Caspar David Friedrich, Woman at a Window, c. 1820
Join art historian Karen Pope for study tours, day trips, and informal luncheon programs to expand your horizons or fill gaps in your world of art. No background or experience is necessary--just curiosity!
Upcoming events, near and far, offer art history experiences in the good company of companions with similar interests.
EXPLORE Recommended temporary museum exhibitions around Texas are listed on this page
CONTACT Add your name to the email list or begin a registration for an event at Contact Art inSight
PARTICIPATE Day Trips, Study Tours, and future destinations are described on the Study Tours page
COVID-19's IMPACT ON ART inSIGHT: Given the recent increases in cases and hospitalizations, we need to keep staying home. Although Zooming doesn't offer the pleasant social benefits of our gatherings, it has its advantages, and I'll keep working via this medium untll we feel safe to gather again. Personally, I will be eager to resume gatherings at the Neill-Cochran House Museum and the Chateau Bellevue because it means support for two of Austin's oldest houses. The Chateau has set a minimum of 40 (with social distancing and all possible precautions involved in seating and table service) and the NCHM is encouraging outdoor gatherings . . . I will be watching for indications of interest in these options. Meanwhile, I'm grateful for Zoom! For dates and cost, scroll down.
SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR NOW:
• Explore museums who are offering expanded internet access, e.g. Rijksmuseum, "Cooped Up with the Carter" (American Art Museum in Fort Worth) -- many links are posted farther down this page.
2020 MONTHLY LECTURE SERIES: "12 Masterpieces: Method, Meaning, Context" Choice of two dates for each topic
*** REGISTRATION IS OPEN! ***
Preregistration is expected; deadline for registration is 5 days in advance of the program (but all spaces may fill before then; send email to get your name on the attendance list, request a special meal, and to receive a confirmation and other material in advance of the program.
ZOOM MEETINGS, replacing in-person programs at NCHM and Chateau Bellevue: FREE to season subscribers; all others $20 per person
All registrants for a Zoom meeting will receive the recording along with follow-up material
make checks payable to Art inSight and mail to: PO Box 5730 Austin TX 78763-5730
or pay by credit card via PayPal link (below)
with both methods, please include the date you plan to attend.
2020 SCHEDULE of TOPICS:
√ Parthenon, 447BC
Jan 10 @ CB
Jan16 @ NCHM
√ Augustus of Prima Porta, 20BC
Feb 13 @ NCHM
Feb 14 @ CB
√ Pala d'Oro (San Marco, Venice), 976f
Mar 19: Zoom
Mar 20: Zoom
√ Jan Van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece, 1434
Apr 23: Zoom
Apr 24: Zoom
√ Bernini, The Ecstasy of Teresa, 1650
May 28: Zoom
May 29: Zoom
√ Michelangelo, Sistine Ceiling, 1508
June 30 via Zoom
July 3 via Zoom
√ David, Oath of the Horatii, 1784
July 16 Zoom 10am
July 17 Zoom 11am
√ Monet, Impression: Sunrise, 1873
Aug 27 Zoom 10a
Aug 28 Zoom 11a
√ Gauguin, Vision of the Sermon, 1888 √ Rodin, The Burghers of Calais, 1884ff
When you register, please indicate whether you would be willing to join in person--
We will return to our former gatherings as soon as we can meet the minimums:
40 at Chateau Bellevue
35 at Neill-Cochran House Museum
Thursday Morning Coffees @ Neill-Cochran House Museum (capacity: 45) (coffee, tea, pastries, free parking behind Museum; complimentary Museum visit)
9:30-11:30am $30 per person per program --"Series subscription" option: $250 for 9 programs
FridayLuncheons @ Chateau Bellevue (capacity: 100) Austin Woman's Club, seated luncheon, free parking in AWC lot; complimentary house tour)
10:30am - 1:00pm
$45 per person per program --"Series subscription" option: $400 for 9 programs
PROPOSED THEME & SCHEDULE FOR 2021: ARTISTS & Books in Their BIRTHDAY MONTHS
January . . John Singer Sargent Read: Erica Hirshler, Sargent's Daughters: The Biography of a Painting, 2009
February . .Auguste Renoir
Read: Susan Vreeland, The Luncheon of the Boating Party, 2008
March . . . Piet Mondrian April . . . . Archibald Knox
Perilla Kinchin, Taking Tea with Mackintosh: The Story of Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms May. . . . . Mary Cassatt
Robin Oliveira, I've Always Loved You: A Novel, 2014
June. . . . . Frank Lloyd Wright
Nancy Horan, Loving Frank, 2008
July . . . . Artemisia Gentileschi
Susan Vreeland, The Passion of Artemisia: A Novel, 2002
August . . Gustave Caillebotte
Emile Zola, The Masterpiece, 1866
Sept'er . . Mark Rothko
B. A. Shapiro, The Muralist: A Novel
October . . Katsushika Hokusai
Katherine Govier, The Printmaker's Daughter, 2010
Nov'ber . . Georgia O'Keeffe
Laurie Lisle, Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe, 1980
Dec'ber . . Camille Claudel
Heather Webb, Rodin's Lover, 2015
Othmar Schimtowitz, Angels, Leopold Church "Am Steinhof," c.1900, Vienna
Past series:
2019 Great Art Museums, part 2 2018 Great Art Museums, part 1 2017 Great Collectors and Their Collections, part 2 2016 Great Collectors and Their Collections, part 1 2015 Japan & the West 2014 9 Great Cities and Their Depiction by Artists 2013 Back to the Birthdays, Artists in Their Birthday Months 2012 The World's Great Buildings: Milestones in Architecture 2011 Women in Art/Art of Women 2010 Art of Nations: Survey of Art History, One Country at a Time 2009 Angels, Saints and Their Friends in Art History 2008 Time Capsules: A Survey of Seven Centuries 2007 Un-Birthday Parties (for great artists with inconvenient birthdates) 1995-2006 Birthday Parties for great artists, on their true birthdays
Potential Future Series Topics:
Key Works of World Architecture, Stonehenge to Safdie Great Moments in Art History, Antiquity to Modern Perspectives on Movies about Great Artists A Year with Prints: Basics of the major printmaking processes, handling examples, studio and collection visits Art History Survey: Prehistory through the Present Great Works in each medium, one medium at a time, emphasis on process and effect (marble, etching, tempera, etc.)
Special Events of Note:
Neill-Cochran House Museum(Austin landmark, Abner Cook 1855)
"Modern Times" Speaker Series 2019-20 -- Season 13: "The Other Mid-Century Modern: 1845-55, Texas Statehood and the International Scene"
Programs postponed because of Corona virus will be rescheduled to the extent possible
See NCHM website for information about Season 14
SPACE LIMITED, REGISTRATION REQUIRED (Free to current Friends of the NCHM; $10 per person per event otherwise): REGISTER FOR INDIVIDUAL EVENTS ONLINE or call the Museum: 512-478-2335
January 15 - May 3, 2020EXTENDED THROUGH November 22 Neill-Cochran House Museum
Porcelain sculpture by Austin visual artist Ginger Geyer, conceived to explore issues of privilege and servitude, will be installed throughout the Museum; imaginary friends Chlora and Ruby Virginia exist on 16 placards to initiate visitor conversations about what is seen and how it suggests ideas about the house's past. A lively calendar of exhibition-related programs created by Austin minister, songstress, and actor Jennifer Cumberbatch will complement the objects and enrich dialogues about Austin's past and the antebellum realities of the NCH's construction.
"Reckoning with the Past: Slavery, Segregation and Gentrification in Austin" through the end of the year Neill-Cochran House Museum
Next public event---
November 19: Exhibition Finale with Jennifer Cumberbatch: "Make AMerica Sing Again"
Texas Museum Exhibition Recommendations and Special Events
NOTE: Some museums, closed because of the COVID-19 virus, may have negotiated extensions of their temporary exhibitions. I'm not aware of all such plans, so have left exhibitions posted below, even though the exhibitions' official dates have "expired"
Weekly livestreamed “Curated Conversations” at 5 p.m. Tuesdays. These Zoom sessions — for more info, go to bit.ly/35RAaG4 — feature cultivated Blanton curators and other staff members who give short thematic presentations followed by questions from viewers in real time.
Watch past episodes of “Curated Conversations” on YouTube at bit. ly/3dDlgWp. Among the topics: a woman’s place in the artistic canon, mail art in Latin America and behind the scenes at Ellsworth Kelly’s “Austin.”
BRISCOE CENTER FOR AMERICAN HISTORY • www.cah.utexas.edu From Commemoration to Education: Pompeo Coppini's Statue of Jefferson Davis Commissioned in 1919 by university regent Major George W. Littlefield the statue was envisioned as part of a much larger allegorical memorial, the Littlefield Fountain, intended to honor Texans who died in the Civil War and World War I while also addressing the reconciliation of the northern and southern states between those wars. However, the memorial and its campus setting and cultural context changed significantly over the course of its development. No longer an object of commemoration, the statue was moved in 2015 and now forms part of a new exhibition that explores the statue's history, as well as its significance as both a work of art and evidence of the past.
NEILL-COCHRAN HOUSE MUSEUM ♦ www.nchmuseum.org The NCHM's major structural renovation is complete and, for the first time in 50 years, this Greek Revival mansion has bright paint, splendid wallpaper, and Cochran furnishings in new bedroom installations. Changing exhibitions highlight aspects of life in long-ago Austin, and art and artifacts from the House's period of interpretation complement adult lecture series and family programming, offering numerous reasons to visit and return.
If These Walls Could Talk (January 15 - November 22, 2020) OPEN Ginger Geyer's porcelain trompe-l'oeil sculptures of everyday objects placed throughout the Museum will set the stage for dialogues between Chlora (imaginary resident of the NCHM sometime in the past) and Ruby Virginia, her visiting friend, enacted by performance artist Jennifer Cumberbatch, dialogues between sculptor and actress, etc. Numerous special one-time events are planned, dependent on the success of fundraising for this milestone museum project that will be followed by a reinterpretation of the Museum's "Dependency," the 9th-oldest building in Austin and the only extant habitation/workspace used by enslaved laborers (who worked on the construction of the Neill-Cochran House Museum).
Watch NCHM website for information about the closing performance, "Make America Sing Again" -- this inspiring event took place on Nov 19, the anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
KIMBELL ART MUSEUM ♦ www.kimbellart.orgFlesh and Blood: Italian Masterpieces from the Capodimonte Museum (March 1 - June 14, 2020) Renowned Renaissance artists such as Titian and Raphael join Baroque masters including Artemisia Gentileschi, Jusepe de Ribera, Guido Reni, and Bernardo Cavallino to reveal the aspirations and limitations of the human body and the many ways it can express love and devotion, physical labor, and tragic suffering Queen Nefertari's Egypt (November 15, 2020 - March 28, 2021) Turner's Modern World (May 9 - September 5, 2021) The exhibition explores Turner’s lifelong interest in the inventions, events, politics, society, culture and science of his time, which resulted in many of his most original works and transformed his way of painting. Buddha, Shiva, Lotus, Dragon: The Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection( – nearly 70 of the finest examples of Asian art in the United States MODERN ART MUSEUM OF FORT WORTH ♦ www.themodern.org
Ruckus Rodeo (Jan 17 - Mar 29, 2020) Red Grooms' big work of 1975–76 is presented at the Modern to coincide with the 2020 Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show. Grooms’s immense, walk-through work of art covers 1,237 square feet of gallery space. This “sculpto-pictorama,” as Grooms has referred to it, consists of painted two-dimensional surfaces and sculptural three-dimensional figures that celebrate the Fort Worth rodeo.
Norman Rockwell: American Freedom (December 15, 2019 - March 22, 2020)
Rockwell's response to Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms
Glory of Spain: Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library (March 1 - May 25, 2020) 200 objects—spanning more than 4,000 years of Hispanic art and culture—from the renowned collections in New York City, founded by Anna Hyatt and Archer M. Huntington, founders of UT's art museum
THE PEARL MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS ♦ www.pearlmfa.org Stitched: Contemporary Quilt Art from the International Quilt Festival Collection (February 1 - May 16, 2020)
THE W. H. STARK HOUSE♦http://www.whstarkhouse.org/ The 14,000 square-foot three-story house built in 1894 by William Henry Stark and his wife, Miriam M. Lutcher Stark, prominent philanthropists who occupied the home until 1936, was designed in the Queen Anne architectural style. It house features a distinctive turret, stained glass windows, and ornate woodwork in cypress and long leaf yellow pine.
As a historic house museum (National Register of Historic Places) it is interpreted to c. 1900 with fifteen rooms of original family furnishings, personal effects and decorative arts, including antique rugs, original textiles, silver, cut glass, and antique porcelain. Also featured are the Stark family’s impressive collections of American Brilliant Period cut glass, pressed and pattern glass, milk glass, porcelains, and other 18th and 19th century decorative accessories.
The Ruiz House was the home of the city’s first schoolmaster
The Twohig House was built in 1841 by Irishman John Twohig
The Navarro House was built in 1835 by Jose Antonio Navarro
The Log Cabin was constructed in 1939 by 30 youths participating in President Roosevelt’s National Youth Administration program. The “dog trot” style cabin represents the type of cabin built by many Texas pioneers.
The Floating World (March 10- April 9, 2020) Japanese woodblock prints
Ginger Geyer, Make America Sing Again, 2018 (glazed porcelain; cf. Aretha Franklin at Obama Inauguration)
Diego Rivera, Sleep, 1932 Ilithograph)
Attractive Special Exhibitions beyond Texas Not meant to be a thorough list, just items of interest ... NB: Italics below are a glitch, not meaningful ...
Joaquin Sorolla, Valencia, 1909
BIG ANNIVERSARIES in ART HISTORY in 2020:
• Jan van Eyck (1390 - 1441) Flemish Gothic painter
Belgium has declared 2020 the Van Eyck Year with the unveiling of the restored Ghent Altarpiece and attendant studies (down to the age of the tree from which the panels came!)
The Covid-19 Pandemic has upended special exhibition calendar postings and most of what you see below has been cancelled or revised. It may disappear altogether and be replaced by a simpler arrangement.
In the meantime, here is a two-part list from November 2020 (US exhibitions + European exhibitions) from the AHNCA newsletter (Association of Historians of Nineteenth Century Art). Enjoy!
Rembrandt's Orient (October 31, 2020 - February 14, 2021)
The Dutch master never left the Netherlands, but travelled far afield in his imagination
BENTONVILLE Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art • crystalbridges.org including Frank Lloyd Wright's Bachman-Wilson House, 1957
BERKELEY Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive •https://bampfa.org/ Brave Warriors and Fantastic Tales: The World According to Yoshitoshi(through May 31)Subject of a "rave" article in the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 11, 2020 BERLINAlte Galerie •Decadence and Dark Dreams: Belgian Symbolism (September 18, 2020 - January 17, 2021) Paintings from fin-de-siècle BrusselsMartin Gropius Bau • www.gropiusbau.de BERN Kunstmuseum • www.kunstmuseumbern.ch BILBAO • www.guggenheim-bilbao.esGuggenheim Museum Bilbao
BLOOMINGTON Eskenazi Museum of Art (Indiana University) • https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/Facing the Revolution: Portraits of Women in France and the United States (March 25 - July 26, 2020) New artistic approaches to portraiture in the context of shifts from monarchical rule to republic Swing Landscape: Stuart Davis and the Modernist Mural (September 3 - December 20, 2020)The museum's 1938 mural, examined closely in the context of abstract murals in the Depression era. BONN Bundestkunsthalle • www.bundeskunsthalle.de BOSTON Museum of Fine Arts Boston •www.mfa.org/Boston Made: Arts and Crafts Jewelry and Metalwork (through March 29, 2020)
Quilts and the American Experience (working title) (October 11, 2020 - January 18, 2021) Strong Women in Renaissance Italy (working title) (October 28, 2020-February 21, 2021) BREMEN Kunsthalle • www.kunsthalle-bremen.de BROOKLYN Brooklyn Museum of Art • brooklynmuseum.org
Jacques-Louis David Meets Kehinde Wiley (through May 10, 2020) David's iconic portrait of Napoleon leading his army through the Alps is hung to make a direct comparison with Kehinde Wiley's "appropriation," by which he update traditions of ornament and how they poke at Enlightenment promises of universalism and freedom
CHICAGO Art Institute of Chicago• http://www.artic.edu Monet and Chicago (May 10 - September 7, 2020) El Greco: Ambition and Defiance (through June 21, 2020) Fabricating Fashion: Textiles for Dress, 1700–1825 (March 28 - July 26, 2020)
GAINESVILLE Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida • harn.ufl.edu
GHENTMuseum of Fine Arts (MSK) • https://www.mskgent.be/enVan Eyck: An Optical Revolution (February 1 - April 30, 2020)A worldwide tribute to Jan van Eyck (ca. 1390-1441) will exhibit most of Eyck's 20 known works alongside works by his most talented peers.
HAGUE Kunstmuseum Den Haag [formerly Gemeentemuseum] • www.kunstmuseum.nl Anders Zorn: The Swedish Idyll (October 10, 2020 - January 31, 2021) Zorn is known as a society painter for his glamorous portraits; this exhibition explores the paintings that record the customs of his homeland, including "genre" pictures of everyday life among the people of the countryside
Mauritshuis • https://www.mauritshuis.nl/ Only with Vermeer: The Most Beautiful Painting in the World (through January 3, 2021)
MINNEAPOLIS Minneapolis Institute of Art • https://new.artsmia.org/ Yoshitoshi: Master Draftsman Transformed (through April 12) Subject of a "rave" article in the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 11, 2020
Horace Pippin: From War to Peace (ongoing) Rodin Museum • rodinmuseum.orgRethinking the Modern Monument (ongoing) Applauded and despised in equal measure, Rodin’s public sculptures were viewed as a shocking departure from the methods used for centuries to pay homage to famous figures, and he changed the form forever. See many of the artist’s best-known sculptures alongside works by artists who came after, inspired by the radical intimacy of his public monuments. PORTLAND (Maine) Portland Museum of Art • www.portlandmuseum.orgTours of the Winslow Homer studio at Prout's Neck:Available from April through October, twice a day, on select days of the week (207) 775-6148
Van Gogh, Cézanne, Matisse, Hodler: The Hahnloser Collection (through May 24, 2020)
120-work exhibition presents an overview of this internationally unique collection of modern art, with works on loan from the fine art museums Kunstmuseum Bern and Kunst Museum Winterthur additionally serving to illuminate this collection’s exemplary cultural policy aspect.
True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780-1870 (Februrary 2 - May 3, 2020) 100 oil sketches made en plein air, the modern discipline that created a foundation for Impressionism
Raphael and His Circle (February 16 - June 14, 2020)
25 prints and drawings illustrating Raphael's art and influence; the NGA's five paintings by Raphael--the largest and most important group outside Europe--will be on view separately to complement the group of works on paper
Degas at the Opera (March 1 - July 5, 2020)
100 works in a range of media celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Opera's founding
A Superb Baroque: Art in Genoa, 1600-1750 (May 3 - August 16, 2020) International loan exhibition of 130 paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, drawings, prints
National Museum of Women in the Arts • www.nmwa.org/
Renwick Gallery
Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists (through May 17, 2020)
82 works from ancient times to the present, made in a variety of media and communicating the pwer of the colaborative process
Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, andulture (March 20 - August 16, 2020)
100 paintings, sculptures, maps, artifacts examinging Humboldt's impact on 5 spheres of American cultural development between 1804 and 1903: visual arts, sciences, literature, politics, exploration
Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists (through April 12, 2020)
Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists (February 21 - May 17, 2020) [Renwick Gallery]
WILMINGTON Delaware Art Museum • http://www.delart.org/ Howard Pyle Murals (through December 31, 2020) The complete set of nine mural panels painted by Howard Pyle (1853 – 1911) for the drawing room of his home at 907 Delaware Avenue, Wilmington, Delaware, semi-permanently installed in one of the Vinton Illustration galleries on the second floor of the Museum.
The Kimono in Print: 300 Years of Art and Design (March 28 - June 28, 2020)
YERRES,FRANCE--new museum: La Propriété Caillebotte à Yerres • http://proprietecaillebotte.com/en/ Part of a nice long day SE of Paris: Yerres, Barbizon, Moret-sur-Loing, Vaux-le-Vicomte, Fontainebleau
Romanticism in Switzerland (through February 14, 2021) A look at the spectacularly beautiful landscape art of Switzerland; "for Byron, the landscape of Switzerland made it 'the most Romantic region in the world'"
Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Armchair, 1884 (V&A)
Art inSight Inc. f. 1995; website 2007 designed by Kathy Kelly; Last update: November 24, 2020
