Janson-La Palme Lecture Addresses French Painting in the Age of Napoléon

Chestertown, MD — The Washington College Department of Art and Art History presents the Janson-La Palme Annual Distinguished Lecture in European Art History, "Composition and Decomposition in Girodet's 'Revolt of Cairo'," a lecture by Thomas Crow, Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, in the Casey Academic Center Forum on Thursday, April 17, at 4:30 p.m. The event is free, and the public is invited to attend.

One of the world's most prominent art historians, Thomas Crow was until his recent appointment (2007) at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, the Director of the Getty Research Institute in California, a position he had held since 2000. At the same time, he was Professor of the History of Art at the University of Southern California.

Before that, Professor Crow was Robert Lehman Professor of the History of Art at Yale University (1996-2000), where he was Chair of the Department from 1997 onwards; Professor and Chair in the History of Art at the University of Sussex, UK (1990-1996); Associate Professor of the History of Art at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1986-1990); Assistant Professor of Art and Archeology at Princeton University (1980-1986); and Assistant Professor of the History of Art at the University of Chicago (1978-1980).

Dr. Crow is the author of many books, including Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Yale University Press, 1985); Emulation: Making Artists for Revolutionary France (Yale University Press, 1995; revised edition with new afterword, Emulation: 2006);Modern Art in the Common Culture (Yale University Press, 1996); The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent (Abrams, 1996; Yale University Press and Laurence King, 2005); and The Intelligence of Art (Bettie Allison Rand Lectures in Art History)(University of North Carolina Press, 2000).

Dr. Crow is the recipient of many honors and awards, including a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship; the Charles Rufus Morey Prize of the College Art Association; the Eric Mitchell Prize for the best first book in the history of art; being named the Durning-Lawrence Lecturer at University College, London; being named the Clifford Lecturer, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies; and being named a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among others. He is a contributing editor of Artforum and a member of the National Committee for the History of Art.

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.

Previous lecturers in the series include Nicholas Penny (presently Director, National Gallery of London), Jonathan Brown (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU), the late Robert Rosenblum (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, and Guggenheim Museum), and Paul Barolsky (University of Virginia). The speaker for 2010 will be Peter Humfrey (St. Andrews University, Scotland).

March 27, 2008