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Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

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Worcester Art Museum

The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 35,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day, representing cultures from all over the world.

http://www.worcesterart.org/

  • Laurence Kanter, chief curator and the Lionel Goldfrank III Curator of European Art, Yale University Art Gallery, delves into the fascinating story behind a mysterious panel painting that is attributed to two artists Lorenzo di Credi and Leonardo da Vinci - did both paint it? Image: "A Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo"
    Partner:
    Worcester Art Museum
  • Contemporary artist Byron Kim speaks about his captivating life and work, including his unique spin on portraiture. The Worcester Art Museum's Master Series gives a close up look at one or two works by six signature artists. Exhibited in select galleries throughout the Museum, these intimate displays allow for contemplation and study of some of the world's most celebrated artists. Image: [Whitney Museum of American Art](https://whitney.org/WatchAndListen/1333)
    Partner:
    Worcester Art Museum
  • A reinterpretation of ancient music at the Chinese Tang Court: enjoy a cello concert with College of the Holy Cross visiting musician-in-residence, Jan Muller-Szeraws. This performance will be introduced by Shirish Korde, composer and professor, College of the Holy Cross.
    Partner:
    Worcester Art Museum
  • In this installment of the _Master Series_ Third Thursdays, Ada Cohen, professor of Art History and the Israel Evans Professor in Oratory and Belles Lettres at Dartmouth College, explores a traditional Assyrian frieze known as the "winged genius" and contextualizes it within the greater scope of the Assyrian empire.
    Partner:
    Worcester Art Museum
  • Itinerant photographer William Bullard left behind a trove of over 5,400 glass negatives at the time of his death in 1918. Among these negatives are over 230 portraits of African Americans and Native Americans mostly from the Beaver Brook community in Worcester, Massachusetts. The exhibit "Rediscovering an American Community of Color" features eighty of these unprinted and heretofore unpublished photographs that otherwise may have been lost to history. Bullard identified over 80% of his sitters in his logbook, making this collection especially rare among extant photographic collections of people of color taken before World War I and enables this exhibition to tell specific stories about individuals and recreate a more accurate historical context. Bullard’s portraits examine the role of photography as the vehicle for a “new Black identity” during the nascent years of the New Negro movement. Offering a photographic narrative of migration and resettlement in the aftermath of Emancipation and Reconstruction, Bullard’s portraits address larger themes involving race in American history, many of which remain relevant today, notably, the story of people of color claiming their rightful place in society as well as the fundamentally American story of migration, immigration, and the creation of a community in new surroundings A comprehensive website hosted by Clark University (www.bullardphotos.org) offers teaching resources for educators, all of the photographs and sitters featured in Rediscovering an American Community of Color, a map of the Beaver Brook neighborhood (circa 1911), and additional research written by the Clark students who participated in a seminar related to the exhibition.
    Partner:
    Worcester Art Museum
  • This Master Series lecture focuses on three exquisite ceramic vases made in Athens over 2,500 years ago. On view in the Jeppson Idea Lab from April 5 – October 1, 2017, each vase has a unique shape and is representative of one of three major Attic painting techniques. Objects Conservator at the Worcester Art Museum, Paula Artal-Isbrand, discusses how these masterpieces were shaped, decorated and then fired using an ingenious and mysterious method that potters were not able to replicate until recently. She also shares highlights of discoveries made during the lengthy conservation campaign, including finding a secret inner vessel within one of them. Amanda Reiterman, an archaeologist, brings these rich depictions to life and explains the function and relevance of these finely made objects in the context of the thriving metropolis of Athens. Photo Credit: Vatican G 23 Group/[commons.wikimedia](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vatican_G_23_Group_-_Black-figure_Pseudo-Panathenaic_Amphora_-_Walters_482105_-_Detail_B.jpg "Black-figure Pseudo-Panathenaic Amphora")
    Partner:
    Worcester Art Museum
  • The daughter of a prosperous, socially prominent Pittsburgh family, Cassatt resolved about 1860 to become an artist. After traveling in Europe to study the old masters, she settled in Paris, where in 1877 she was invited by Edgar Degas to join the French Impressionists. Cassatt exhibited several times with the group between 1879 and 1886, thereby becoming the only American so intimately associated with these radical artists. While landscapes and scenes of the city and its cafés and theaters were favored by many of her male colleagues, Cassatt focused on intimate, domestic subjects, such as the theme of mother and child that she repeated throughout her career. By 1902 the artist had lived for almost a decade in the village of Mesnil-Theribus (about fifty miles northwest of Paris), where she often had neighbors pose for her, as they seemed more at ease than professional models. The young mother in Worcester's painting sat for Cassatt many times in 1902 and 1903, appearing in several preparatory sketches done in both oil and pastel. This final version reveals the characteristic solid forms and design that had emerged in Cassatt's work in the 1890s, when she was first influenced by the strong patterns and contours in Japanese prints.
    Partner:
    Worcester Art Museum
  • As part of the new exhibit **Highest Heaven,** exploring the cultural and religious world of the Spanish Colonial possessions of the Altiplano (high plains) of South America, WAM hosts a scholarly discussion on Gaspar Miguel de Berrío's painting _Our Lady of Mount Carmel with Bishop Saints._ Rather than group works by media as an introduction to the world of Spanish Colonial art, the exhibition returns the objects' original context as, literally and symbolically, articles of faith. It focuses on the didactic aspects of the collection, especially as they relate to the life of Christ, the Christian religious orders, and the cult of the saints. It explores ways in which such religious art was used in the propagation of Catholic beliefs by use of visual art to illustrate biblical moments in the life of Christ—from the Annunciation and birth to the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Furthermore, it examines visual representations of saints, exemplar proponents of the Christian life. Finally, Highest Heaven will focus on religious orders that provided organizational and philosophical underpinnings for the propagation of the faith.
    Partner:
    Worcester Art Museum
  • Gain insight into the recent conservation of _The Jewish Wedding_ by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). In 1875, Renoir was commissioned to paint a replica of Eugène Delacroix's 1839 _The Jewish Wedding in Morocco_, which resides today in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Although faithful to Delacroix's original, Renoir adapted his Impressionist manner to the painting, creating a novel work of art, wholly distinct in its brushwork, palette, and use of light. Renoir's work, obscured by a 70-year-old discolored varnish, has now been restored by Andrew W. Mellon Fellow Maja Rinck, a transformation that resulted in the recovery of its original tonality, revealing a major Impressionist painting. Image Credit: [Worcester Art Museum](http://www.worcesterart.org/exhibitions/jeppson-idealab-renoir-the-jewish-wedding/DP14015.jpg "")
    Partner:
    Worcester Art Museum
  • Since 2014 the Worcester Art Museum has served as an official polling station for the local community. Now, in 2016, the Museum will participate in one of the most electrifying political years in recent memory. _Picket Fence to Picket Line_ will foster meaningful dialogue surrounding this year's presidential election and connect to our active population of voters. It will inspire visitors to confront one of the most highly charged questions in contemporary political discourse: What is citizenship? As part of the exhibit, the November [Masters Series](http://www.worcesterart.org/events/master-series/ "") lecture will feature Valerie J. Mercer, Curator of the General Motors Center for African American Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts, will discuss Jacob Lawrence’s **‘The 1920s....Migrants Arrive and Cast Their Ballots’** (pictured).
    Partner:
    Worcester Art Museum