Roberta and Richard Huber Colloquium, Fall 2017
Thursday, December 7, 6:30pm
From Spain to Italy: Myths as Identity for Emerging Powers in the Medieval Mediterranean (11th-13th centuries)
Manuel Castiñeiras, Professor and Chair of the Department of Art and Musicology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
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Monday, November 27, 6:30PM
Portugal and the World: a History in Three Exhibitions
Jay Levenson, Director of the International Program, The Museum of Modern Art
Jay Levenson (Ph.D., IFA) is a distinguished art historian and curator. Director of the International Program at the Museum of Modern Art, Levenson has overseen dozens of programs and initiatives involving art from all parts of the world. Nonetheless much of his own scholarship has concerned the arts of Portugal from the Middle Ages to the 18th century. His exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, the Smithsonian as well as museums in Lisbon and elsewhere have been lauded for their excellence and originality. His lecture will explore several of his most outstanding contributions to Iberian art history, analyzing three key exhibitions that he has organized since the early 1990s.
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Thursday, September 28
Between Toledo and Buenos Aires: Radical Modernity and the Mystic Cosmovision of Esteban Lisa (1895-1983)
Professor Edward J. Sullivan, Deputy Director, Helen Gould Sheppard Professor in the History of Art, The Institute of Fine Arts and College of Arts and Sciences, NYU
Esteban Lisa (1895-1983) was both an enigmatic figure as well as a major force within the development of art in Argentina in the mid-20th century. Born in a small town in the province of Toledo, Spain, he left for Buenos Aires at age 12. Like many other émigré artists to the Americas (Esteban Vicente, Maruja Mallo, the cinéaste Luis Buñuel or the musician Pau Casals) he formed a bridge between the artistic worlds of the New and the Old Worlds. Lisa developed a particular brand of abstraction that became widely acclaimed only after his death. (He refused to exhibit in his lifetime and, like his illustrious Buenos Aires contemporary Jorge Luis Borges, worked as a civil servant for many years). Lisa is the subject of a current exhibition at the art museum of Boston College. This lecture will place the artist within the context of his time in both Argentina and Iberia and will attempt to analyze the rise of interest in his work on both sides of the Atlantic beginning in the 1990s.