Harvard Art Museums
Fall Schedule of Events
By: Uriah Pennington - Sep 06, 2010
The Harvard Art Museums present their line-up of fall programs, including gallery talks about Perisan art, American landscape painting, British art, conservation, contemporary sculpture, ancient Greek mythology, and Italian Renaissance art. The In-Sight lecture series returns with evenings dedicated to Alfred Stieglitz, the recently acquired “Barberini Faun” sculpture, the Statue of Meleager, and Max Beckmann. The popular Stories series returns this October—dedicated to the epic—with separate sessions designed for family and adult audiences.
Other highlights include a lecture about an elaborate Roman tombstone discovered in 1871 for an 11-year-old child; a lecture about the Shahnama, the great epic poem that fueled the development of the Persian painting tradition; and a symposium related to the exhibition, Africans in Black and White: Images of Blacks in 16th- and 17th-Century Prints, currently at Harvard’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute. The fall season of Midday Organ Recitals at Adolphus Busch Hall begins in October.
The Harvard Art Museum is celebrating Smithsonian Museum Day with an offer of free admission to all visitors on September 25, 2010. For more information, and required Museum Day Ticket, visit www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday
Programs listed below are free to museum members, open to the public with the price of admission, and held at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 485 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Any exceptions are noted in the listings. For more information on programs, call 617-495-9400 or visit www.harvardartmuseums.org/calendar
GALLERY TALKS
Gallery talks are informal and include discussion. Limited to 25 participants; please arrive early.
Saturday, September 25, 2010, 11:00am–noon
Five Ways of Looking at a Landscape
Melissa Renn, Research Associate, Division of European and American Art, Harvard Art Museums
This talk will consider the varied functions landscape plays in selected 19th-century American paintings on display in the Sackler. Together we will discuss Washington Allston’s Diana on a Chase (1805), Sanford Robinson Gifford’s Leander’s Tower on the Bosporus (1876), Winslow Homer’s The Brush Harrow (1865), Albert Bierstadt’s In the Sierras (1868), and James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Nocturne in Blue and Silver (1871–72).
Saturday, October 23, 2010, 2:00–3:00pm
Through the Looking Glass of Conservation
Francesca Bewer, Research Curator, Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies
We know that the creation of a work of art entails a transmutation of materials, but so does its subsequent life: changes are wrought by nature, time, and humans. Understanding such changes is important for both the interpretation and the preservation of artworks, and falls within the purview of conservation. This gallery talk will highlight findings made in the laboratory of the museums’ conservation center since the 1920s and examine some of the challenges that confront those entrusted with the physical care of artifacts.
Saturday, November 13, 2010, 11:00am–noon
What Is Sculpture Today?
Mary Schneider Enriquez, Houghton Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Division of Modern and Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums
The nature of sculpture—the visual language and materials employed—has changed at a rapid pace over the last 50 years. This talk will examine these developments by looking at David Smith’s Doorway on Wheels (1960), Joseph Beuys’s Back Support for a Fine-Limbed Person (Hare Type) of the 20th Century A.D. (1972), Rosemarie Trockel’s Shutter (c) (2006), and Leonardo Drew’s Number 122 (2007), viewing these changes within the context of each artist’s work and the time of production.
Saturday, December 11, 2010, 2:00–3:00pm
The Hand at Work in Italian Renaissance Art
Daniel Zolli, PhD Candidate, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
Focusing on selected Italian works from about 1300–1600, this talk will chart some of the complex meanings of “the hand” in Renaissance art, whether at work (as the instrument of an artist’s style) or depicted in the work (as a clue to narrative or symbolic meaning). The talk will also explore the Harvard Art Museums’ rich history of connoisseurship, the method used to identify an individual artist’s hand.
TWO-POINT PERSPECTIVE GALLERY TALKS
This popular series considers objects from more than one point of view. The informal talks, many of them by Harvard Art Museums curators, conservators, and educators and Harvard University faculty members, are designed to stimulate thinking about works of art and encourage participants to explore their own ways of seeing. Limited to 25 participants; please arrive early.
Thursday, September 23, 2010, 3:30–4:30pm
Reading, Listening, and Viewing: Three Ways of Experiencing the Shahnama
Mary McWilliams, Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art, Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art, Harvard Art Museums; Sunil Sharma, Associate Professor of Persianate and Comparative Literature, Boston University; and Sassan Tabatabai, Lecturer in Persian, Boston University
The greatest epic poem in the Persian language, the Shahnama (“Book of Kings”) has inspired a rich oral tradition of dramatic recitation and a wide range of visual arts. This gallery talk will examine the works of art in the installation Heroic Gestes: Epic Tales from Firdawsi’s “Shahnama,” exploring the techniques of expression that artists use to convey meaning and mood in a written text, an oral performance, and a painting.
Thursday, October 21, 2010, 3:30–4:30pm
British Art at Harvard
David Bindman, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art, University College London, and a 2010 Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University; and Miriam Stewart, Curator of the Collection, Division of European and American Art, Harvard Art Museums
The Harvard Art Museums’ collection of British art encompasses a broad range of literary, biblical, and historical subjects. How do works by artists such as William Blake, J. M. W. Turner, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti enrich and deepen our understanding of these themes? This conversation will center on the installation of prints and drawings for Bindman’s course, The Past and the Present: British Art of the 19th Century, as well as other British paintings in the galleries.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010, 3:30–4:30pm
Story and Image in Ancient Greece
David Elmer, Assistant Professor of the Classics, Harvard University; and Susanne Ebbinghaus, George M. A. Hanfmann Curator of Ancient Art, and Head, Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art, Harvard Art Museums
Mythological tales inspired ancient Greek epic poetry and theater as well as painting and sculpture. Looking at a number of painted Greek vases depicting stories such as the ransom of Hector, this gallery conversation will consider the different ways in which myths are represented in word and image. (This talk is limited to 20 participants.)
IN-SIGHT EVENINGS: LOOKING DEEPER AND DIFFERENTLY
This series features talks by curators, after-hours viewing of the galleries, live music, conversation, and refreshments. Series tickets are $80 (members and Harvard students $64). Tickets to individual evenings are $25 (members and Harvard students $20). Space is limited and registration is encouraged. To register, call 617-495-0534 or email am_membership@harvard.edu.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010, 6:00–8:00pm
Alfred Stieglitz
Deborah Martin Kao, Chief Curator, Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography, and Acting Head, Division of Modern and Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums
In 1969 the Fogg Museum received a selection of photogravures by the legendary impresario of American modernism, Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946). Drawn from the artist’s first portfolio of his own work, Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies (1897), the images signaled a critical change in Stieglitz’s approach to the fine art of photography, while their acquisition marked the advent of a new direction in collecting for Harvard’s art museums.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010, 6:00–8:00pm
Barberini Faun
Stephan Wolohojian, Landon and Lavinia Clay Curator, and Head, Division of European and American Art, Harvard Art Museums
The great Hellenistic marble known as the “Barberini Faun” is one of the key works in the Western canon. Since it was unearthed in Rome in 1627, the Faun, which is now in Munich, has undergone several restorations, some by renowned sculptors. Looking at the earliest model for the first restoration of the Faun, which the Harvard Art Museums acquired last year, this lecture will explore the reception and history of the celebrated sculpture.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011, 6:00–8:00pm
Statue of Meleager
Susanne Ebbinghaus, George M. A. Hanfmann Curator of Ancient Art, and Head, Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art, Harvard Art Museums
Eternally youthful yet sufficiently worn to evoke an ancient past, the fragmentary statue of a hero, probably Meleager, has been a powerful presence in Harvard’s museum galleries ever since Edith Forbes (the mother of future Fogg director Edward Forbes) lent it to the Fogg in 1899. This lecture probes below the beautiful marble surface of the sculpture to explore the Greek fascination with the male body, the phenomenon of famous but elusive ancient sculptors, the tastes of Roman collectors, and some aspects of classical antiquity’s rich afterlife.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011, 6:00–8:00pm
Max Beckmann
Lynette Roth, Daimler-Benz Associate Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Division of Modern and Contemporary Art, Harvard Art Museums
When it debuted in 1928, Max Beckmann’s Self-Portrait in Tuxedo (1927) was widely acclaimed as a “brutal” portrayal of the self and a return to a more painterly style. This lecture will examine the compelling history of this canvas—from its genesis until it entered the Busch-Reisinger collection in 1941—and trace the significant role of Beckmann’s work in the American reception of German art.
STORIES: THE EPIC TRADITION
Free admission. Four outstanding storytellers—exponents of the spoken word, song, and narrative dance—will present epics related to works of art on view. The evening sessions, intended for student and adult audiences, will begin with a brief introduction by a museum curator or educator. The after-school sessions, designed for families, will feature shorter stories from Greek, Persian, and Indian traditions and a chance to see related works of art.
M. Victor Leventritt Program*
Wednesday, October 13, 2010, 3:00pm (family session) and 6:00pm (adult session)
Xanthe Gresham
Gresham performs her own version of Firdawsi’s Shahnama. She presents the heroic Rustam and his valiant steed, Rakhsh, in stories that offer new insights into the stunning paintings based on the Shahnama, on view in the Sackler, floor 2.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010, 3:00pm (family session) and 6:00pm (adult session)
Odds Bodkin
Homer’s Odyssey is filled with memorable adventures in which the wily Odysseus outwits an assortment of monsters and sorceresses on his journey home from Troy. Bodkin’s guitar creates the scenic and emotional backdrop, while his voice brings to life such formidable characters as the cyclops Polyphemus.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 3:00pm (family session) and 6:00pm (adult session)
Surabhi Shah and Mesma Belsare
Valmiki’s Ramayana is so central to Indian culture that recent television broadcasts of the stories captivated a huge audience throughout India. Shah and Belsare combine storytelling with classical Indian story-dance, bharatanatyam, to introduce Rama, Sita, and other characters that serve as exemplars of ethical living to this day.
*The M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Fund was established through the generosity of the wife, children, and friends of the late M. Victor Leventritt, Harvard Class of 1935. The purpose of the fund is to present outstanding scholars of the history and theory of art to the Harvard and Greater Boston communities.
LECTURES
Free admission.
Thursday, September 23, 2010, 6:00pm
Laid Out for Posterity: A Roman Tombstone Carved with a Child’s Portrait and His Poem
M. Victor Leventritt Lecture*
Kathleen Coleman, Professor of Latin, Harvard University
An elaborate funerary altar of Parian marble was discovered immured inside the Aurelian Wall in Rome in 1871. It commemorates Q. Sulpicius Maximus, who died in AD 94 at the age of 11. This lecture will explore the technical and aesthetic challenges facing the masons’ workshop in incorporating a statue, a 43-line Greek poem, a Latin epitaph, and two 10-line Greek epigrams on a surface just over five feet high and three and a half feet wide.
*The M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Fund was established through the generosity of the wife, children, and friends of the late M. Victor Leventritt, Harvard Class of 1935. The purpose of the fund is to present outstanding scholars of the history and theory of art to the Harvard and Greater Boston communities.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010, 6:00pm
Sizing Up the Shahnama in Medieval and Later Persian Art
Norma Jean Calderwood Lecture*
Marianna Shreve Simpson, Independent Scholar
No work of Persian literature has attracted more artistic energy and attention than the Shahnama (“Book of Kings”), the great epic poem completed by Firdawsi around the year 1010. In the early 1300s, the text caught the attention of Iran’s Mongol rulers, whose enthusiasm made it the principal source of imagery in Persian art. Over the following four centuries, hundreds upon hundreds of manuscripts of the Shahnama were illustrated in artistic centers throughout Iran and neighboring regions. From narrow bands embedded in a text page to ambitious scenes nearly filling a folio, Shahnama illustrations fueled the development of the Persian painting tradition.
*The Norma Jean Calderwood Lecture Fund honors a longtime friend of the Harvard Art Museums who pursued graduate study in Islamic art at Harvard and who for many years taught Islamic and Asian art at Boston College and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
SYMPOSIUM
Free admission. Held at the Thompson Room, Barker Center, Harvard University, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA. Followed by a reception at the Rudenstine Gallery, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, 104 Mount Auburn Street #3R, Cambridge, MA.
Monday, November 15, 2010, 2:00–5:00pm
The Image of the Black in Western Art
M. Victor Leventritt Symposium*
David Bindman, University College London and Harvard University; Paul Kaplan, State University of New York at Purchase; Joseph Koerner, Harvard University; Elmer Kolfin, University of Amsterdam; and Jeremy Tanner, University College London. Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University, will moderate.
Held in conjunction with the exhibition Africans in Black and White: Images of Blacks in 16th- and 17th-Century Prints, this symposium will feature five presentations followed by a panel discussion concerning the perception and representation of people of African descent in Western art. Organized by the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research and David Bindman, Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at University College London, and a 2010 Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute, with Anna Knaap, former Theodore Rousseau Postdoctoral Fellow, Division of European and American Art, Harvard Art Museums, and current Visiting Fellow, Jesuit Institute, Boston College.
*The M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Fund was established through the generosity of the wife, children, and friends of the late M. Victor Leventritt, Harvard Class of 1935. The purpose of the fund is to present outstanding scholars of the history and theory of art to the Harvard and Greater Boston communities.
MIDDAY ORGAN RECITALS
Free admission. Held at Adolphus Busch Hall, 29 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA. Recitals are performed on Harvard's famous 1958 D. A. Flentrop organ. Presented by the Harvard Organ Society in collaboration with the Harvard Art Museums and the Memorial Church. Audience members are invited to lunch quietly while listening.
Thursday, October 7, 2010, 12:15–12:45pm
Karen Christianson, Assistant Organist, Philadelphia Cathedral, Philadelphia, PA
Thursday, October 14, 2010, 12:15–12:45pm
Gail Archer, College Organist, Vassar College; Organ and History Faculty, Manhattan School of Music; and Music Program Director, Barnard College, Columbia University
Thursday, October 21, 2010, 12:15–12:45pm
Christoph Schoener, Music Director and Organist, St. Michaelis Church, Hamburg, Germany
Thursday, October 28, 2010, 12:15–12:45pm
Sarah Carlson, Director of Music, First Lutheran Church, Bemidji, MN
Thursday, November 4, 2010, 12:15–12:45pm
Nancy Granert, Organist, Emmanuel Church, Boston, and Organist in Residence, Memorial Church, Harvard University
Thursday, November 11, 2010, 12:15–12:45pm
Woo-sug Kang, DMA Candidate, Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Thursday, November 18, 2010, 12:15–12:45pm
Matthew Hall, Organist, Cambridge, MA
TRIP
$170 (members $135). Bus will depart from and return to the Arthur M. Sackler Museum. Fee includes bus transportation, admission, lunch, and all gratuities. Space is limited and advance registration is required. To register, call 617-495-4544 or email veronika_trufanova@harvard.edu.
Friday, October 15, 2010, 8:00am–5:00pm
Ink, Iron, and Icons: Fall Day Trip to Central Massachusetts
Alice DeLana, Harvard Art Museums Docent
Join us in discovering several hidden gems of central Massachusetts. We will begin with a visit to the American Antiquarian Society, established in 1812, which has collected, preserved, and exhibited the printed record of the history of the United States from 1640 through 1876. We will then explore the impressive collection of arms and armor from ancient Greece and Rome, medieval and Renaissance Europe, and feudal Japan at the Higgins Armory. The day will conclude at a recent addition to the cultural landscape, the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton.
MEMBER EVENT
Participation is free, but registration is required. Harvard Treasures is a series offered only to Harvard Art Museums members that explores the university’s architectural riches and art holdings beyond the museums. To learn more about membership and to register for the tour, call 617-495-0534 or email am_membership@harvard.edu.
Friday, November 19, 2010, noon–1:00pm
Harvard Treasures Tour of Widener Library
Miriam Stewart, Curator of the Collection, Division of European and American Art, Harvard Art Museums; and Library staff, Widener Library
The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library is the flagship library of Harvard University. Built with a gift from Eleanor Elkins Widener, it is a memorial to her son, Harry (Class of 1907), a bibliophile who perished aboard the Titanic. The library opened in 1915 with over 50 miles of shelves and capacity for over three million volumes, but had already outgrown its building by the late 1930s. The tour will include the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Room, murals by John Singer Sargent, and 10 levels of book stacks.
ABOUT THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS
The Harvard Art Museums, among the world’s leading art institutions, comprise three museums (Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler) and four research centers (Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, the Center for the Technical Study of Modern Art, the Harvard Art Museums Archives, and the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis). The Harvard Art Museums are distinguished by the range and depth of their collections, their groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of their staff. The collections include approximately 250,000 objects in all media, ranging in date from antiquity to the present and originating in Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Integral to Harvard University and the wider community, the art museums and research centers serve as resources for students, scholars, and other visitors. For more than a century they have been the nation’s premier training ground for museum professionals and are renowned for their seminal role in developing the discipline of art history in this country.
In June 2008 the building at 32 Quincy Street, formerly the home of the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger museums, closed for a major renovation. During this renovation, the Sackler Museum at 485 Broadway remains open and has been reinstalled with some of the finest works representing the collections of all three museums. When complete, the renovated historic building on Quincy Street will unite the three museums in a single state-of-the-art facility designed by architect Renzo Piano.
Hours
Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–5pm; closed major holidays.
Admission
Paid admission includes entry to the galleries, public tours, and gallery talks. General admission: $9; seniors 65 and over: $7; college students with valid ID: $6. Admission is free for Harvard University students and affiliates, Harvard Art Museums members, Cambridge Public Library cardholders, and visitors under 18 years of age. On Saturdays before noon admission is free to Massachusetts residents with valid ID. More detailed information is available at 617-495-9400 or www.harvardartmuseums.org
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