This series of lectures is held on Fridays at 1:30 p.m. with a repeat on Saturdays at 4 p.m. in the Brown Auditorium Theater. A reception to meet the speaker and a "Your Turn to Speak" tour follow each lecture.
April 4-5: "Shimmering Colors and Sliding Forms: John Singer Sargent's Venetian Watercolors"
John Singer Sargent's society portraits of the late 19th century encapsulated the Gilded Age and brought him international fame. Though it was in watercolor that Sargent found his true passion and immersed himself in beloved subjects, capturing informal scenes of nature, family, architecture and landscape from such diverse places as Italy, Northern Africa, the Middle East and United States. Venice held a particular fascination for the Italian-born American artist. The city's inherent aqueous character and glistening light was well-suited to Sargent's preferred medium, and he painted hundreds of watercolors of the city. Ignoring the sweeping panoramas and pageantry that enthralled his artistic predecessors, he captured vivid, unique slices of the city and its architecture with extraordinary fluidity. Kaylin Weber, assistant curator of American painting and sculpture, explores Sargent's private passion for watercolor and the beauty and technique of his famed Venetian watercolors.
April 11-12: "Braque among the Wild Beasts"
Together with Henri Matisse, André Derain, Albert Marquet and Maurice de Vlaminck, Georges Braque was one of the Wild Beasts who lit up the Paris art scene in 1905–07. However, as Houstonian art lovers familiar with the Beck Collection have noted, Braque's work underwent a fundamental change sometime between painting The Saint Martin Canal, 1906, and Fishing Boats, 1909–11. Looking at both paintings in the context of the large exhibition co-organized by the Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais in partnership with the Centre Pompidou and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Helga Aurisch will discuss and re-evaluate Braque's brief but important Fauve period.
April 25-26: "Georges Braque: The Rule That Corrects the Emotion"
"I like the rule that corrects the emotion" is one of Georges Braque's most celebrated aphorisms, yet he is also one of the most intuitive and unpredictable of painters. The coexistence of the Apollonian and the Dionysian that animates Braque's most powerful works is one the characteristics that sets him apart from his contemporaries and defines his achievement. Presented by Karen Wilkin, independent curator and critic.