Michele Gordigiani, “Mrs. Cornelia Ward Hall and Her Children,” circa 1885, oil on canvas, 53½ by 68 inches. Museum of the City of New York, bequest of Mrs Martha Hall Barrett.
NEW YORK CITY — The 20th annual American art conference, “Insight and Inclusion: Expanding Visions of American Art,” will take place May 15–17 at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Treatises on American art long included canonized masters with a varying company of other artists, varying as tastes changed. “Overlooked by Richardson and Goodrich will be some of the earlier artists, as well as periods in the oeuvres of now-marginalized figures. And those who are diminished — consider, for example, Richardson’s view of the American Impressionists — or overlooked might well have their day in the work of subsequent historians, as would be the case of the American Impressionists in the writings of Wayne Craven,” the conference brochure states.
The conference seeks to challenge the idea of a static canon and look instead to a canon as being fluid, including the pillars of American art as well as those who might have once been included, then excluded from it as time passed.
Friday’s conference topics include “The Forgotten Origins of American Art” presented by Kimberly Orcutt, “Rembrandt Peale and the Problem with Yorktowne” by Paul Staiti, “Exhuming American Art: A Panel Discussion,” “Indian Combat: An Important New Discovery in Edmonia Lewis’ Oeuvre” by Mark Cole, “Hudson River Exotic: The Art and Travels of Henry Augustus Ferguson” by Jonathan Spies, “Thomas Hill, Painter of Yosemite and Beyond” by Alfred C. Harrison Jr., “Dressed to Impress: Decoding the Fashionables of Gilded Age Portraiture” by Phyllis Magidson, “Francois Davis Millet: Shining the Spotlight on a Renaissance Man.” The day concludes with a reception and viewing at Gerald Peters Gallery, 24 East 78th Street.
Saturday’s schedule includes the following talks, “Beyond the Clouds: Revisiting the Tonalist and Impressionist Landscapes of Charles H. Davis” by Valerie Ann Leeds, “From Pantry to Parlor: The Still Life Paintings of Emil Carlsen” by Susan G. Larkin, “Louis Comfort Tiffany and Lockwood de Forest: A Tale of Two Painters” by Roberta A. Meyer, “Unearthing Alson Skinner Clark and Jonas Lie: The Panama Canal and Beyond” by Jonathan Stuhlman, “Rethinking the Boundaries of Western American Art” by Thomas Brent Smith, “American Realism in the South, 1910–1940” by Nancy Rivard Shaw, “A Parallel History: The Hard-edge School in America After 1945” by William C. Agee, and “Miller, Marsh and Bishop Revisited” by Rebecca Lawton. The day concludes with a reception and private viewing of Bonhams’ American art at 580 Madison Avenue.
Sunday’s schedule features a brunch and private viewing at Godel & Co. Fine Art, 506 East 74th Street.
The conference fee is $350 but for Antiques And The Arts Weekly readers, a rate of $250 with the promo code THEBEE is in effect.
The Graduate Center is at 365 Fifth Avenue. To register online, https//insightandinclusion.eventbrite.com or for more information, info@artinitiatives.com
Edmonia Lewis, “Indian Combat,” 1868, marble, 30 by 19 by 143/8 inches, The Cleveland Museum of Art, American Painting and Sculpture Sundry Purchase Fund and purchase from the J.H. Wade Fund.
