnett (1848-1892) is arguably the most important still-life painter in America of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Using illusionistic techniques with painstaking attention to every detail, he became the most famous practitioner of this genre during his lifetime. His accomplishments impressed not only the public but had a decisive influence on a whole range of other painters of his generation.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

Members’ Day Trip to D.C. – Addressing Change: Whistler: Streetscapes, Urban Change at the NMAA & a visit to the Rubell Museum’s Singular Views: 25 Artists

David Curry, 2020–21 Senior Fellow at the Colby Museum’s Lunder Institute for American Art

Bus pick up/drop off in the Central Presbyterian Church lot (7308 York Rd @ Stevenson Ln)

Join curator David Curry on a guided tour to discuss the National Museum of Asian Art’s unparalleled collection of works by American expatriate artist James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) in a groundbreaking exhibition that explores European cities in an era of rapid change. The show brings together oil paintings, watercolors, pastels, and prints - some on view for the first time in the museum’s history - documenting the artist’s career-long fascination with urban landscapes undergoing drastic transformations at the end of the nineteenth century.

Change is also at the center of the work on view at the Rubell Museum. During this day trip members will engage in a self-guided tour of Singular Views: 25 Artists. Drawn entirely from the Rubells’ unparalleled and ever-growing collection of contemporary art, Singular Views encompasses over 120 artworks across media, through solo presentations by Jenny Holzer, Matthew Day Jackson, William Kentridge, Raymond Pettibon, Hank Willis Thomas, Mickalene Thomas, and John Waters among others.

$75 fee, members-only; register online here: https://www.artseminargroup.org/payment-by-credit-card/registration/members-day-trip-to-dc-whistler-singular-vision

Cancellation policy: Refunds possible at the rate of $40, no refunds after Thursday, March 14.

HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM

Some Old Curiosity Shops: Whistler, Streetscapes, Urban Change

David Curry, 2020–21 Senior Fellow at the Colby Museum’s Lunder Institute for American Art

(Reception 1 - 1:30 pm)

Highly detailed, narrative pictures were the norm when James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) exercised a seductive economy of means to depict small, independent commercial venues during the second half of his career. His most accomplished shop-front pictures feature strict geometries, suppressed detail, flattened spaces, and close cropping. Not surprisingly, these influential works are counted among the artist’s most formally advanced compositions. Dr. Curry’s talk considers why so determined a modernist addressed the past rather than the present when it came to the urban scene, not only in London, but also in Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, and elsewhere.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM

Known But Unknown: Sarah Sze: Building the Ephemeral

Valerie Fletcher, emeritus senior curator, Hirshhorn Museum

(Reception 1 - 1:30 pm)

Known But Unknown is a series on four contemporary artists (three of whom are working today) curated by Kristen Hileman.

The contemporary artists that will be addressed in this series are well-known but also challenging and difficult. The Walker Art Center’s statement on exhibiting and looking at contemporary art is informative: “Contemporary art is art made today by living artists. As such, it reflects the complex issues that shape our diverse, global, and rapidly changing world. Through their work, many contemporary artists explore personal or cultural identity, offer critiques of social and institutional structures, and even attempt to redefine art itself. In the process, they often raise difficult or thought-provoking questions without providing easy answers. These works often challenge our ideas about what art should look like or how it should behave. Curiosity, an open mind, and a commitment to dialogue and debate are the best tools with which to approach a work of contemporary art. Whether you are surprised, perplexed, or thrilled with the contemporary art that you see, remember, every artwork was once contemporary.”

The first lecture in the series - led by Valerie Fletcher - focuses on the work of Sarah Sze. For more than two decades the New York-based artist Sarah Sze has been using humdrum objects from daily life---such as paper clips, string, toothpicks, construction paper, and torn photographs---to construct complex installations that require patience and focus to appreciate. This lecture by Valerie Fletcher, Emeritus Senior Curator of the Hirshhorn Museum, tracks the artist's evolution from single-work niche compositions to larger assemblages incorporating photography and video. Dr Fletcher will offer a detailed analysis of individual works to articulate how Sze transforms our perceptions of unremarkable items into intriguing, even wondrous, environments. Sze's accumulations of objects in delicate structures suggest imaginary worlds, often perilously fragile. The lecture includes images from Sze's 2023 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum and situates her aesthetics in the context of historical modern art and other contemporary artists. 

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM - please note time

William Merritt Chase and the International Style

Aneta Georgievska-Shine, professor of art history, University of Maryland

With a career that straddled two continents and two centuries, William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) was in many respects “a citizen of the world.” Renowned in international art circles, he was a brilliant observer of contemporary life, an innovative painter, and an influential teacher. His multifaceted practice ranged from striking portraits and still lifes to glorious urban park scenes, landscapes, and interiors.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

Members’ Field Trip: George Ciscle on Eyewinkers, Tumbleturds, and Candlebugs: The Art of Elizabeth Talford Scott

George Ciscle, independent curator

Bus pick up/drop off in the Central Presbyterian Church lot (7308 York Rd @ Stevenson Ln)

Join curator George Ciscle on a field trip around Baltimore to view several of the exciting Elizabeth Talford Scott exhibits on view in our area. We will visit the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Reginald Lewis Museum, and the Maryland Center for History and Culture as we learn more about the life and work of Scott. ASG members will travel by bus, stopping for lunch at Mount Vernon Marketplace.

Twenty-five years ago, the Maryland Institute College of Art’s (MICA) inaugural Exhibition Development Seminar (EDS) organized a landmark retrospective of Elizabeth Talford Scott’s vibrant mixed-media fiber works that brought significant recognition to the artist and modeled innovative community-centered approaches to curation and interpretation. This fall, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) is partnering with MICA and the Estate of Elizabeth Talford Scott at Goya Contemporary to build upon that legacy with an exhibition guest-curated by MICA Curator-in-Residence Emeritus George Ciscle and organized by BMA Associate Curator of Contemporary Art Cecilia Wichmann in dialogue with a new generation of EDS students. On view November 12, 2023, through April 28, 2024, and borrowing the same title as the original exhibition, Eyewinkers, Tumbleturds, and Candlebugs: The Art of Elizabeth Talford Scott features 19 stunning works by the artist, four of which are in the BMA’s collection.

$85 fee, members-only; register online here: https://www.artseminargroup.org/payment-by-credit-card/registration/members-field-trip-george-ciscle-on-the-art-of-elizabeth-talford-scott

Cancellation policy: Refunds possible at the rate of $50, no refunds after Thursday, February 22.

HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM

Stanley William Hayter and the Atelier 17

Ann Shafer, independent curator

(Reception 1 - 1:30 pm)

British artist Stanley William Hayter (1901–1988) founded a seminal printmaking workshop in Paris in 1927 called Atelier 17. The studio focused on experimental intaglio printmaking and drew to it many of Paris’s most avant-garde artists: Alexander Calder, Joan Miro, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini, Nina Negri, David Smith, and Yves Tanguy, and others. Like so many, Hayter decamped Paris as the Germans invaded in the fall of 1939 and re-formed the workshop in New York City during WWII.

In the New York iteration, the workshop became a meeting place of European emigres and New York School artists like Robert Motherwell, Dorothy Dehner, Louise Nevelson, Gabor Peterdi, and Mauricio Lasansky. At the Atelier, European and American artists worked side-by-side, helping each other discover new ways of making and debating concepts. And while Hayter was the leader, he maintained his own artistic practice throughout. We’ll look at the workshop itself and how it functioned and meet some of the artists who worked there, and then we’ll look at Hayter’s development as a thoughtful and experimental artist. 

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM

Renaissance Portraiture (Part 2)

Elaine Ruffolo, Renaissance art historian 

The two-part series continues. See the January 23 program description.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM - please note time

George Bellows and the Pearls of the Gutter

Aneta Georgievska-Shine, professor of art history, University of Maryland

As one of the most prominent members of the Ashcan School, George Bellows (1882-1925) created works that challenged all established criteria concerning proper subject matter and style. His inspiration came from the rapidly changing urban landscape of New York, with its working-class neighborhoods, its construction sites, and its hidden bars and alleyways. Painted in a self-consciously rough and expressive manner, these scenes of daily life in the metropolis raised important questions about the boundaries between high and low art, proposing new aesthetic criteria for appreciation of an artist’s mastery of his medium.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM - please note time

Thomas Eakins and the New Realism

Aneta Georgievska-Shine, professor of art history, University of Maryland

Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) is best known for his resolute realism – whether in his investigation of the human form or in his representation of the natural world. Renouncing romanticized depictions of people and events, he insisted on getting as close to his subjects as possible. This was also one of the reasons for his embrace of photography. His taste for naturalistic representation would have a tremendous legacy, especially for the next generation of American artists known as the Ashcan School.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

HYBRID IN-PERSON AND ONLINE PROGRAM - please note time

Winslow Homer and the American Sublime

Aneta Georgievska-Shine, professor of art history, University of Maryland

(Reception 10:30 - 11 am)

Exploring 19th century American Art & Artists is a 6-lecture series. The late nineteenth century was an era of tremendous artistic experimentation. While discussions of the various developments of this period typically focus on European centers such as Paris or London, American painters were no less important in terms of the ways in which they departed from the academic tradition, with its long-established ideals about “beauty” or the “hierarchy of genres.” In this series, we look at some of the key figures from this period and the ways in which they transformed the American visual culture through new ways of seeing and painting.

The first lecture in the series focuses on Winslow Homer. Winslow Homer (1836–1910) is widely regarded as the greatest American painter of the nineteenth century. Unlike many of his peers, he showed particular interest in ordinary subjects: rural schoolchildren, hunting scenes, or the lives of recently emancipated African Americans. His uncompromising realism charted a new course for American art, which had been dominated by history paintings and portraits of the upper-class. No less significant was his contribution to landscape painting: rather than idealized vistas, he captured the sublime power of wild, untamed nature in spontaneous, gestural brushwork.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM

Renaissance Portraiture (Part 1)

Elaine Ruffolo, Renaissance art historian 

The growth of Renaissance art portraits exploded in the 15th century, as part of a more significant cultural movement in which the space for individual achievement increased substantially. The expansion of trade, combined with a new focus on self-governance in Italy’s political spheres, resulted in a large number of powerful and wealthy people who sought to capture their characteristics and keep them for posterity, resulting in an influx of Renaissance portrait paintings. Italian Renaissance portraits were proclaimed to depict one’s religious devotion, morality, education, affluence, and even one’s soul. In the 15th and 16th centuries, portraits played a vital role in every aspect of human life: childhood, politics, friendship, courtship, marriage, old age, and death. Furthermore, it was widely believed that a person’s appearance mirrored their soul, with physical beauty indicating inner morality and virtue. Artists developed highly individual approaches to the representation of ideal beauty. In this lecture, Ruffolo will provide fresh insights into fundamental issues of likeness, memory, and identity, while revealing a remarkable community of Renaissance personalities – from princes, envoys, and merchants to clergymen, tradesmen, and artists.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM

Renaissance Rivalry (Part 2)

Elaine Ruffolo, Renaissance art historian 

The two-part series continues. See the January 9 program description.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM

Renaissance Rivalry (Part 1)

Elaine Ruffolo, Renaissance art historian 

Rivalries can be dangerous and frustrating, but they can also fuel great works of art. Renaissance masters were in constant competition to prove who was the best artist of their time, and sometimes the consequences were tragic. Patrons were in large measure responsible for setting up artists against each other in order to force them to outdo their rivals and thereby to surpass themselves, while making steady progress with the commissions at hand. Competition comes with a moral price tag, for it often goes hand-in-hand with envy, jealousy, and hatred; it can also lead to lying and deceit. In academic circles, a word that is inescapable when discussing Renaissance art is paragone. Paragone translated from Italian, generally means “comparison” and this theme of comparison was the backbone for much of the Italian Renaissance. Paragone was a major topic of debate during the early modern period, pitting artists, philosophers, and humanists against one another as they discussed the merits of differing topics. Whether it was the paragone between different arts like painting and sculpture, different fields like painting and poetry, or the comparison between different artists, artists and patrons relied heavily on comparison to fuel the development of art. The core of paragone was competition. Whether it was artists competing or different fields of art competing with one another, the Renaissance was fueled by this on-going competition. 

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM

Women Making Sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s

Danielle O’Steen, independent curator and art historian

This lecture focuses on four women artists coming up in the 1960s and 1970s - Ruth Asawa, Lee Bontecou, Barbara Chase-Riboud, and Eva Hesse - whose artworks fundamentally shifted the field of sculpture. The artists expanded their studio practices into new and unlikely territories, drawing from a wide range of materials, sources, and collaborators. This talk considers the individual and innovative contributions of these four women in the context of an experimental moment in American art history.

The objects the artists made offer a fantastical and captivating cast of characters, from Lee Bontecou’s wall-mounted assemblages in steel and fabric and Barbara Chase-Riboud’s monoliths in cast bronze and fibers to Eva Hesse’s absurdist abstractions in fiberglass and latex and Ruth Asawa’s otherworldly creations in iron, copper, and brass wire. The lecture will look closely at the artists’ methods of making their artworks as well as how they impacted the terrain of sculpture.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

MEMBERS’ TOUR

1:00 & 1:30 PM TOUR TIMES

Across Asia: Arts of Asia and the Islamic World

Ani Proser, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Quincy Scott curator of Asian art and curatorial chair, Walters Art Museum

Join Art Seminar Group on a curator-led exhibition tour of Across Asia at the Walters with Ani Posner. The Walters Art Museum presents a landmark installation of its Asian and Islamic collections, offering new ways to examine and experience both Asian and Islamic art. For the first time at the Walters, visitors can view approximately 500 artworks from across the Asian continent together in a contiguous space, including art from Islamic cultures spanning West to South Asia. Across Asia: Arts of Asia and the Islamic World is the culmination of years of work by Walters curators to expand the connectivity of the Asian and Islamic art collections and features visitor favorites as well as works that have previously never been on view. Read the full exhibition description here: https://thewalters.org/exhibitions/asia

Members-only; registration begins Thursday, Nov 30th at 10 AM: link below will be active at that time. Space is limited.

PRE-RECORDED ONLINE PROGRAM

Available to view on demand December 12 - December 31, 2023

Contact office@artseminargroup.org for more information

Denise Hargrove and Jonathon Heyward in Conversation

Denise Hargrove, BSO board member and Jonathon Heyward, BSO music director

ASG invites you to view the exciting interview with Jonathon Heyward, incoming music director for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and rising star with Denise Hargrove, BSO board member. Heyward’s early comments on his new role: “A conductor’s role is to inspire and enable the ensemble to do their best while unifying one voice. These are highly trained musicians with individual ideas on how to play a piece, and I sometimes have to persuade them to try a different way. There’s a lot of give and take. The magic happens when we all align and find, for that time and that moment, one identity of sound. I’m a collaborator, a listener, and a unifier.”

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM

Realizing Across Asia at The Walters Art Museum

Ani Proser, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Quincy Scott curator of Asian art and curatorial chair, Walters Art Museum

In this talk, Adriana Proser, lead curator for Across Asia: Arts of Asia and the Islamic World, will discuss how she and her colleagues collaborated within the museum walls and beyond to highlight works from the Walters Art Museum collections in engaging and innovative ways.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM

Carlo Scarpa and Modern Materiality

Jennie Hirsh, professor of modern and contemporary art at the Maryland Institute College of Art 

This lecture explores the work and influence of Carlo Scarpa, the Venetian-born, modern Italian architect whose designs reflect his deep understanding of and sensitivity to the topography of Venice. Despite never sitting for the exams for his professional architect's license, Scarpa left an indelible mark on the history of the modern built environment in Italy and beyond. Famous for his exploration of floating planes and incorporating water into his designs, especially in Venice, Scarpa inserted modernist ideas inflected with a Japanese sensibility into historic structures and neighborhoods throughout Italy. The many works we will consider include his renovation of the Aula Baratto at the Università di Venezia Ca' Foscari; the ticket booth, Venezuelan pavilion, and landscaped sculptural garden that he contributed to the Venice's Biennale Giardini; the floating levels and bespoke carpentry for the showroom that he designed for Olivetti typewriters in Venice's Piazza San Marco; and his unforgettable renovation to the structure and garden of the Fondazione Querini-Stampalia. We will consider his work as an exhibition designer, surveying his unforgettable displays for the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice and the Galleria Regionale della Sicilia housed in the Palazzo Abatellis in Palermo. Finally, we will look at Scarpa's captivating and detail-oriented designs in wood, metal, and glass for furnishings and decorative art objects.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

Members’ Day Trip: Manet/Degas at the MET with a visit to the Frick Madison

Bus pick up/drop off in the CPC parking lot (7308 York Road @ Stevenson Lane)

Join us on November 16 for a day trip to NYC via chartered bus to view the sought after and expansive Manet/Degas exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A self-guided tour of the Frick Madison will follow. A casual boxed dinner will be served along with wine and soft drinks on the return trip to Baltimore.

We will begin our day at the MET, focusing on Manet/Degas - THE exhibition of the year. This exhibition examines one of the most significant artistic dialogues in modern art history: the close and sometimes tumultuous relationship between Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas. Born only two years apart, Manet (1832–1883) and Degas (1834–1917) were friends, rivals, and, at times, antagonists who worked to define modern painting in France. By examining their careers in parallel and presenting their work side by side, this exhibition investigates how their artistic objectives and approaches both overlapped and diverged. An unforgettable exhibition about the relationship between Manet and Degas, two of the most original and influential artists of the 19th century. “The exhibition lingers in the imagination not just because it brings together such a lavish array of great and beguiling artworks, but also because it is a kind of haunted love story.”

Following the MET, we will enjoy a self-guided tour of the Frick Madison. Here, members will experience a unique presentation of highlights from the permanent collection, now on view in an entirely new way at the brutalist Frick Breuer building on 75th Street. Currently serving as a temporary home during the renovation of their buildings, enjoy the Frick’s paintings, sculpture and decorative arts reframed in this distinctive, iconic setting. Organized chronologically and by region, this critically acclaimed presentation allows for fresh juxtapositions and new insights. Only a few months remain to view the Frick masterpieces in this setting; they will leave the Breuer building in March 2024. Also at the Frick, Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick.

Members-only trip. The trip fee is $175 per person. This is the link to register: https://www.artseminargroup.org/payment-by-credit-card/registration/members-day-trip-manet/degas-at-the-met-with-a-visit-to-the-frick-madison Contact Lisa Dillin ASG Manager at office@artseminargroup.org for more information or assistance.

Cancellation policy: Refunds possible at the rate of $125, no refunds after Thursday, November 9.

HYBRID PROGRAM: IN-PERSON AND STREAMING ONLINE

Broadway Songwriting Unlocked

Andrew Gerle, musical theatre creator, Broadway pianist, author, and educator

Join multiple award-winning musical theater composer/lyricist and educator Andrew Gerle for an in-depth look at the art of writing songs for musicals and musical films. The talk will begin with the fundamentals of songwriting, how songs function in musicals, the forms they can take, and the jobs they must fulfill. Then, he will lead the class in writing a new song from scratch using input from the audience. Subjects to explore will include character and what defines it, what songs are easier or harder for actors to play, the role of rhyme, linguistic and musical registers, and the magic of metaphor, plus an introduction to melodic structure.

No musical experience or training is necessary, just an open imagination! The class itself will be the final subject: the art of collaboration. How do artists from different backgrounds and styles come together to create one show successfully, and how and why do they often fail?

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM

True to Life? Caravaggio in Rome

Frank Dabell, independent art historian

Before Caravaggio arrived in Rome in the 1590s, art based on direct observation - the depiction of objects, humans, and animals - was well established. The legacy of Leonardo da Vinci stimulated the young artist in Milan, and he sought to paint dal vero - from life - while bearing in mind the expectations of beholders and the ever-expanding Roman Church in the era of Shakespeare and Galileo. Caravaggio’s years in Rome - our focus here - saw him move from simple genre scenes to grand narratives. We will study his fascination with light, space, and time in his first public work, the St Matthew Stories, other sacred episodes (the Arrest of Christ, Supper at Emmaus), lives of saints (Crucifixion of St Peter and Conversion of Saul, St Mary Magdalen, St Jerome, St Francis) and mythological subjects (Bacchus, Medusa).

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

HYBRID PROGRAM: IN-PERSON AND STREAMING ONLINE

The Life and Music of Nina Simone

Judah Adashi, composer and composition faculty at Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, artistic director, Evolution Contemporary Music Series & Rise Bmore

Dr. Judah Adashi returns to Art Seminar Group to discuss the life and music of composer, pianist, singer, and activist Nina Simone (1933-2003). Dr. Adashi will discuss Ms. Simone's personal and musical journey, her significant role in the Civil Rights Movement, and her influence on other artists.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM

Manet/Degas at the MET

Chris Boicos, professor of art history for the University of Southern California Paris program and founder and main lecturer for Paris Art Studies

This major exhibition examines one of the most significant artistic dialogues in modern art history: the close and sometimes tumultuous relationship between Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas. Born only two years apart, Manet (1832–1883) and Degas (1834–1917) were friends, rivals, and, at times, antagonists who worked to define modern painting in France.

Both Manet and Degas were pioneers in incorporating into their art subject matter and figures from modern city life. As traditionally trained painters, they were keen to connect their modern subjects to the history of art at the beginning of their careers in the 1860s before moving beyond historic references in the 1870s. By examining their careers in parallel, and presenting their work side by side, this exhibition investigates how their artistic objectives and approaches both overlapped and diverged.

Through more than 150 paintings and works on paper, Manet/Degas takes a fresh look at the interactions of these two artists, deepening our understanding of a key moment in nineteenth-century French painting.

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)

ONLINE PROGRAM

Ernest Hemingway, Joan Mirό, and The Farm (1921-1922)

David Gariff, art historian and senior lecturer, National Gallery of Art

Ernest Hemingway’s most beloved possession was Joan Miró’s painting The Farm. For both the painter and the writer, The Farm crystallized everything true and noble about Catalonia and its people. Miró referred to the painting as “a résumé of my entire life in the country.” For Hemingway, who first met Miró in 1923, the painting embodied “… all that you feel about Spain when you are there and all that you feel when you are away and cannot go there. No one else has been able to paint these two very opposing things.”

The painting - its subject and larger political and cultural significance - signified a lifelong personal touchstone for both men, revealing a host of artistic insights into the relationship between word and image, reality and imagination, tradition and modernist innovation. Recommended reading: Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

$15 fee for guests and subscribers (no fee for members)