This year we are excited to have Professor Hank Steffens back to deliver several art history lectures at the Gallery. His lectures were very popular (selling out!) in 2018.

If you would like to purchase tickets please contact Tom Izod at 910-274-2450 or tpizod@ec.rr.com

# 12 – Wed. 19 June 2019

“Early 20^th Century European Women Artists”

The “Blue Rider” group in Munich and groups of Expressionists elsewhere in Germany included important women artists. Artists like Gabriele Munter, Marianne von Werefkin and Paula Monderson Becker were valued and accepted members of their artistic groups. We will look briefly at the art of these women. Although they were respected by their fellow artists, they were, and still are, relatively unknown.

#13 – Wed. 17 July 2019

“American Realism and Thomas Eakins”

Portraits and landscapes of ‘The New Eden’ had been the core of American Realist painting. Thomas Eakins, a lifelong Philadelphian and important and controversial teacher, introduced new subjects, new techniques and new approaches to both portrait and landscape painting. He, and his students, shocked Americans by painting from the nude, and learning the details of anatomy. His landscapes focused upon urban life and his portraits had psychological meaning in addition to superficial likeness.

# 14 – Wed. 14 August 2019

“Winslow Homer”

Winslow Homer was taught lithography and engraving as a trade before the Civil War. During the War he became a successful magazine and newspaper illustrator.  After the War he taught himself water color and oil painting. He remained true to Realist painting, but chose his own subjects and painted them with his own unique style. His seascapes and scenes of Americans outdoors, made him one of America’s most important painters.

# 15 – Wed. 11 December 2019

“New Art comes to America – ‘Ash Can School’ and the Armory Show”

The ‘Ash Can School’ of artists painted a new Urban Realism. They took an interest in the realities of life in the crowded, urban, industrial environment of America’s rapidly growing cities. They painted life as they saw it in the city, teeming with traffic, commerce and immigrants. These were new subjects and new themes for American Realist painters.

 In addition, most American artists were unaware of the changes occurring in European art at the beginning of the 20^th century. Only a few traveled abroad, and the interests they brought home were created mainly by Impressionism. The Armory Show in NYC in 1913 shocked American artists and made them aware of the profound changes that had occurred in both European and American art in the first part of the 20^th century.