Art inSight Inc., Adventures in Art History

Founded 1995

Art inSight

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Meet Art inSight Teacher and Guide Karen Pope


Karen Pope, Art Historian -- a description

Karen Pope, PhD in History of Art (University of Texas 1981) is a popular lecturer in and around Austin on diverse topics.  With expertise especially in the art of Europe and America in the 19th and 20th centuries, she strives to make art history accessible and enjoyable for audiences of all levels.

In 2000, she accepted an invitation to teach art history full time at Baylor University in the new Allbritton Art Institute, which supported emphasis on the art of the 19th and 20th centuries.  [The AAI left Baylor in 2022 and hopes to be revitalized at another university.] Retirement from Baylor in May 2015 has allowed her to give full-time attention to Art inSight programs!

Karen has maintained her commitment to liberal arts education by serving a 6-year term as an Alumni Trustee of her alma mater, Colorado College; in 2021 she presented CC with a gift of 100 Japanese woodblock prints in honor of the College's partnership with the historic Fine Arts Center of Colorado Springs; and dedicated a scholarship in art history in observance of her 50th class reunion.

From designing and conducting art history programs for the University of Texas fine arts community in the early 1980s, her enthusiasm and proficiency for guiding interested adults through the history of art led, in January 1995, to the creation of Art inSight Inc.  In its 28th year, Art inSight enjoys art history friendships around Austin, around Central Texas, and around the country.  Many of these friends look forward to studying and traveling together from year to year and are building their knowledge of art history by recognizing connections from one tour to the next--historic periods, great artists, compelling themes.


Document
Current resumé, 6 pages
 


Barbara Newey, creator of Art Wise Texas, has joined Karen in her "adventures in art history" enterprise with the vision that the adventures will increase in number and art-historical range. 
Expect to meet Barbara and get to know her on forthcoming Art inSight ventures.  If you see offerings from Art Wise Texas, they will involve many of the same features you know from Art inSight programs.  

More about Barbara on her website: https://www.artwisetx.com/

It is my sincere hope that Barbara's interest, energy and talents will perpetuate art history opportunities for the good friends who have shared my enthusiasms over the years.

Karen



MORE FAN MAIL

"She is elegantly informed and articulate.  I adore her."  (D. B., Austin)

"Thank you for refreshing us on the importance of where we have been."  (J. P., Austin)

"Your lecture series is one of the best and most fun things that I do.  I always look forward."  (K. S., Austin)

"Have really enjoyed being a part of the lectures.  This is the silver lining to COVID!!" (G. G., Houston)

"That [Judy Chicago's Dinner Party] was more interesting than I expected.  I always learn so much.  Thanks and looking forward to next year."  (K. Z., Austin)"Outstanding Karen. Such research.  Stimulating."  (J. S., Austin)

"I want to return to Paris to visit each point of interest you labeled on your maps.  Thank you for all the research you include in your presentations."  (P. H., Decatur)

"Each time, I think this one is the best ever and my favorite and then, the next time you supersede the previous.  Brava, my friend."  (B. A., Austin)

"They say the secret to staying young is to pursue your passion for as long as you can.  You do that in spades!  Thank you for keeping us inspired with your detailed and upbeat lectures, trips and tips.  It was especially helpful this past year." (L. C., Austin)


"Thank you for the wonderful lectures that are helping all of us get through this time by focusing us on the beautiful in life. Thank God for art and for those who make it come alive for us."  (M. O., Austin)


"If I'd had a professor like her, I might have majored in Art History.  Her enthusiasm and "down to earth" manner are contagious."  (C. A., Fort Worth)



 
FAN MAIL

"I always am happier, nourished intellectually and emotionally, and grateful for your lectures." (G. N., Austin)
"Thank you for your fabulous presentation. It was so interesting, and I loved the history both old and new. It was fascinating! I just wish it could have been in person so you could see our reactions and gratitude."  (B. J., Austin, about a Zoom meeting during the Covid-10 pandemic)

"This has been a fabulous morning with you.  Loved it all.  Thank you."  (N. P., Austin)  [re Zooming during the Covid pandemic] 

"You amaze me always with your mastery of the material and your ability to present it so vivaciously."  (JH, Austin)

"The lecture yesterday was marvelous.  It's wonderful to finally sort out the intentions of modern artists and to learn how they fit into 20th century art history.  It's a century I've known little about; am so glad to have such an experienced and knowledgeable instructor showing the way!"    (LJ, Austin)

"What a marvelous trip it was!  M--- has enthused about your trips and talks, and now I am able to join you and understand what she takes away from going with you.  I will look forward to the next time."  (JM, Austin)

"Thank you, Karen, for organizing and leading us through so many magnificent places!  Life-changing experiences!"
(LGW, Austin)


"Thank you for enriching 2015 for me.  The monthly lectures plus the three great trips as well as the most recent day trip--all great adventures in art, history, and beauty.  Hard to pick a favorite day or moment.  So many great memories!"
(AL, Wimberley)

"I have to say that you just get better and better.  The information is interesting, well presented and elicits an interest and hunger to see whatever you’re talking about." ( AL, Austin)

The trip was fabulous as always.  Never disappointed on a KP trip.  (KF, Austin)

Thank you for an amazing trip!!  I’m still trying to process all that wonder!!!   (KO, Austin)

Totally enjoyed today's program, so much good information and friendship.  (CM, Austin)

I want . . .to tell you how much I enjoyed your lifelong learning course.  It was a subject I thought I knew something about, but it turns out I knew almost nothing.  Until now!  (PP, Waco)

'Looking forward to another year of great presentations and engaging company.  (ND, Austin)

"Many thanks for all your time and effort planning these art trips.  They're truly a joy."  (EW, Austin)

"I’m suffering from Zoom fatigue and it was a pleasure to be able to watch this at leisure on my own schedule and even replay parts I wanted to hear again."  (JB, Austin)

Looking forward to another fascinating lecture.  You are helping us all get through this tedious quarantine!  (SD, Houston)

heryl Farley," Japan & the West" 2017 tour member, smiles with the recognition that she's found the subject of a woodblock print we've carried along on the pilgrimage to the top of Nikko
Serendipity struck in 2010:

I sent a little fan mail to Jenness Cortez, a contemporary painter of trompe l'oeil still life images, in which famous paintings appear as the centerpieces of thoughtful thematic arrangements of varied objects.  In response came an invitation to write about the paintings, and we struck an agreement.  I met the artist in her Florida gallery in January, began to write ... visited her studio near Albany, New York, in May, where we made the final selection of 54 paintings from a series of more than 120 pictures ... enjoyed a cordial and efficient editing process by email ... the book has been published ... and in 2012, the book received the Independent Publisher Book Award for "Most Original Concept," one of 12 awardees out of 5,023 entries!

http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1535

Thanks to Mary Douthit (now at Crystal Bridges), Homage to the Creative Spirit is available at the Blanton shop.

Several friends offered guidance and shared reflections as I worked; thanks to my art friends for your great support!

Karen

UPDATE 2020-21: During the Covid pandemic, Jenness began to post "Homage" segments on YouTube, each dedicated to one of her works, its imagery, inspiration, and meanings.  Find her on YouTube!



A FEW GOOD BOOKS (mostly art-history-related), alpha by author

Stephen Ambrose, Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, 1997

(Jane Austen binge, in preparation for "Victoria & Victorians" study tour, July 2017)
Jane Austen, Love and Freindship, 1790
Jane Austen, Lady Susan, 1794

Jane Austin, Sense and Sensibility, 1811

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814
Jane Austen, Emma, 1815
Jane Austen, Persuasion, 1817
Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, 1817

Dore Ashton, About Rothko, 1983

Dave Barry, Dave Barry Does Japan, 1993


Mary Beard, Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations, 2013

Hans Belting, The Germans and Their Art: A Troublesome Relationship, 1998

Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, The Personal Librarian, 2021
[fictionalized life of Belle da Costa Greene, curator and 1st director of the Morgan Library]

Christopher Benfey, The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan, 2003
Christopher Benfey, Degas in New Orleans: Encounters in the Creole World of Kate Chopin and George Washington Cable, 1999

John Berendt, The City of Falling Angels, 2005 [Venice the city, society, La Fenice fire and aftermath]

John Berger, The Success and Failure of Picasso, 1965

Isabel Bird, Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, 1880

Ulrich Boser, The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft, 2009

T. C. Boyle, The Women, 2008 [in the life of Frank Lloyd Wright]

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, 1847

(Discovered in time to read before seeing the Lewis Chessmen in Edinburgh, 2016)
Nancy Marie Brown, Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of the Most Famous Chessmen in the World and the Woman Who Made Them, 2015
Nancy Marie Brown,
The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman, 2008
Nancy Marie Brown, The Saga of Gudrid the Far-Traveler, 2015
Nancy Marie Brown, Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths, 2014

Bill Bryson, At Home, 2010

Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization, 1995 (The Hinges of History, volume 1), 
Thomas Cahill, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (Hinges series, volume 4)
Thomas Cahill, Mysteries of the Middle Ages and the Beginning of the Modern World, 2006 (The Hinges of History, volume 5)
Thomas Cahill, Heretics and Heroes: How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created Our World, 2013 (TH/H vol 6)

Charles Calhoun, Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life, 2004

Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark, 1915

Lynne Cheney, James Madison: A Life Reconsidered, 2014

William Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone, 1868

Joan Breton Connelly, The Parthenon Enigma, 2014 (reinterpretation of famed Parthenon Frieze)

Cathy Davidson, 36 Views of Fuji: On Finding Myself in Japan, 2006

Deborah Davis, Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X (2004)

Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See, 2014

Edward Dolnick, The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone, 2021

Charles Dunn, Everyday Life in Traditional Japan, 2008

Natalie Dykstra, Clover Adams A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life, 2012

Robert Edsel, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, 2010

Cliff Edwards, Van Gogh and God: A Creative Spiritual Quest, 2002

Joseph Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, 1998

Bruce Feiler, Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths, 2005
Bruce Feiler, Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan, 2004
Bruce Feiler, Looking for Class, 1993 [investigates the enduring mystique of Oxford and Cambridge]

Gustave Flaubert, A Sentimental Education, 1869

Carol Flinders, Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics, 1993
[Clare of Assisi, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, Catherine of Genoa, Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux]

Gillian Gill, Mary Baker Eddy, 1998
Gillian Gill, Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale, 2005

Katherine Govier, The Printmaker's Daughter, 2010  [reconstructs the life of Hokusai]

Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, 2011

Gloria Groom, et al.  Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, 2012

S. G. Gwynn, Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, 2010

Stephen Harrigan, Remember Ben Clayton, 2012

Lucinda Hawksley, Lizzie Siddal: the Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel, 2009

Erica Hirshler, Sargent's Daughters: The Biography of a Painting, 2009 [Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, MFA Boston]
Erica Hirshler, William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master, 2016

Christopher Hitchens, Mortality, 2012
Christopher Hitchens, The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification (Updated), 2008

Christopher Hitchens, Imperial Spoils: The Curious Case of the Elgin Marbles, 1988

Nancy Horan, Under the Wide and Starry Sky: A Novel, 2014 [the life of Robert Louis Stevenson and his American wife]

Hugh Howard, The Painter's Chair, 2009 [George Washington and his portraitists]

Henry James, Daisy Miller, 1878

Kathleen Jones, Christina Rossetti: Learning Not to Be First, 2011

Jill Jonnes, Eiffel's Tower, and the World's Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count, 2010

Thomas Kasulis, Shinto: The Way Home, 2004

Ross King, Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism, 2006
Ross King, Leonardo and the Last Supper, 2013 --  good preparation for 2018 Milan study tour
Ross King, Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling, 2003
Ross King, Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies, 2016
Ross King, Brunelleschi's Dome:
 How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture, 2000

Joseph Leo Koerner, Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape, 2009

Min Jim Lee, Pachinko, 2017

Eunice Lipton, Looking into Degas: Unesasy Images of Women and Modern Life, 1986

Pierre Loti, Madame Chrysanthème, 1887 [A French officer experiencing Japanese life]

Albert Lubin, Stranger on the Earth: A Psychological Biography of Vincent Van Gogh, 1996

Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of a Nation, 2014

Fiona MacCarthy, The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones, 2011

Rory MacLean, Berlin: Portrait of a City through the Centuries, 2014

Fiona Maddocks, Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age, 2001

Debra Mancoff, Fashion in Impressionist Paris, 2012
Debra Mancoff, Jane Morris, The Pre-Raphaelite Model of Beauty, 2000

Megan Marshall, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, 2013

David McCullough, The Great Bridge, 1972 [Exhaustive, fascinating story of the Brooklyn Bridge]
David McCullough, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, 2011
David McCullough, 1776, 2005
David McCullough, John Adams, 2008

John McKinstry and Harold Kerbo, Japanese Society and History, 2010

Yukio Mishima, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, 1956
Yukio Mishima, The Sound of Waves, 1994

Frederic Morton, A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888-1889, 1979

Franny Moyle, Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites, 2011

Susan Nagel, Mistress of the Elgin Marbles: A Biography of Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin, 2005

Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander, 1969

Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea, 1904

Robin Oliveira, I've Always Loved You: A Novel, 2014 [Cassatt and Degas]

Lucy Paquette, The Hammock: A Novel Based on the True Story of French Painter James Tissot, 2012

Ellis Peters, The Cadfael Chronicles, Chronicle #1: A Morbid Taste for Bones, 2014
                                                   Chronicle #2: One Corpse Too Many, 2014
                                                   Chronicle #3: Monk's Hood, 1980

                  (Fun background reading for the 2019 Art inSight study tour to Wales)

P.J.A.N. Rietbergen, A Short History of the Netherlands From PreHistory to the Present Day, 6th edition 2004

Virginia Rounding, Grandes Horizontales: the Lives and Legends of Four Nineteenth-Century Courtesans, 2003

Aline Saarinen, The Proud Possessors, 1958

Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, 1997

Sir Walter Scott, The Heart of Midlothian, 1818
Sir Walter Scott, The Talisman, 1825
Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, 1820

Russell Shorto, Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City, 2013 (prep for Amsterdam study tour, Fall 2018)
Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony 
                      That Shaped America, 2005 (prep for Hudson River study tour, Spring 2018)

Dominic Smith, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos: A Novel, 2016
Dominic Smith, The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre: A Novel, 2007

Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love, 2000

Peter Stark, Astoria: Astor and Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Tale of Ambition and Survival on the Early American Frontier, 2015

Robert Sullivan, My American Revolution: A Modern Expedition through History's Forgotten Battlegrounds, 2013 [organized by all the sites visible from the Empire State Building]

Junichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters, 1948 [fortunes of a declining family of sisters in Japan c.1941]

Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch, 2014

Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow, 2016

Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen: A Life, 1997

Dawn Tripp, Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O'Keeffe, 2016

Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now, 1875

Harlow Unger, Lafayette, 2003

Susan Vreeland, Clara and Mr Tiffany, 2011
Susan Vreeland, The Luncheon of the Boating Party, 2007 [Renoir’s painting]
Susan Vreeland, The Passion of Artemisia, 2001 [Artemisia Gentileschi]

Edmund de Waal,  The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, 2010
     [alternate title: The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss]
Edmund de Waal, The White Road: Journey into an Obsession, 2015
Edmund de Waal, Letters to Camondo, 2021

Dennis Washburn, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon [1002], addressing the historic translation by Arthur Waley [1928], 2011

Heather Webb, Rodin's Lover, 2015 [Camille Claudel]

A. N. Wilson, Victoria: A Life (2014) 

Andrea Wulf, Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation, 2012

Emile Zola, The Ladies' Paradise, 1873 (translations may vary) see  PBS Masterpiece series, "The Paradise"
Emile Zola, The Masterpiece, 1886 (Zola's assessment of Impressionism and plein-air painting)

 




Art inSight Inc. f. 1995; website 2007 designed by Kathy Kelly;  Last update: March 12, 2023