Inaugural Janson-La Palme Lecture Addresses The Third Dimension In Italian Renaissance Art, March 24

Chestertown, MD, March 2, 2004 — The Washington College Department of Art presents the inaugural Janson-La Palme Annual Distinguished Lecture in European Art History, “Painting and the Third Dimension in Italian Renaissance Art,” a talk by Nicholas Penny, Senior Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, March 24, at 4:30 p.m., in the Casey Academic Center Forum. The event is free and the public is invited to attend.

Nicholas Penny was named Senior Curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the National Gallery of Art in September 2002, shortly before the public opening of the Gallery's 21 newly constructed sculpture galleries on the ground floor of the West Building. Penny assisted in the installation of more than 800 works in the new galleries and continues to oversee the growth of the sculpture department. Prior to joining the National Gallery in 2000, as the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Penny served as Clore Curator of Renaissance Painting at the National Gallery in London. From 1984 to 1989, he was keeper of the department of Western art at the Ashmolean Museum and was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford, 1980-1981. His publications include The Materials of Sculpture (Yale University Press, 1993); Raphael, co-authored with the late Roger Jones (Yale University Press, 1983); and Taste and the Antique, co-authored with the late Francis Haskell (Yale University Press, 1981).

In his lecture, Penny will address some aspects of the relationship—and rivalry—between sculpture and painting in the Italian Renaissance. In particular, he will explore the painter's practice of employing studies of different views made from the same model. Artists discussed will include Antonio Pollaiuolo, Perugino, Raphael, Titian and Tintoretto.

The Janson-La Palme Annual Distinguished Lecture in European Art History was established by Washington College Professor Emeritus Robert J. H. Janson-La Palme and his wife, Bayly, to bring internationally known scholars on European art to campus for public lectures and presentations. In his retirement, Dr. Janson-La Palme remains active in historic preservation, participates in national and international conferences in his field, and frequently contributes to Renaissance Quarterly.

For more information on upcoming lectures and events at Washington College, visithttp://calendar.washcoll.edu.