Art Lectures presented by
Lily Lamis
Portraits and Personalities
A psychological study of portraiture from Leonardo da Vinci to Pablo Picasso will examine the works of some of the world’s greatest artists. In this lecture we arrive at a better understanding of both how the artist successfully captures a sitter’s personality and how portraiture can often reflect the artist’s own thoughts and feelings. This detailed look at famous portraits includes Leonardo’s Lady with an Ermine, van der Weyden’s Portrait of a Lady, Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait, Ingres’s Portrait of Comtesse d'Haussonville, David’s Napoleon in his Study, and Romney’s Lady Hamilton as Nature. Ms. Lamis also examines the works of the Spanish court painters Franciso de Goya and Diego Velázquez, as well as the art of Van Dyck, Titian, Hals, El Greco, and Van Gogh.
Henry Clay Frick -
The Ultimate Collector
Henry Clay Frick was one of the most accomplished collectors of his time. This presentation focuses on the art Frick acquired during his lifetime. Frick had a great love for French art and the works of Boucher and Fragonard are a special focus. Frick assembled for his collection works by some of the world’s greatest artists including major pieces by Bellini, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Romney, Turner, Vermeer and many others. This lecture will also discuss Frick’s collaboration with the influential art dealer Joseph Duveen, who played a significant role in providing many of the furnishings and some important works for Frick’s New York residence which is now known as The Frick Collection, one of the country’s premier museums.
Rococo – Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard
Rococo art in the 18th century produced three great artists: Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. This lecture focuses on these remarkable talents. Watteau created the genre known as the fête galante as seen in his painting The Embarkation for Cythera. Boucher, one of the most celebrated artists of the 18th century, is known for his charming pastoral scenes, voluptuous nudes, and his portraits of Madame de Pompadour. Fragonard’s sensual and gracious style is seen in his most famous work The Swing and in his series The Progress of Love. The intimate style of Rococo art with its pastel colors produced many beautiful and exceptional works.
The British Portrait – Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney and Lawrence
Portraiture became very popular in Britain during the second half of the 18th century, and this era produced a number of truly great portrait painters. This lecture will focus on four of these painters: Sir Joshua Reynolds, first president of the Royal Academy who painted the English aristocracy in the Grand Manner style, Thomas Gainsborough, famous for his elegant portraits of beautiful and fashionable women who were often painted in lovely landscapes, George Romney, best known for his numerous portraits of his artistic muse Emma Hamilton, and Sir Thomas Lawrence, a prolific painter whose supreme achievement was his remarkable series of portraits of those who defeated Napoleon now housed in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle. These artists played an important role in elevating the status of portrait painting and brilliantly defined what has been called the “Golden Age of British portraiture.”
Eighteenth Century French Portraiture
In 18th century France portrait painting was in great demand and there were artists whose entire careers were devoted to it. This presentation focuses on these artists and their outstanding contributions to the art of portraiture. These gifted and talented artists include Jean-Marc Nattier, Louis Tocqué, François-Hubert Drouais, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Louis-Michel van Loo, Alexander Roslin, Élizabeth Vigée-Le Brun as well as two great pastellists, Maurice-Quentin de la Tour and Jean-Baptiste Perronneau. The richness and variety of their portraiture was quite remarkable and appropriate in a society that delighted in itself.
The Fascinating Isabella Stewart Gardner
This lecture presents an intimate portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner whose personality and taste created The Gardner Museum. This personal museum which resembles a Venetian Palazzo houses works by such great artists as Titian, Raphael, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Rembrandt, Whistler, and Sargeant. Bernard Berenson, the foremost art scholar of the time, played an important role in Mrs. Gardner’s life and art collecting, and this lecture will also focus on the works Berenson acquired for her collection. In March of 1990 this unique museum in Boston was the victim of the greatest art theft of the century, one that remains unsolved, and the stolen masterpieces will be discussed, including Vermeer’s The Concert and Rembrandt’s Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee and A Lady and Gentleman in Black.
The Impressionist Vision of Life
The Impressionist vision of life was born in Paris in the 1860’s. In 1874 they exhibited together for the first time headed by Claude Oscar Monet who presented his painting Impression Sunrise that gave the movement its name. In this lecture, Ms. Lamis will focus on the prominent artists who worked in this unique style. Monet is known for his famous series of paintings Water Lilies, Rouen Cathedral, Houses of Parliament, Haystacks, and Poplars. Pierre Auguste Renoir captured Parisian life and painted charming scenes, pretty women, and voluptuous nudes. Edgar Degas, whose great love was the world of ballet, is known for his many paintings of ballet dancers. The Impressionist landscape was beautifully defined in the works of Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro. The Impressionist movement also included two exceptional women painters, Berthe Morisot, who painted domestic scenes, and Mary Cassatt, who concentrated on intimate scenes of women and children.
The Post-Impressionists
This lecture focuses on the major Post Impressionists Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne, and Georges Seurat. These artists reacted against the Impressionist movement and developed their own distinctive individual styles. Van Gogh’s emotional approach and vivid colors are seen in his paintings Café Terrace at Night, The Starry Night, and in the Sunflowers series. Gauguin’s most famous masterpieces are his Tahitian paintings which include The Spirit of the Dead Watching, La Orana Maria, and Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Cezanne is known for his landscapes of Mont Sainte-Victoire, celebrated still life paintings, and The Card Players series. Seurat developed the pointillism technique as seen in his most famous painting La Grande Jatte and in his series on popular entertainment which includes Le Chahut, Circus Sideshow, and The Circus.
Great Graphic Masters
This lecture will focus on major artists who excelled and made important contributions in the art of printmaking. This includes woodcuts, etchings, engravings, mezzotints, aquatints, and lithographs. Many masterpieces have been created through the use of these and other printmaking methods, and the works of Durer, Rembrandt, Hogarth, Piranesi, Daumier, Gauguin, Lautrec, Munch, Rouault and Picasso will be discussed. This lecture features Hogarth’s series of engravings which include Marriage-a-la-Mode, Piranesi’s famous architectural etchings, Daumier’s satirical lithographs from Les Gens de Justice, and Lautrec’s color lithographs of the dancers and cabarets of Paris. In this study of major graphic works, Ms. Lamis emphasizes how graphics enable artists to set forth more deeply and definitively their ideas.
The Philosophy of Modern Art
The philosophy of modern art discusses the philosophical ideas, trends, and styles of the art of the 20th century. This was an exciting time for most artists and produced a multiplicity of styles that reflected the diversity of thought at the time. The works of Vlaminck, Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Duchamp, Klee, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Pollock and others will be discussed to further the understanding of such styles as Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism, and Abstract Expressionism. Ms. Lamis will discuss the strong movement in the direction of subjectivity in modern art that was influenced by the development of psychoanalysis. This lecture provides a rich and comprehensive treatment of the art of the 20th century.