American Pictures Distinguished Lecture Series
About the Series
THE AMERICAN PICTURES DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES
offers a
highly original approach to art and portraiture. This annual series
pairs
great works of art with leading figures of contemporary American culture.
Each lecture features an eminent writer, critic, historian, or artist who
chooses
a single image and investigates its meanings. In the process,
he or she also
explores how works of art reflect American identity or
open a window into
our shared history. Most important, the series reveals
how artworks inspire
creativity in many different fields. The series
director is historian and essayist
Adam Goodheart, who is director of
the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the
American Experience at
Washington College.
AMERICAN PICTURES is made possible through a pioneering
partnership
among Washington College, the National Portrait Gallery,
and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Additional support comes from the Starr Foundation, the Hodson Trust,
the Hedgelawn
Foundation, and other donors.
Event & Ticket Information
Time: Lectures begin at 4:30 p.m. Doors open at 4:00 p.m.
Tickets: Free tickets are available in the G Street lobby beginning at 3:30 p.m.
Location: Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium, lower level
Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture
8th and G Streets, NW
Washington, DC
Accessibility: Barrier-free access is available at G Street entrance.
All areas of the museum are served by elevators.
Metro: Gallery Place/Chinatown (Red, Yellow and Green Lines)
Information: (202) 633-1000 or NPGPublicPrograms@si.edu
Websites: AmericanArt.si.edu, NPG.si.edu, starcenter.washcoll.edu
For the Washington College community: The Starr Center will be running free buses from Chestertown to Washington, D.C. for each of the three weekend events.
These trips will also include opportunities for special tours of the museums and dinner in Washington's trendy Penn Quarter.
To reserve free tickets for the American Pictures events and for information on the
free buses, please contact Joan Smith at the Starr Center: jendicott@washcoll.edu,
(410) 810-7161.
Series Partners
WASHINGTON COLLEGE
Founded in 1782 under the personal patronage of its namesake, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, upholds a tradition of excellence and innovation in the liberal arts. The American Pictures lecture series is a project of the college’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and its Department of Art and Art History. Support for the American Pictures Distinguished Lecture Series comes from the Starr Foundation, the Hodson Trust, the Hedgelawn Foundation, and other benefactors.
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
The American Art Museum, the nation’s first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character, and imagination of the American people from the colonial
period to today.
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
The National Portrait Gallery tells the stories of America through the individuals—
poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists—who have built our national culture. It is where the arts keep us in the company of remarkable Americans.
The museums share a meticulously renovated historical landmark building in the heart of DC’s cultural district. The building features expanded permanent collection galleries and innovative new public spaces. Collectively, the museums and their programs are known as the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture.
American Pictures Event Schedule
Saturday, April 10
James M. McPherson on Alexander Gardner’s Confederate Dead
by a Fence
on the Hagerstown Road, Antietam
America’s leading historian of the Civil War, James McPherson won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, a New York Times best seller that has since sold more than 600,000 copies. The success of Battle Cry of Freedom and other publications helped launch an unprecedented national renaissance of interest in the Civil War. McPherson was the consultant on the PBS documentaries The Civil War by Ken Burns and Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided and on the film Gettysburg. In 1991 the United States Senate appointed him to the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission, which determined major battle sites, evaluated their conditions, and recommended strategies for their preservation. McPherson was the George Henry Davis ’86 Professor of History at Princeton until his retirement. In 2007, he received the first Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for lifetime contributions to the field of military history.
Saturday, April 17
Jules Feiffer on Bob Landry’ s Fred Astaire in “Puttin’ on the Ritz”
Jules Feiffer has had a remarkable creative career turning contemporary urban anxiety into witty and revealing commentary for more than fifty years. From editorial cartoons to plays and screenplays, including Little Murders and Carnal Knowledge
, Feiffer’s satirical outlook has helped define us. The first cartoonist commissioned by The New York Times to create comic strips for its op-ed page, Feiffer has since shifted his focus toward writing and illustrating books for children and young adults. He has won a Pulitzer Prize for his cartoons; an Obie for his plays; an Academy Award for the animation of his cartoon satire, Munro; and lifetime achievement awards from the Writers Guild of America and the National Cartoonist Society. Feiffer presently teaches at Stony Brook Southampton College. His forthcoming memoir, Backing into Forward (March 2010), relates how persistent failure inspired him to reinvent himself as an artist over and over.
Saturday, May 1
David Hackett Fischer on Emanuel Leutze’s
Washington
Crossing the Delaware
One of our country’s foremost historians, David Hackett Fischer has described his work as “a deep affirmation of American values.” His books include Paul Revere’s Ride, a main selection of the History Book Club; Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, winner of the American Association of University Presses Prize for Overall Excellence; and Champlain’s Dream, the authoritative biography of French explorer and visionary Samuel de Champlain. Fischer received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Washington’s Crossing, an analysis of Washington’s battles in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. A graduate of Princeton and Johns Hopkins Universities, Fischer serves as the Earl Warren Professor of History at Brandeis, where he has taught since 1962. He is presently at work on two books, a comparative political history of the United States and New Zealand, and a history of the endurance of African folkways in America.
Credits:
Gardner, Alexander (1821-1882), photographer.
Confederate Dead by a Fence on the Hagerstown Road, Antietam, 1862
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
Reproduction Number LC-DIG-cwpb-01097
Landry, Bob, photographer.
Fred Astaire in "Puttin' on the Ritz," 1945
Time & Life Pictures - Getty Images
Leutze, Emanuel Gottlieb (1816-1868).
Washington Crossing the Delaware
Oil on canvass, 149 x255 in.
Gift of John Stewart Kennedy, 1897.
Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY
