Artists' Estates: Reputations in Trust, Lecture November 16

Chestertown, MD, November 1, 2005 — Washington College's Department of Art and Sophie Kerr Committee present "Artists' Estates: Reputations in Trust," a lecture by Magda Salvesen and Diane Cousineau, Wednesday, November 16, at 4:30 p.m. in the Casey Academic Center Forum. The event is free and open to the public.

Delving into a captivating facet of the art world, Salvesen and Cousineau will address the complicated issues involved in dealing with the paintings, prints, and sculpture left behind after an artist's death. Co-authors of Artists' Estates (Rutgers University Press, 2005), Salvesen, the widow of the second-generation Abstract Expressionist painter Jon Schueler, and Cousineau have brought together interviews with widows, companions, sons and daughters—as well as lawyers, gallery dealers, and foundation directors—to gain insight on this seldom discussed subject.

According to Professor Mary Ann Caws, "All sides of estate legacies issue surface here: studio situations, painting methods, tax issues, personal relations—you feel you know all the artists, freshly."

An independent art and garden historian, Salvesen co-edited with Cousineau The Sound of Sleat: A Painter's Life by Jon Schueler (Picador USA, 1999). Cousineau, a lecturer in English at Washington College, is also author of Letters and Labyrinths: Women Writing/Cultural Codes (University of Delaware Press, 1997).

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Sophie Kerr Committee, which works to carry on the legacy of the late Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, Md., whose generosity has done so much to enrich Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, Kerr left the bulk of her estate to the College, specifying that one half of the income from her bequest be awarded every year to the senior showing the most "ability and promise for future fulfillment in the field of literary endeavor" and the other half be used to bring visiting writers to campus, to fund scholarships, and to help defray the costs of student publications.