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Lecture

American Treasures Talk and Tour: On the Cutting Edge: Samuel Fuller’s Moving Panorama of Rockland
American Treasures Talk and Tour: James Fitzgerald’s Torchin’, Monhegan, Maine.
Locally, Fitzgerald is best known as a Monhegan artist, having been introduced to the famed Maine island artist’s retreat in the summer of 1924 where he joined the ranks of an elite group of artists including Rockwell Kent, Robert Henri, and George Bellows.  Fitzgerald drew inspiration from the island’s great natural beauty and the hardworking local fishing community, resulting in a significant body of work completed during his twenty-eight years there. His iconic painting, Torchin’, Monhegan, Maine will be the topic of discussion along with other related works depicting the local fishing industry.
This talk and tour will be led by Registrar Angela Waldron
 
American Treasures Talk and Tour: Barry Faulkner’s Manship Toasting the Angels and the American Screen Tradition
Barry Faulkner’s 1923 folding screen depicting his friend and fellow artist Paul Manship and their wives traveling in the wine country of France during Prohibition is one of many folding screens done by American artists in the early twentieth century.  Thomas Hart Benton, Jay Van Everen, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Charles Prendergast, Donald Deskey and many others experimented with this format, and this presentation will explore Faulkner’s work in this larger context.
This talk and tour will be led my Chief Curator Michael K. Komanecky

Lecture: From Brothels to Soap Pads: Picasso’s Les Demoiselles to Warhol’s Brillo Boxes
Lecture: New Perspectives—Giotto’s Life of Christ and Leonard’s Last Supper
Lecture Series: Western Paintings that Changed the World—From Giotto to Warhol
This two-part, illustrated lecture series will explore European and American paintings that have altered the course of not only of art, but also world history. Although many paintings could be put forward as important or the best of an artist’s career, each of the four paintings chosen for this series had transformational influences on the artists that came after and on events beyond the art world, itself. Farnsworth’s Director of Education Roger Dell will focus in detail on the creation of the paintings, as well as their formal elements, social history, and influence on fellow and future artists’ work. Moreover, the place of the paintings in their broad cultural context and their impact on historical and political events in the West and around the world will be explored.
Lecture: Commercial Illustration and N. C. Wyeth's Art of Transport
This lecture explores the visual strategies employed by illustrators like N. C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, and Norman Rockwell to transport viewers-into the adventure of a story, for example, or to the store to buy a product. By considering their techniques in relation to the advertising trade literature that emerged in the early-twentieth-century and period theories of the workings of the imagination, the lecture demonstrates the complexity of commercial imagery in these years, whether story illustration, magazine cover, or product advertisement.
 
Lecture: Behind the Scenes of Making Children's Picture Books
Where do ideas come from and how is a picture book made? Award-winning author and illustrator Melissa Sweet will talk about creating children's books with slides of her process, including her newest book, A SPLASH OF RED: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin by Jen Bryant. This book shares the story of a self-taught African American artist who overcame poverty, racism, disability and war to become an American master. N.C. Wyeth, who knew Horace Pippin from Pennsylvania, wrote of Pippin's art: "It is some of the purest expression I have seen in a long time."
 
Lecture: Appropriation and Invention in 20th Century Picture-Book Art
Lecture: Minders of Make Believe
Minders of Make Believe; Or, Children’s Book History in Ten Giant Steps from the New England Primer to Harry Potter
"What should our children read?" In this wide-ranging illustrated talk, noted cultural historian Leonard Marcus highlights ten key moments in the lively three-hundred-year-old American debate that has by turns made allies--and enemies--of our nation's publishers, librarians, religious leaders, parents, and educators. Find out how the genteel backwater that was once children's book publishing gradually morphed into big business, and how children's book illustration finally won acceptance as art form.