Artists Castro and Sears Featured in "Sight Specific" Exhibit at Kohl Gallery

CHESTERTOWN – Two artists explore relationships between art and its physical surroundings in a new exhibit opening Saturday, April 3, at the Kohl Art Gallery on the Washington College campus. Alex Castro, artist, architect, exhibition and book-designer in residence in the Department of Art and Art History, has collaborated with visiting assistant professor of studio art  Ricky Sears to produce “Sight Specific,” an exhibition of more than a dozen paintings, sculptures and installations. The works include both new and previously displayed works. “We are playing with the relationship of ‘sight’ and ‘site’ as it relates to art,” says Sears. “Some of the works are being created on site, and others are creating imagined sights.”

Castro’s contributions to “Sight Specific” are what he describes as situations derived from a larger, long-term project. Labeled “Smith,” that ongoing work involves both writing and visual art and explores the idea of the artist/everyman and his relationship to the apparent physical world.

Castro received his undergraduate degree in art and literature at Yale University and received his master’s degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.  His work has been shown at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and it is also in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and numerous private collections.

One of his larger works, Liberty Garden, a 3/4 acre commissioned public artwork, is located on Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Castro is a lifetime member of the board of Yaddo, an artists' working community in Saratoga Springs, NY., and serves on both the Maryland and Baltimore City Public Art Commissions. He is the design architect of the American Visionary Art Museum and the Charles Theater in Baltimore.

             Ricky Sears says his artworks respond to his experience of living in a built environment always under construction. “I use wood and glass windows extracted from urban and suburban homes to make oil paintings and sculptures suggesting the illusion of suburban spaces,” he explains.

Born in Washington D.C., Sears earned his bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Maryland in 2003 and three years later completed his master’s in fine art at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He has exhibited in New York at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and at Rochester Contemporary Art Center.  Sears’ sculpture “Waterfront” is included in the Public Art Network’s 2008 Year in Review, completed during the 2007 Emerging Artist Fellowship at Socrates Sculpture Park (N.Y.C.). His first solo exhibit in 2008 in California, “The Lines are Drawn,” was listed in the Los Angeles Times as one of  “Eight Things Not to Miss” the week it opened. (For more information, visit www.rickysears.com.)

The Kohl Art Gallery is located on the first floor of the Gibson Center for the Arts at Washington College, 300 Washington Avenue. “Sight Specific: Works by Alex Castro and Ricky Sears” runs April 3 through 17.  An opening reception will be held Saturday, April 3, from 4 to 6 p.m.  Gallery hours are Tues., 2 to 8 p.m., Wed. through Fri., 2 to 5 p.m., and Sat., 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Closed Sunday and Monday.)

Cartoonist Jules Feiffer Headlines American Pictures Series at the Smithsonian

CHESTERTOWN, MD – On Saturday, April 17, the 2010 “American Pictures” series continues when Jules Feiffer, one of the nation’s best-loved satirists, explores Bob Landry’s visually thrilling photograph “Fred Astaire in ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz,’ 1945”.

A joint program of Washington College, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the “American Pictures” series offers a highly original approach to the visual arts, pairing great works of art with leading figures of American culture. This spring's all-star line-up features a trio of Pulitzer Prize-winners: Feiffer, Civil War historian James McPherson (who appeared on April 10), and cultural historian David Hackett Fischer, who will appear on Saturday, May 1. Each speaker chooses a single powerful image and investigates its meanings, revealing how artworks reflect American identity and inspire creativity in many different fields. The series director is historian and essayist Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the college's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

Jules Feiffer is an award-winning cartoonist, screenwriter, and playwright whose satirical outlook has helped define contemporary American society. From his Village Voice editorial cartoons to his plays and screenplays, (Little Murders and Carnal Knowledge) to books for children and young adults, (The Man in the Ceiling, A Room with a Zoo) Feiffer has had a remarkable creative career. His illustrations in the perennial children’s classic, The Phantom Tollbooth, continue to delight readers of all ages almost 50 years after the book’s debut. Feiffer’s memoir, Backing into Forward (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday), was released earlier this month to critical acclaim. The New York Times called the book “funny, acerbic, subversive, fiercely attuned to the absurdities in [Feiffer’s] own life and the county at large.”

In 1997, Feiffer became the first cartoonist commissioned by the New York Times to create comic strips for the paper’s Op-Ed page. He won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1986 and an Academy Award for his animated short, Munro, in 1961. He has also received the George Polk Award for his cartoons, an Obie for his plays and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Writer’s Guild of America and the National Cartoonists Society. He has been honored with major retrospectives at the New-York Historical Society, the Library of Congress and The School of Visual Art.

All “American Pictures” events take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, located at 8th and F Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C. Feiffer’s talk will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the museums’ Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium. Tickets are available in the F Street lobby, beginning at 3:30 p.m. No reservations are necessary for the general public.

Students, alumni, faculty, staff, and friends of Washington College may reserve tickets to this and the other “American Pictures” events on a first-come, first-served basis. The Starr Center is also running free buses from Chestertown to Washington for each talk. For details, please call 410-810-7165 or e-mail lkitz2@washcoll.edu. For more information on the American Pictures series, visit starrcenter.washcoll.edu.


About the Sponsors

Founded in 1782 under the personal patronage of its namesake, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, upholds a tradition of excellence and innovation in the liberal arts. The American Pictures series is a project of the college’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and its Department of Art and Art History.

The National Portrait Gallery tells the stories of America through the individuals—poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists—who have built our national culture. It is where the arts keep us in the company of remarkable Americans.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation’s first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people from the colonial period to today.

Acclaimed Historian Richard Beeman To Explore The Life And Legacy Of Patrick Henry At Washington College

CHESTERTOWN – Historian Richard Beeman, author of one of the most comprehensive biographies of Patrick Henry ever produced, will explore the life and legacy of this Revolutionary patriot and noted statesman at Washington College’s Hynson Lounge, Hodson Commons, on Tuesday, April 6, at 5:00 pm.

Patrick Henry is an icon in the national imagination, but most Americans’ knowledge of his life begins and ends with his famous, and possibly apocryphal, call for “liberty or death.” Though he is remembered primarily as a great orator, Henry had a vibrant intellectual life and was a sophisticated political philosopher. In the talk, Beeman will address the complexities of Henry’s approach to religion, politics, and the federal Constitution, which he considered an “extremely pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous” departure from revolutionary principles.

Beeman is Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of several books on revolutionary America, including Patrick Henry: A Biography (1974), a finalist for the National Book Award. His most recent book, Plain Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution, published by Random House, is a finalist for the 2010 George Washington Book Prize– co-sponsored by Washington College, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Beeman recently appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to discuss the book and the compromises surrounding the drafting of the Constitution.

Former Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, Beeman is a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center and serves as Vice-Chair of the Center's Distinguished Scholars Panel. He is also a member of the scholarly advisory board of the American Revolution Center. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Huntington Library, and he has served as Vyvian Harmsworth Distinguished Professor of American History at Oxford University.

Beeman’s talk is cosponsored by the Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture of the Louis L. Goldstein Program in Public Affairs and the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, and is free and open to the public.

Washington College, KC Arts Council Present Third Annual Kent County Poetry Festival

Chestertown, MD — Washington College and the Kent County Arts Council will present the third annual "Kent County Poetry Festival: A Day of Public Poetry in Celebration of National Poetry Month" at the Book Plate, 112 South Cross Street, on Friday, April 2, from 4 to 7 p.m.

People from throughout the county will gather to read aloud their favorite lines from the world of verse—a reminder that poetry, rather than being some rarefied specimen, is in fact a vital, living art with widespread appeal.

Sign-up sheets for festival participation have been posted at various locations throughout the county, and advance sign-up is requested; persons interested in participating also may e-mail poetry@washcoll.edu to become part of the readers' roster.

"This program is in the spirit of the 'Favorite Poem Project' pioneered by Robert Pinsky when he was Poet Laureate of the United States," said Christopher Ames, Provost and Dean of Washington College.

"The goal is to bring together diverse peoples in our community around the poetry people know and love to share and, in doing so, debunk the idea that poetry is just something for academics to study. During National Poetry Month, we want to illustrate the role that poetry can have in enriching our everyday lives."

People are welcome to just come listen or participate by reading a favorite poem.

Robert Earl Price, lecturer and writer in residence in the Drama Department at Washington College, is the organizer of the project. Price is an accomplished poet and playwright who has recently moved to Chestertown from Atlanta. His most recent book of poems is Wise Blood, published by Snake Nation Press.

Price studied screenwriting at the American Film Institute and has written for television and film, but his primary writing has been for the stage. Recently produced plays include "Blue Monk," which was part of the Atlanta Cultural Olympiad, "HUSH: Composing Blind Tom Wiggins" and "Come On in My Kitchen." Price's most recent play, "The Golden Sardine," tells the story of legendary Beat poet Bob Kaufman; it had its world premiere at Washington College in 2008.

Habitat for Humanity Took Students to Columbus, GA for Alternative Spring Break

As a spring-break alternative, a group of Washington College students traveled to Columbus, Georgia to volunteer in Habitat for Humanity's Collegiate Challenge Program.

Collegiate Challenge is a year-round alternative break program that offers groups of students the opportunity to visit one of the 250 host affiliates throughout the United States. Students spend one week working in partnership with the local affiliate, the local community, and partner families to help eliminate poverty housing in the area. Washington College has been participating in the program each year since 1999, along with over 700 school chapters nationwide.

Washington College's group of 25 students, faculty, and staff, were part of an assembly of over 150 volunteers from six colleges, universities, and high schools erecting six houses in Columbus in five days during the week of March 8-12. Students embarked on a 14 hour drive, arriving in Georgia on March 7, and leaving on the morning of March 13, feeling a sense of fulfillment and pride.

"We were all very fortunate to be a part of something like this," said volunteer Charles Grigg (Class of '10). "I hope that we can all remember that there are things bigger than we are, and that there are always people in need somewhere."

With the help of carpenters from NeighborWorks Columbus and future home owners Melvin "Pops" and Cynthia Kemp, Washington College built a house at 1039 Benning Drive in Columbus. Despite the large group of different students, coming together and getting the job done was an effortless task.

"My fear embarking on the trip was that students from different interests would separate into various sects and not unite," said Kristina Kelly (Class of '11), co-coordinator of the trip. "I was surprised that immediately we came together over a common cause and became a family."

Volunteer Emily Hordesky (Class of '12) agreed. "Cliques were non-existent and everyone got along. I'm so glad building this house brought me closer to people I barely knew before. [It was] the experience of a lifetime."

Participants were: Bethany Ackerman '12, Anna Baker '12, Sarah Billmyre '11, Brittany Bonday '11, Timothy Danos '10, Mary Fletcher '10, Beverly Frimpong '12, Nicholas Gaeto '12, Charles Grigg '10, Kelsey Hallowell '12, Emily Hordesky '12, Kathryn Hughes '12, Maria Rose Hynson(Office of the Provost and Dean, Staff Advisor), Jacqueline Kelly '12, Kristina Kelley '11, Antonio LoPiano '11, Darnell Parker (Office of Student Affairs), Billie Ricketts '13, Matthew Stiles '11, Steven Stranahan '12, Gabrielle Tarbert '13, Alyssa Velazquez '12, David Wharton (Department of Economics), Amanda Whitaker '12, and Meredith Young '11.

For more information, visit studentlife.washcoll.edu/service/habitatforhumanity.

American Pictures Series at Smithsonian Features Civil War Historian James M. McPherson

CHESTERTOWN, MD – On Saturday, April 10, Civil War historian James McPherson will kick off the 2010 “American Pictures” series with a discussion of Alexander Gardner's stirring 1862 photograph “Confederate Dead by a Fence on the Hagerstown Road, Antietam,” one of the first pictures to bring the shocking realities of war before the eyes of the American public.

A joint program of Washington College, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the “American Pictures” series offers a highly original approach to the visual arts, pairing great works of art with leading figures of American culture. This spring's all-star line-up features a trio of Pulitzer Prize-winners: McPherson, cartoonist/author Jules Feiffer (who appears on April 17), and cultural historian David Hackett Fischer, who will appear on Saturday, May 1. Each speaker chooses a single powerful image and investigates its meanings, revealing how artworks reflect American identity and inspire creativity in many different fields. The series director is historian and essayist Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the college's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

James McPherson is America's leading historian of the Civil War. He won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, which was a New York Times bestseller and is widely acclaimed as the best single-volume history of the Civil War ever published. The success of Battle Cry of Freedom helped launch an unprecedented national renaissance of interest in the Civil War. McPherson served as an historical consultant on two PBS documentaries, Ken Burns's The Civil War and Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided, and on the 1993 film Gettysburg. In 1991, the United States Senate appointed him to the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission, which determined major battle sites, evaluated their conditions, and recommended strategies for preservation.

McPherson is George Henry Davis '86 Professor of American History, Emeritus at Princeton University. In 2007, he received the first Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for lifetime contributions to the field of military history. In addition to Battle Cry of Freedom, he is the author of several other important books on the Civil War, including For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, all published by Oxford University Press.

All “American Pictures” events take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, located at 8th and F Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C. McPherson's talk will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the museums' Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium. Tickets are available in the G Street lobby, beginning at 3:30 p.m. No reservations are necessary for the general public.

Students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of Washington College may reserve tickets to this and the other American Pictures events on a first-come, first-served basis. The Starr Center is also running free buses from Chestertown to Washington for each talk. For details, please call 410-810-7165 or e-mail lkitz2@washcoll.edu. For more information on the American Pictures series, visit starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

About the Sponsors

Founded in 1782 under the personal patronage of its namesake, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, upholds a tradition of excellence and innovation in the liberal arts. The American Pictures series is a project of the college's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and its Department of Art and Art History.

The National Portrait Gallery tells the stories of America through the individuals—poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists—who have built our national culture. It is where the arts keep us in the company of remarkable Americans.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation's first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people from the colonial period to today.

Washington College 2009-2010 Concert Series Concludes With Pianist Inna Faliks

Chestertown – The 58^th season of the Washington College Concert Series concludes with a performance by pianist Inna Faliks in Decker Theatre on Sunday, March 28, at 4 p.m.

The young Ukrainian-born musician has established herself as one of the most passionately committed, exciting and deeply poetic pianists of her generation. Since her acclaimed debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 15, she has performed on many of the world’s great stages, with numerous orchestras, in solo appearances, and with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin and Keith Lockhart.

The Washington Post praised Falik’s “poetry and panoramic vision,” while the Baltimore Sun enthused about her “riveting passion and playfulness.”

While her star has been in the ascendant, Falik also has been studing with Gilbert Kalish at Stony Brook University, where she recently received her Doctorate.

Tickets, available at the box office, are $15 for adults, $5 for youth 18 and under. Decker Theatre is located in Washington College’s new Daniel Z. Gibson Center for the Arts. For more information, call 410/778-7839.

Art Scholar To Discuss The Work Of Constance Stuart Larrabee, March 25

CHESTERTOWN, MD –  The Department  of Art and Art History, Kohl Gallery, the Black Studies Program and the Gender Studies Program present, “The Photographer’s Eye: Constance Stuart Larrabee’s Images of the Ndebele Peoples (South Africa)”, a lecture by Christraud Geary, Teel Senior Curator of African and Oceanic Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to be held on Thursday, March 25, 5:30 p.m., in the Casey Academic Forum.  The event is free, and the public is invited to attend.  There will be a reception immediately following Dr. Geary’s presentation, sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa, Theta of Maryland.

The lecture follows the exhibition in the Kohl Gallery of Larrabee’s early photos, including images of the Ndebele peoples, curated by Washington College Senior Riley Carbonneau (art and art history/sociology), which fell during both Black History Month and Women’s History Month.

A leading scholar of African art, Geary received a DPhil in Cultural Anthropology and African Studies from the University of Frankfurt, Germany, and has done extensive fieldwork in Africa--in Mali, Cameroon, Senegal and South Africa. Her trip to Ghana involved her inviting the King of the Asante to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  Geary has lectured widely, and has published numerous, highly acclaimed books and exhibition catalogues, including Material Journeys: Collecting African and Oceanic Art, 1945-2000, In and Out of Focus: Images from Central Africa 1885-1960, and The Voyage of King Njaya’s Gift: A Beaded Sculpture from the Bamum Kingdom, Cameroon, in the National Museum of African Art.

Geary’s two trips to South Africa were made in connection with her research on  Constance Stuart Larrabee, specifically the numerous photos the latter took of the Ndebele peoples, while living in nearby Pretoria. During Geary’s tenure as Curator of the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, she accepted the gift of over 3000 photographs that Larrabee left to the archive; traveled to Chestertown on several occasions, and curated the exhibition “South African 1936-1949: Photography of Constance Stuart Larrabee.”

Acclaimed Author and Journalist To Speak About The Fall Of The Berlin Wall, March 29

CHESTERTOWN – Author and journalist Michael Meyer will present a talk on his latest book, The Year That Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall, at Washington College’s Hynson Lounge, Hodson Commons on Monday, March 29, at 7:30 pm. A book signing will follow.

            Meyer will provide a riveting eyewitness account of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe that rewrites our conventional understanding of how the Cold War came to an end and holds important lessons for America’s current geopolitical challenges. The Washington Post lauded Meyer’s book, published by Simon & Schuster in 2009, as “brilliant,” noting that “history is seldom written with such verve.”

            But Meyer’s story is more than a history of the events of 1989; it is an eyewitness account of a period of tremendous social change. In 1989, Meyer was Newsweek’s bureau chief for Germany, Central Europe, and the Balkans. While writing on the fall of communism, German unification, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia, he had a birds-eye view of the reinvention of Eastern Europe.

Meyer worked at the Washington Post and Congressional Quarterly before joining Newsweek in 1988. In 1993, he became Newsweek’s general editor for business and technology, and the focus of his writing switched to the Internet revolution. From 1992 to 1993, he was the Los Angeles bureau chief, where he reported on a wide array of issues, including the politics of immigration and the Los Angeles riots. From 1999 to 2001, Meyer left Newsweek to join the UN mission in Kosovo, where he was a senior staff officer for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. In 2001, he returned to Newsweek as Europe Editor for Newsweek International.

            Currently Meyer is Director of Communications and Speechwriting for the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was an Inaugural Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He is the winner of two Overseas Press Club Awards, the 1995 Computer Press Award, and the 1993 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. In addition to The Year that Changed the World, Meyer is the author of The Alexander Complex, published by Times Books in 1989. He appears regularly as a commentator for MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, C-Span, NPR, and other broadcast networks.

            Co-sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and the Goldstein Program in Public Affairs, Meyer’s lecture is free and open to the public.

"A Series Of Unfortunate Events" Author Daniel Handler Kicks Off 2010 Sophie Kerr Weekend

Chestertown, MD — Daniel Handler, author of the bestselling children’s book collection A Series of Unfortunate Events (under the pen name of Lemony Snicket), kicks off this year’s Sophie Kerr Weekend with a talk entitled “Why does Lemony Snicket Keep Following Me?" in Decker Theater on Friday, March 26, at 4 p.m.  A book signing will follow.

Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events have sold more than 60 million copies and were the basis for the feature film Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) starring Jim Carrey.  The 13-book series follows the grim adventures of the three clever Baudelaire orphans: Violet, Klaus, and Sunny.  In each book, the siblings face increasing misfortune as they are pursued by their distant relative, the evil Count Olaf, who schemes to swindle the Baudelaire inheritance.  Handler's Snicket books are known for their witty, dark humor and appeal to all ages. 

Handler is also the author of three works for adults: The Basic Eight (St. Martin’s Press/HarperCollins, 1998), Watch Your Mouth (St. Martin’s Press/HarperCollins, 2000), and most recently Adverbs (St. Martin’s Press/HarperCollins, 2006), a series of short stories about love.  His work has led author Michael Chabon to label him “One of our most dazzling literary conjurers.”  Handler’s musical collaborations include work with composer Nathaniel Stookey on a piece commissioned and recorded by the San Francisco Symphony, entitled “The Composer Is Dead,” which is now a book with CD.  He is also an adjunct accordionist for the music group The Magnetic Fields. 

Other books written as Snicket include Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiograhpy, The Beatrice Letters, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid, and two books for the holidays, The Lump of Coal and The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming: a Christmas Story. Handler has written for The New York Times, Newsday, San Francisco Chronicle, The Believer, Chickfactor, and various anthologies, and he was chair of the Judging Panel for the National Book Awards in Young People’s Literature, 2008.  His current and upcoming projects include a fourth novel for adults, a children’s picture book titled 13 Words, in collaboration with Maira Kalman, and the script for the much-anticipated second Snicket movie.  He is also at work on a top-secret new Snicket series.

Held every March at Washington College, Sophie Kerr Weekend gives a group of high school-age writers a chance to experience the College's renowned creative writing program hands-on through readings, seminars, and small workshops with visiting authors and faculty members.  Previous Sophie Kerr Weekend readers include Ted Kooser, Jane Smiley, and Mary Karr.

Sophie Kerr Weekend also honors the legacy of the late Sophie Kerr, a writer from Denton, Md., whose generosity has enriched Washington College's literary culture. When she died in 1965, Kerr left the bulk of her estate to Washington 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"—the famed Sophie Kerr Prize—and the other half be used to bring visiting writers to campus, to fund scholarships, and to help defray the costs of student publications.

Admission to Daniel Handler’s March 26 talk is free and open to the public. Decker Theatre is located in Washington College’s new Daniel Z. Gibson Center for the Arts. For more information, call 410/778-7899 or visit lithouse.washcoll.edu.

Director of National Gallery of Art to Deliver Janson-La Palme Lecture

Chestertown, MD — The Washington College Department of Art and Art History and Kohl Gallery present the Janson-La Palme Annual Distinguished Lecture in European Art History, "The National Gallery in the New Century,” a talk by Earl A. Powell III, Director of the National Gallery of Art, to be held Monday, April 5, 5:30 p.m., in the Hotchkiss Recital Hall, Daniel Z. Gibson Center for the Arts.  The event is free, and the public is invited to attend.

In 1992, Earl A. Powell III, known as "Rusty," became only the fourth director of the National Gallery of Art, which opened to the public in 1941. This world-renowned collection has more than 107,000 European and American paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, books, and decorative arts dating from the 13th century to the present. Five to six million people a year view the Gallery’s masterpieces of Western art, including one of the world’s finest collections of French impressionism and the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Western Hemisphere.

Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Powell graduated with honors from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and received an A.M. and a Ph.D. from the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, where he specialized in 19th- and 20th-century European and American art. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy from 1966 to 1969 and in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1976 to 1980 as a commander.

Powell served as curator of the Michener Collection and assistant professor of art history at the University of Texas at Austin from 1974 to 1976. During the next four years, while he held curatorial posts at the National Gallery of Art, he was deeply involved in the installation and opening of the East Building. From 1980 to 1992, Powell was director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which he transformed, according to Art in America magazine, "from a local institution to a museum of international stature."

Powell’s book on the American landscape painter Thomas Cole was published in 1990. Under Powell’s leadership, the National Gallery of Art, which represents a partnership of federal and private resources, has added more than 12,000 works of art to its collection, established an award-winning Web site and a visitor-friendly interactive Micro Gallery, created innovative programs for children and families, opened a 6.1-acre Sculpture Garden and a 25,000-square-foot suite of sculpture galleries featuring 900 works of art, and presented some 150 exhibitions, including international blockbusters such as Johannes Vermeer, Van Gogh’s Van Goghs, and The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt. The Gallery is constantly exploring new ways of utilizing technology to further its mission of making the collection accessible to the citizens of the United States. According to Powell, "Technology offers phenomenal potential for the Gallery to be helpful in the area of public education and cultural awareness for all ages."

Powell Chairs the United States Commission of Fine Arts, serves as a trustee of such organizations as the National Council on the Arts (the advisory body of the National Endowment of the Arts), the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and he is a member of numerous other organizations, including the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, the National Portrait Gallery Commission, and the Committee for the Preservation of the White House.  For his singular achievements, he has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Williams College (1993); the King Olav Medal, awarded by King Olav V of Norway (1978), for Edvard Munch: Symbols and Images, National Gallery of Art; the Grand Official Order of the Infante D. Henrique medal, awarded by the Government of Portugal (1995), for The Age of the Baroque in Portugal, National Gallery of Art; the Mexican Cultural Institute Award (1996); the Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito della Republica Italiana, awarded by the Government of Italy (1998); the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, awarded by the French Government (2000); the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, awarded by the Mexican Government (2007); the Centennial Medal, awarded by the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; and the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary (2009).

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 of the National Gallery of London, but formerly of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), Jonathan Brown (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU), the late Robert Rosenblum (Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, and Guggenheim Museum), Paul Barolsky (University of Virginia), and Peter Humfrey (St. Andrews University, Scotland).

Washington College, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Portrait Gallery Present Third Annual "American Pictures" Series

Bus Transportation Available from Chestertown

A trio of Pulitzer Prize-winning authors are set for the 2010 “American Pictures” series. Civil War historian James M. McPherson; cartoonist, author and illustrator Jules Feiffer; and cultural historian David Hackett Fischer will bring their unique perspectives to three iconic images in this spring's series.

The “American Pictures” series - a joint program of Washington College, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum - offers a highly original approach to art, pairing great works with leading figures of contemporary American culture. Each talk features an eminent writer, artist, critic or historian who chooses a single, powerful image and investigates its meanings, revealing how artworks reflect American identity and inspire creativity in many different fields. The series director is historian and essayist Adam Goodheart, Hodson Trust-Griswold Director of the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College.

The series begins Saturday, April 10, when James McPherson will speak on Alexander Gardner’s photograph “Confederate Dead by a Fence on the Hagerstown Road, Antietam” (1862), which the speaker will use to explore the experiences of ordinary soldiers in the Civil War. McPherson, a renowned expert on the Civil War, won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom, which is widely acclaimed as the best single-volume history of the Civil War ever published.

Saturday, April 17, will bring us Jules Feiffer, the well-loved cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, and children’s book author and illustrator. Feiffer will explore Bob Landry’s visually thrilling photograph “Fred Astaire in ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz,’” (1945), and draw on his forthcoming autobiography to discuss his life’s work as an artist in many different media. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1986 and an Academy Award for his animated short, Munro, in 1961.

The series will conclude on Saturday, May 1, when David Hackett Fischer will take a close look at Emanuel Leutze’s famous “Washington Crossing the Delaware” (1851), a painting that helped inspire his 2005 Pulitzer-winning book, Washington’s Crossing. Fischer is among the foremost scholars of American history and culture whose books include Liberty and Freedom, Paul Revere’s Ride and Champlain’s Dream.

"The idea behind “American Pictures” is to have some of the most brilliant thinkers and writers and creators of the present day step inside some of the most powerful images from the past," said Goodheart, the series director. "The most exciting thing is that each talk is, in effect, a brand-new work that premieres here for the first time."

This is the third year for the “American Pictures” series which has drawn large audiences for such speakers as art-rock pioneer Laurie Anderson, historian Garry Wills, actress/playwright Anna Deavere Smith, and filmmaker John Waters. Support for “American Pictures” comes from the Starr Foundation, the Hodson Trust, the Hedgelawn Foundation, the Washington College Department of Art and Art History and others.

All “American Pictures” events take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery, located at 8^th and F Streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C. These Saturday talks, held in the Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium, will all begin at 4:30 p.m. Free tickets are available beginning at 3:30 p.m. at the G Street lobby information desk on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, visit www.starrcenter.washcoll.edu. The Starr center is sponsoring free buses from Chestertown to Washington for the series. Space is limited. To reserve tickets for the talks or to ask about the bus, call Lois Kitz during business hours at 410-810-7165 or send an email at lkitz2@washcoll.edu

About the Sponsors

Founded in 1782 under the personal patronage of its namesake, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, upholds a tradition of excellence and innovation in the liberal arts. The American Pictures series is a project of the college’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience and its Department of Art and Art History.

The National Portrait Gallery tells the stories of America through the individuals—poets and presidents, visionaries and villains, actors and activists—who have built our national culture. It is where the arts keep us in the company of remarkable Americans.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation’s first collection of American art, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character and imagination of the American people from the colonial period to today.

FORMER MAGAZINE EDITOR TO TALK 'CAREERS IN JOURNALISM,' MARCH 25

CHESTERTOWN – Bob Thompson, former editor of The Washington Post Magazine, will offer a presentation on “Careers in Journalism” at Washington College’s Rose O’Neill Literary House on Thursday, March 25, at 4:30 p.m. 

Thompson spent 24 years as an award-winning writer and editor of magazine and newspaper feature stories at the Washington Post. He wrote 20 cover stories for the Washington Post Magazine and served as its editor for six years, working with writers such as David Finkel, Steve Coll, David Maraniss, Bob Woodward, and Marjorie Williams, as well as Robert Day, Adjunct Professor at Washington College.

Mr. Thompson also wrote and edited for the Post's Style section, where from 2005 to 2009 he wrote author profiles and covered the publishing industry. Born in Seattle, Thompson grew up near Boston and graduated from Stanford University with a degree in history in 1972. He served as managing editor of three now-defunct publications before becoming a senior editor at the still-surviving Inc. Magazine in 1984. Thompson took the job at the Post in 1985. In 1992, he returned to Stanford for a year on a John S. Knight journalism fellowship.

His Post Magazine pieces ranged from a profile of legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, to a portrait of a young woman graduating from college in the year 2000, to a close look at what was then America's hottest computer game, “The Sims.” 

Thompson’s presentation is sponsored by the Maureen Jacoby Endowment for Editing and Publishing.  Admission is free and open to the public.

 

Civil Rights Attorney Sherrilyn Ifill Explores Race and the Judiciary at Washington College

CHESTERTOWN – The 2009 confirmation hearings of the first Latina Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, rekindled an intense debate about the role of race in judicial decision-making. Noted civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill will explore this topic when she presents “Wise Latinas, Black Raconteurs, and White Umpires: Conceptions of Race and Judging in Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings, 1955-2009,” at Washington College’s Litrenta Lecture Hall on Thursday, March 18, at 7:30 p.m. 

Since 1955, when John Marshall Harlan was nominated to the Supreme Court just after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, questions about race have played a central role in Supreme Court confirmation hearings. The contention surrounding Justice Sotomayor’s nomination is only the latest chapter in a much longer story.

Ifill, one of the strongest voices advocating greater diversity on the Court, will be in residence at Washington College from March 15-19 as this year's Frederick Douglass Visiting Fellow at the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience. Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law, Ifill is a nationally recognized advocate for civil rights, voting rights, and judicial diversity. She offers commentary on race and the law on CNN, NBC Nightly News, and C-Span, and is a regular op-ed contributor to the Baltimore Sun and the Afro-American.

In her current project on the judicial selection process, Ifill argues that all judges – not just minorities – are affected by their own background and life experiences, and that diversity on the bench is key to creating a Court that can wisely interpret the law. If this is true, she maintains, it follows that the popular perception of white male judges as impartial “umpires” and female and minority judges as inherently biased is fundamentally flawed.    

Prior to joining the University of Maryland faculty, Ifill litigated voting rights cases for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. An advocate of restorative justice for past racial wrongs, Ifill is the author of On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century (Beacon Books, 2007), which explores the lingering effects of lynching here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Established through a generous gift from Maurice Meslans and Margaret Holyfield of St. Louis, the annual Frederick Douglass Visiting Fellowship brings to campus an individual engaged in the study or interpretation of African-American history and related fields. Besides providing the recipient an opportunity for a week of focused writing, the fellowship also offers Washington College students exposure to some of today's leading interpreters of African-American culture. During her week in Chestertown, Ifill will speak with students and faculty about her research, and her experiences with restorative justice processes.

Litrenta Lecture Hall is located in the John S. Toll Science Center. Ifill’s talk, which is co-sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, the Black Studies Program, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, and the Pre-Law Program, is free and open to the public.

 

About the Starr Center

The C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience explores our nation’s history – and particularly the legacy of its Founding era – in innovative ways. Through educational programs, scholarship, and public outreach, and especially by supporting and fostering the art of written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between past and present, and between the academic world and the public at large. From its base in the circa-1746 Custom House along Chestertown’s colonial waterfront, the Center also serves as a portal onto a world of opportunities for Washington College students. Its guiding principle is that now more than ever, a wider understanding of our shared past is fundamental to the continuing success of America’s democratic experiment. For more information on the Center, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.