James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Blue and Silver, Dieppe, 1898–99. Oil on panel; 4 3/4 x 8 3/8 in. New Britain Museum of American Art: Harriet Russell Stanley Fund, 1948.23. Image courtesy New Britain Museum of American Art.
Whistler to Cassatt: The Making of an Exhibition
In this engaging lecture, Timothy J. Standring, Curator Emeritus, Denver Art Museum, will discuss the challenges he and his team faced as they worked over the past five years to present this groundbreaking exhibition on American painters in France.
Additionally, by reviewing dazzling images of paintings by artists such as Whistler, Sargent, Cassatt, and others, Standring untangles with wit and whimsy what he refers to as “the braided narrative of this lost chapter of American art history.”
Why did many American artists turn to France for their training during the Age of Innocence between the American Civil War and the outbreak of the First World War? Why did some artists find life as ex-pats preferable to returning stateside to seek their fame and fortune? And what was the reception back in the United States for American artists who had trained abroad in France?
American art history was never as exciting as this lecture is going to be!
Drawn to France is a course with four sessions:
- November 30, 2021: Whistler to Cassatt: The Making of an Exhibition
- January 4, 2022: Impressionism's Summers
- January 25, 2022: Mary, Louisine, and Bertha: Three American Women who put Impressionism on the Map
- March 1, 2022: Henry Ossawa Tanner and Black Artists in Paris, c. 1900
This course will take place at the museum in Sharp Auditorium, and online via livestream.
To register for the in-person course in Sharp Auditorium, please purchase an onsite ticket. To register for the livestream of the course, please purchase an online ticket.
You can purchase an onsite ticket for individual sessions or the full course, or an online ticket for individual sessions or the full course.
All course registrants will receive a link to the recorded course session, which will be available to view for two weeks after the course. You do not need to purchase both tickets to access a recording of the course.
Timothy J. Standring, Ph.D., curator of Whistler to Cassatt: American Painters in France, is a curator emeritus at the Denver Art Museum. He has curated over eighteen exhibitions at the museum—most notably Becoming Van Gogh—has lectured widely throughout the United States and Europe, and has published in the Burlington Magazine, Apollo, Master Drawings, Print Quarterly, Artibus et Historiae, D, and Renaissance Quarterly. His essays have examined 17th-century Roman patrons; European Old Masters artists Castiglione, Poussin, and Rembrandt; 19th-century painters Degas and Van Gogh; as well as contemporary masters Daniel Sprick, T. Allen Lawson, Scott Fraser, Pere and Josep Santilari, and Sylvie Bataille.
Prior to his work at the DAM, Standring served as Director of the School of Art and Art History at the University of Denver and held faculty appointments at Pomona College, Lawrence University, and the Loyola University of Chicago. He has been a Fellow at The Clark Art Institute, a Guest Scholar at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, in addition to receiving other grants. He is also an accomplished watercolor artist.
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Lifelong Learning and Accessibility programs are supported by the William Randolph Hearst Endowment for Education Programs, Nancy Benson Education Endowment Fund, CenturyLink Endowment, Jim Kelley and Amie Knox Education Endowment Fund, and the Cooke-Daniels Fund. Support is also provided by the Michael and Karen Fried Community Education Fund and the residents who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD).
