Symposium Sponsored by the Providence Art Club
March 25, 9:30 am to 5:30 pm
Professional women artists and american visual culture during the late 19th century.
At the Historic First Baptist Church, Providence, RI
Symposium is Free but registration is advised as space limited.

Details and reservations at https://www.providenceartclub.org/marks
Symposium is organized by Anna Dempsey, Ph.D. UMass Dartmouth,
Associate Professor and Chair of the Art History Department.
Our Speakers
Kirsten Swinth, Ph.D., Director of American Studies and Chair of the Department of History at Fordham University. Swinth authored Painting Professionals: Women Artists & the Development of Modern American Art, 1870 – 1930.
Title: Painting Professionals: How Women Artists Remade the American Art World at the Turn of the Century Amanda C. Burdan, Ph.D., Associate Curator at the Brandywine River Museum of Art. Dr. Burdan’s 2006 Brown University dissertation Americaines in Paris: Women Artists in the Formation of America’s Cultural Identity, 1865 – 1880, is the foundation of her presentation.
Title: Paris, Providence, Putnam: Tracking Rosa Peckham Danielson Nancy Austin, Ph.D., design historian, educator and leadership coach based in Rhode Island for almost forty years. Dr. Austin’s presentation is based upon her ongoing research in the publication Infinite Radius: Founding Rhode Island School of Design, 2008.
Title: Leadership and Women Founders: Rhode Island School of Design, 1877 and the Providence Art Club, 1880.
Laura Prieto, Ph.D., Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Department Chair of History, Simmons College. Dr. Prieto authored At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America.
Title: The Art of Protest: Women Artists and the Suffrage Movement Laura Franz, Professor of Graphic Design, UMass Dartmouth.
Title: From Eleanor Talbot to Eliza Gardiner Art and Design as Women’s Work, 1880 – 1920. Memory Holloway, Ph.D., Professor of Art History, UMass Dartmouth. Dr. Holloway is a renowned modernist, leading expert on Pablo Picasso’s late works, Paula Rego’s drawings.
Title: Helen Watson Phelps: Between Two Lights, Paris and Japan.
To round out the day-long event, Nancy Whipple Grinnell, Newport Art Museum Curator Emerita, will moderate a Collectors’ Panel featuring four panelists who are passionate about their collecting interests. They are: Sheila Robbins, Newton, MA, a collector of 19th century American art; Kenneth Woodcock, of Washington, D.C. and Matunuck, RI, a collector of Hale family art that includes work by Ellen Day Hale and Lillian Westcott Hale; Dan Mechnig, of Providence, RI, a collector of 19th Century Rhode Island art; and John G. Hagan, Wellesley, MA, private art consultant and dealer with a specialty in 19th century American women artists.