Wednesday, March 23, 2016
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Suspend your Body from the Limbs of the Trees: 19th-Century Women Paint the American Landscape
Elizabeth H. Remington (1825-1917), The Two Kings: Corn and Cotton, 1876, oil on canvas. Clara S. Peck Fund. 2015.2
Lecture with Nancy Siegel, Professor of Art History, Towson University
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
6:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Rockwell Members: Free, Not-Yet-Members: $10, Students: $5
Online registration has closed. Space will be available at the door!
By the early decades of the nineteenth century, women traveled in increasing numbers to experience American scenery. Many of these women were inspired to paint professionally by the vast landscapes they saw. Increasingly, women painters achieved personal and financial success as artists, exhibiting their work at the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Boston Athenaeum to name but a few prestigious venues.
But who are these women? Beyond their supporting roles as wife, sister, niece, and daughter, these are artists who, until recently, have received little scholarly attention. The designation of professional artist was far more restrictive for women than their male counterparts, such as Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, and Frederic Church. This lecture explores the lives and careers of numerous women artists of the 19th century: some well-known, others recently discovered, and one current mystery – all reflecting the American landscape experience as it evolved throughout the century.
About the Speaker
Nancy Siegel is Professor of Art History at Towson University and specializes in American landscape studies, print culture, and culinary history of the 18th and 19th centuries. Her current project, Political Appetites: Revolution, Taste, and Culinary Activism in the Early Republic, investigates the intersection among American art and political/horticultural/culinary histories. This past summer she led the seminar, “Culinary Culture: The Politics of American Foodways, 1765-1900,” for the Center for Historic American Visual Culture at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA. She has authored/edited The Cultured Canvas: New Perspectives on American Landscape Painting (2012); River Views of the Hudson River School (2009); Within the Landscape: Essays on Nineteenth-Century American Art and Culture (2005); Along the Juniata: Thomas Cole and the Dissemination of American Landscape Imagery (2003); and The Morans: The Artistry of a Nineteenth-Century Family of Painter-Etchers (2001).
Her work has appeared in Gastronomica, The Burlington Magazine, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, and she has been the recipient of research grants and fellowships from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the American Antiquarian Society, Yale University, Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Culinary Historians of Chicago, the New York Public Library, and the State of New York.
Suspend your Body from the Limbs of the Trees: 19th-Century Women Paint the American Landscape
Elizabeth H. Remington (1825-1917), The Two Kings: Corn and Cotton, 1876, oil on canvas. Clara S. Peck Fund. 2015.2
Lecture with Nancy Siegel, Professor of Art History, Towson University
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
6:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Rockwell Members: Free, Not-Yet-Members: $10, Students: $5
Online registration has closed. Space will be available at the door!
By the early decades of the nineteenth century, women traveled in increasing numbers to experience American scenery. Many of these women were inspired to paint professionally by the vast landscapes they saw. Increasingly, women painters achieved personal and financial success as artists, exhibiting their work at the National Academy of Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Boston Athenaeum to name but a few prestigious venues.
But who are these women? Beyond their supporting roles as wife, sister, niece, and daughter, these are artists who, until recently, have received little scholarly attention. The designation of professional artist was far more restrictive for women than their male counterparts, such as Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, and Frederic Church. This lecture explores the lives and careers of numerous women artists of the 19th century: some well-known, others recently discovered, and one current mystery – all reflecting the American landscape experience as it evolved throughout the century.
About the Speaker
Nancy Siegel is Professor of Art History at Towson University and specializes in American landscape studies, print culture, and culinary history of the 18th and 19th centuries. Her current project, Political Appetites: Revolution, Taste, and Culinary Activism in the Early Republic, investigates the intersection among American art and political/horticultural/culinary histories. This past summer she led the seminar, “Culinary Culture: The Politics of American Foodways, 1765-1900,” for the Center for Historic American Visual Culture at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA. She has authored/edited The Cultured Canvas: New Perspectives on American Landscape Painting (2012); River Views of the Hudson River School (2009); Within the Landscape: Essays on Nineteenth-Century American Art and Culture (2005); Along the Juniata: Thomas Cole and the Dissemination of American Landscape Imagery (2003); and The Morans: The Artistry of a Nineteenth-Century Family of Painter-Etchers (2001).
Her work has appeared in Gastronomica, The Burlington Magazine, Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, and she has been the recipient of research grants and fellowships from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the American Antiquarian Society, Yale University, Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Culinary Historians of Chicago, the New York Public Library, and the State of New York.