2009
Lecture Series
Winter-Spring ▪
Summer-Fall
The Albany Institute of
History & Art 2009 Lecture Series is supported by a grant from the New
York Council for the Humanities. Additional support is provided by
74 State.
All lectures, book signings, and performances are free and open to the
public. Museum admission is not included. Times and dates may be subject
to change. Call (518) 463-4478 for more information.
Lecture
Richard Rand
Dove/O'Keeffe: Circles of Influence
July 16, 2009–6:00
pm
Richard Rand, the Senior Curator of the
Sterling and Francine
Clark Art Institute, explores Georgia O'Keeffe's life and friendship
with modernist painter Arthur Dove, and his role in the development of
her early abstractionist paintings. The evocative paintings of flowers
and southwestern landscapes by Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) have long
defined her role as a distinctly American icon and one of the most
significant artists of the 20th century. Yet a vital factor in her early
development is frequently overlooked: from the outset of her career in
the 1910s, O'Keeffe credited the work of Arthur Dove (1880–1946) as her
primary introduction to modern art. Dove, acknowledged as America's
first abstract painter, used colorful, dynamic forms to reflect his
sensitive communion with the physical world.
The exhibition
Dove/O'Keeffe: Circles of Influence is on view at
The Clark through September 7, 2009.
Left: Georgia O'Keeffe, Jack-in-Pulpit - No. 2, 1930. Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 in. (101.6 x 76.2 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Bequest of Georgia O'Keeffe [Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.]
LECTURE AND BOOK
SIGNING
Richard H. Gassan
Assistant Professor of History, American University of Sharjah
The Birth of American Tourism: New York, the Hudson Valley, and American
Culture, 1790–1830
July 30, 6:00 pm
Today, the idea of traveling within the United States for leisure
purposes is so commonplace it is hard to imagine a time when tourism was
not a staple of our
cultural life. Yet, as Richard H. Gassan persuasively demonstrates, at
the beginning
of the 19th century, travel for leisure was strictly an aristocratic
luxury beyond
the means of ordinary Americans. It wasn't until the second decade of
the century
that the first middle-class tourists began to follow the lead of the
well-to-do,
making trips up the Hudson River Valley north of New York City, and in a
few cases beyond. At first just a trickle, by 1830 the tide of tourism
had become a
flood, a cultural change that signaled a profound societal shift as the
United States stepped onto the road that would eventually lead to a
modern consumer society.
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