Online Conversation | Teaching the 18th Century Now
From the event flyer (which includes a QR code for registering). . .
Online Conversation | Teaching the Eighteenth Century Now: Pedagogy as Ethical Engagement
Online, Wednesday, 26 February 2025, 3pm (Eastern Time)
What does teaching mean in this historical moment? Join Bucknell University Press as we host editors and contributors to the collection Teaching the Eighteenth Century Now: Pedagogy as Ethical Engagement for a moderated discussion about teaching Enlightenment topics during a period of attacks on education, identity, and expression. How can our pedagogies be more meaningful, more impactful, and more relevant? Participants will discuss the intellectual labor of the classroom and share contemporary models and approaches to animating material for today’s students. The conversation will be moderated by Eugenia Zuroski.
Kate Parker and Miriam Wallace, eds., Teaching the Eighteenth Century Now: Pedagogy as Ethical Engagement (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2024), 196 pages, ISBN: 978-1684485048 (hardcover) / ISBN: 978-1684485031 (paperback), $38.
Exhibition | J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality
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J.M.W. Turner, Mer de Glace, in the Valley of Chamonix, 1803, watercolor, graphite, gum, scraping out and stopping out on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper mounted on thick, smooth wove paper (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, B1977.14.4650)
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Opening next month at the YCBA, which itself reopens after a two-year conservation project:
J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 29 March — 27 July 2025
Dordrechts Museum, Spring 2026
The year 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), possibly the most widely admired and influential British artist of all time.
Though Turner was trained within the English topographical tradition, his practice was deeply rooted in a wider European heritage of landscape painting. Turner pushed this inheritance to its limits in pursuit of his own expressive ends, astounding contemporaries with his bold and highly original compositions. His unique approach paved the way for a new form of landscape art, one that combined virtuoso brushwork with brilliant color, dazzling light effects, and an almost abstract sensibility. As a result, Turner came to be recognized as the most radical and innovative painter of his time and has continued to be so ever since.
This exhibition, the first show focused on Turner to be held at the Yale Center for British Art in more than thirty years, will showcase the museum’s rich holdings of the artist’s work. Unequaled in North America, this collection includes some of Turner’s most acclaimed oil paintings, notably his masterpiece Dort or Dordrecht: The Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed (1818) and his celebrated later painting Staffa, Fingal’s Cave (1831–32). Alongside these major works, the exhibition will also feature outstanding watercolors and prints from the YCBA’s collection, including the artist’s only complete sketchbook outside of the British Isles.
Turner’s works are akin to painted poems, filled with incident, anecdote, and symbolism. Conveying both the beauty and cruelty of nature and human life, they shed fascinating light on the artist’s world and reveal an aesthetic—and moral—complexity that is at once discomforting and strangely modern.
The exhibition is generously supported by the Dr. Lee MacCormick Edwards Charitable Foundation.
From Yale UP:
Ian Warrell, with contributions by Gillian Forrester, Turner (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025), 144 pages, ISBN: 978-0300279719, $40.
This book, the inaugural installment in the Yale Center for British Art’s Collection Series, explores the museum’s astonishing Turner holdings—the largest outside the United Kingdom—in a manner that will engage the general reader and expert alike. Six sections of plates provide a comprehensive overview of the artist’s career, place the works within their historical and cultural context, and include new discoveries regarding the identification of locations, landscapes, and dates. Gillian Forrester’s supplementary essay offers a novel account of Turner’s innovative printmaking practice, illuminating his fraught collaborations with other printmakers. Complementing an exhibition at the YCBA and a satellite exhibition at the Dordrechts Museum (The Netherlands), both planned for the 250th year of Turner’s birth, this publication celebrates the artist’s unparalleled vision as exemplified in the YCBA’s world-class collection of his work.
Ian Warrell is an independent curator specializing in British art of the nineteenth century. Gillian Forrester is an independent curator specializing in British art from the eighteenth century to the present and former senior curator of prints and drawings at the Yale Center for British Art.
Turner 250
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J.M.W. Turner, The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, 1822–24, about 10 × 14 feet framed
(Greenwich: National Maritime Museum, BHC0565)
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Press release (21 January 2025) from Tate:
This morning, cultural institutions across Britain announced Turner 250, a year-long festival of special exhibitions and events. Taking place throughout 2025, the programme celebrates 250 years since the birth of renowned painter JMW Turner. Whether visiting museums and galleries or tuning in on TV and online, everyone will have the chance to enjoy Turner’s greatest works, learn about his incredible life and career, and discover the many ways he continues to inspire creativity today.
Born on 23 April 1775, Joseph Mallord William Turner is widely considered to be the greatest and most influential British artist of all time. From humble beginnings, he travelled the length and breadth of the country to capture its dramatic scenery, redefining landscape painting in the process. Today he remains a touchstone of British cultural life—the face on the £20 note—and the painter behind some of the most iconic images of the natural world ever created.
J.M.W. Turner, Self-Portrait, ca.1799, oil on canvas, 74 × 58 cm (London: Tate, Turner Bequest 1856, N00458).
This announcement includes over 30 projects taking place this year, organised by venues large and small as well as by national organisations such as Tate, the BBC, and Art UK. Turner exhibitions will be held in London, Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Norwich, Bath, and Sussex, highlighting key themes in his life and work and exploring his connections to other renowned historic figures like Jane Austen and John Constable. Turner’s legacy in modern and contemporary art will be celebrated with displays, commissions, and events in London and Margate, while the Turner Prize will be staged in Bradford as a highlight of the UK City of Culture programme. Books, films, and digital content will be released through the year, including a complete catalogue of Turner’s 37,500 sketches and watercolours on Tate’s website, a major new BBC documentary bringing the man and his art to life, and a screening of Mike Leigh’s award-winning film Mr. Turner at BFI Southbank. Talks and workshops will showcase new scholarship and ideas inspired by Turner, including an international conference at Tate Britain, a summit exploring art’s connection to the natural world at Turner Contemporary, and the Turner Society’s annual Kurt Pantzer memorial lecture. A keen international traveller, Turner will also have his 250th anniversary commemorated far beyond the UK, with celebratory shows being staged in Connecticut, Cincinnati, and Shanghai, as well as a special exhibition closer to home in Dublin.
Turner’s birthday on 23 April 2025 will be a particular highlight: the artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize will be announced that morning ahead of their show in Bradford in the autumn, an exhibition of Turner’s rarely-seen images of wildlife will open at Turner’s House in Twickenham, and a newly refreshed room will open in Tate Britain’s Clore Gallery, home to a permanent free display of 100 works by the artist.
Arts Minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “Turner was one of this country’s greatest artists. An innovator who created some of our best known canvasses, he reshaped British art. A talent of Turner’s stature requires a year of celebration, from the prize in his name to the back of the £20 note, his immense legacy continues to permeate through the arts and public life in Britain. The 250th anniversary of his birth will be an opportunity for the public to immerse themselves in our outstanding artistic heritage. I encourage everyone to take the time to find an event from the upcoming year to enjoy some of Britain’s finest artists from the past and present.”
Maria Balshaw, Director of Tate, said: “Turner is a standout figure in the story of British creativity. It is Tate’s privilege to care for the world’s biggest collection of his art and showcase it to the widest possible public. Over the course of this year, I’m delighted that we will be showing over 150 of his stunning works at Tate Britain as well as lending over 100 more to venues right across this country and beyond.”
Suzy Klein, Head of BBC Arts & Classical Music TV, said: “We’re thrilled to be working with Tate to celebrate Britain’s most celebrated artist and be granted unprecedented access to Turner’s vast collection of rarely seen sketches. I can’t wait to share this treasure trove with audiences, not only illuminating the workings of Turner’s unique creative mind but also offering an unprecedented view into the extraordinary era of change during his lifetime.”
Exhibition | A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250
There’s no shortage of stimulating events marking this year’s 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, and readers will know this terrain much better than I. But for anyone tring to keep up, the following sites offer a useful starting place. –CH
• Ben Jureidini, “Is 2025 the Year of Jane Austen? From Society Balls to Blockbuster TV Shows, the 250th Anniversary of ‘Britain’s Greatest Author’ Is Set to Break Records,” The Tatler (6 January 2025). Miss Austen and The Other Bennet Sister on the BBC, a Dolly Alderton adaptation of Pride and Prejudice heading for Netflix, and a tourism boom for real-life regency balls, there’s something truly Austentatious about 2025. Link»
• “Worldwide Guide to Jane Austen 250th Events,” from the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, which focuses on the life and works of Jane Austen, as well as the Regency period in which she lived. Link»
• The Jane Austen Society, founded in 1940 by Dorothy Darnell with the purpose of raising funds to preserve the Cottage in the village of Chawton, Hampshire, where Jane Austen lived with her mother and sister Cassandra from 1809 to 1817. Link»
• The Jane Austen Society of North America, a non-profit organization staffed by volunteers and dedicated to the enjoyment and appreciation of Jane Austen and her writing. Link»
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Opening at The Morgan in June:
A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250
The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, 6 June — 14 September 2025
Organized by Dale Stinchcomb and Juliette Wells
Morning Dresses from Gallery of Fashion (London: N. Heideloff, 1798), figs. 198, 199 (New York: The Morgan Library & Museum; PML 5680).
A Lively Mind immerses viewers in the inspiring story of Jane Austen’s authorship and her gradual rise to international fame. Iconic artifacts from Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, England join manuscripts, books, and artworks from the Morgan, as well as from a dozen institutional and private collections, to present compelling new perspectives on Austen’s literary achievement, her personal style, and her global legacy.
Beginning as a teenager, Austen cultivated her imaginative powers and her ambition to publish. Encouraged by her family, especially her father and her sister Cassandra, she persevered through years of uncertainty. Her creativity found expression in a range of artistic pursuits, from music-making to a delight in fashion. The story of how Americans first encountered and responded to Austen’s novels, unbeknownst to her, emerges from four surviving copies of an unauthorized edition of Emma published during her lifetime. Following Austen’s death, family members preserved their memories of her, while carefully guarding what was publicly revealed. Austen’s audience continued to grow as those who loved her novels helped new generations of readers to appreciate them. In addition to celebrating Austen, A Lively Mind commemorates the landmark gift of Austen manuscripts to the Morgan in 1975 by Alberta H. Burke and draws extensively on the extraordinary collection she bequeathed to Goucher College in Baltimore.
A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250 is organized by Dale Stinchcomb, Drue Heinz Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts, and Juliette Wells, Professor of Literary Studies at Goucher College. It is made possible by generous support from the Drue Heinz Exhibitions and Programs Fund, Cynthia H. Polsky, Martha J. Fleischman, the Caroline Morgan Macomber Fund, the Lucy Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund, and Alyce Williams Toonk.
Exhibition | Better on Paper
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John Pike, Fan: Land of Matrimony and Land of Celibacy, London, late 18th century, paper and wood
(Wellesley College Special Collections)
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From the press release for the exhibition:
Better on Paper: Recent Acquisitions of Prints, Drawings, Photographs, and Books
Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Massachusetts, 7 February — 1 June 2025
Curated by Amanda Gilvin and Ruth Rogers
Better on Paper is a new exhibition that spotlights and celebrates some of the thousands of newly acquired and previously unseen works of art on paper, including prints, drawings, photographs, books, and other objects, acquired by the Davis Museum and the Wellesley College Library Special Collections over the last decade. The exhibition emphasizes contemporary art, while also showcasing many new acquisitions of art from past centuries. More than 100 recent gifts and purchases will be on view in Better on Paper, along with two other new exhibitions at the Davis Museum all highlighting new acquisitions.
“Better on Paper presents a stunning array of visionary works of art from Wellesley’s collections in this collaboration between the College Library’s Special Collections and the Davis,” said Amanda Gilvin, the exhibition’s co-curator and Interim Co-Director, Sonja Novak Koerner ’51 Senior Curator of Collections, and Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs.
The exhibition calls attention to Wellesley’s decades-long leadership in the field of the study of photography, Gilvin said. She notes works that will be on view and are now part of the Davis collection include Nigerian artist Taiye Idahor’s Ekundayo; prominent African American photographer in the 1970s and 1980s Ming Smith’s Self Portrait, Harlem, NY; work by locally-based multimedia artist Jo Sandman; Chitra Ganesh’s Architects of the Future, City Inside Her; and Magdelena van de Passe after Crispijn de Passe the Elder’s Spring. Special Collections will present 18th-century publisher John Pike’s satirical fan The Land of Matrimony [and] Land of Celibacy and Swiss graphic designer Romano Hänni’s artist book It is Bitter to Leave Your Home: A True Story Depicted in Typographic Images.
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Motonori Taki, Kōkei Saikyūhō [Emergency Remedies for the Benefit of People], Kyōto: Izumoji Bunjirō; Edo: Hanabusa Daisuke han, ca. 1790
(Wellesley College Special Collections)
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The Davis and the Wellesley College Library Special Collections have joined together to mount Better on Paper to pay homage to these new acquisitions that represent Wellesley’s commitment to inclusive excellence. Often collaborating with Wellesley faculty, staff, and students, curators have acquired the objects in the exhibition to support and expand the Wellesley College curriculum. The prints, drawings, photographs, books, and other objects in Better on Paper originate from around the globe, spanning diverse makers and approaches, and dating to many periods.
“It is a tremendous opportunity for the College Library’s Special Collections to be off the shelves and on view to a wider audience,” said Ruth R. Rogers, Curator of Special Collections and Visiting Lecturer, Art Department. “Better on Paper allows us to share a selection from the range of international, rare books, contemporary artists’ books, and other evidence of material communication that are the basis of teaching and research on campus.
Building these collections supports today’s Wellesley Method: object-based and human-centered learning across disciplines. “We invite you to study, learn, and teach in this exhibition—and to find out more about the many other works on paper in the Davis Museum and Special Collections,” Gilvin said.
Better on Paper was co-curated by Amanda Gilvin and Ruth Rogers with contributions from Nicole Berlin, Associate Curator of Collections, Alicia Bruce, Friends of Art Curatorial Project Manager and Researcher, Yuhua Ding, Kemper Assistant Curator of Collections and Academic Affairs, L. Goins ‘26, 2024 Summer Curatorial Intern, James Oles, Adjunct Curator of Latin American Art and Senior Lecturer, Art Department, Mariana S. Oller, Associate Curator of Special Collections, and Semente, Curator of Education and Public Programs. The exhibition is presented with generous support from the Anonymous ’70 Endowed Museum Program Fund, Marjorie Schechter Bronfman ’38 and Gerald Bronfman Endowment for Works on Paper, and Wellesley College Friends of Art at the Davis.
Exhibition | Nevers in the World
From the press release for the exhibition:
Nevers in the World
Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Massachusetts, 7 February — 1 June 2025
Curated by Nicole Berlin, with Alicia Bruce and Yuhua Ding
Gadrooned Dish, ca. 1700, Faience, made in Nevers (Davis Museum, Wellesley College, 2023.3.24).
Nevers in the World is an intimate exhibition of 11 newly-acquired seventeenth- to nineteenth-century French ceramics that were recently donated to the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. The French faience vessels are highly stylized glazed ceramics, created using a tin-glaze technique that originated in the Middle East, likely around Iraq, as a response to the vibrant white porcelain of China. Over time, this technique spread to Egypt, Spain, Italy, and eventually France, where it evolved into a distinctive art form.
The exhibition spotlights these beautifully glazed vessels, used mostly for dining tables, and illustrate a cross-cultural migration from their early origins in Iraq to the early iterations of Italian pieces and expanded color palettes and shapes by the French.
“When the generous gift of French faience arrived and our Curatorial team first saw it in storage, we were immediately excited by the many ways we could integrate it into both the permanent collection and a temporary exhibition,” said Nicole Berlin, Associate Curator of Collections at the Davis Museum and the Nevers show curator. “The vibrant colors, whimsical shapes, and the centuries-old ceramic glazing technique open up a wealth of creative possibilities for showcasing this remarkable collection.”
Spirit Cask, 1779, Faience, made in Nevers (Davis Museum, Wellesley College, 2023.3.26).
Nevers in the World is a selection of artworks from the generous bequest of the late Wellesley Trustee Emeritus Sidney R. Knafel, who spent decades assembling a world renowned collection of French ceramics. These objects demonstrate how artistic innovation can flourish through cross-cultural exchange. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a group of artisans in Nevers, France created extraordinary ceramic vessels using the faience technique. Invented nearly a millennium earlier, faience describes a glaze for ceramics that includes tin. In eighth-century Iraq, craftspeople discovered that adding tin to ceramic glaze produced an opaque, white surface suitable for colorful decoration. As the method spread across Asia and Europe, Italians called it maiolica. In France, it became known as faience, after the Italian city of Faenza.
In 1565, French aristocrat Henriette of Cleves married Italian politician Louis of Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers. The couple brought artisans from Italian maiolica centers to Nevers, where they introduced a style of storytelling through images in addition to tin-glaze. By 1600, European demand for Chinese porcelain spurred workshops in Nevers to attempt imitations in faience. Nevers artisans quickly developed a distinctive style that reached its zenith in popularity under King of France Louis XIV (1638–1715), when it featured in his elaborate dinner parties at Versailles. Today, these objects continue to tell stories about the people who made and used them.
Nevers in the World was curated by Nicole Berlin, Associate Curator of Collections with Alicia Bruce, Friends of Art Curatorial Project Manager and Researcher, and Yuhua Ding, Kemper Curator of Collections and Academic Affairs. This exhibition is supported by the Sandra Cohen Bakalar ‘55 Fund, the Judith Blough Wentz ’57 Museum Programs Fund, and Wellesley College Friends of Art at the Davis.
New Book | Art and Artifice in Visual Culture
From Routledge:
Sonia Coman, Vasile-Ovidiu Prejmerean, and Michael Yonan, eds., Art and Artifice in Visual Culture, Eighteenth Century to the Present (New York: Routledge, 2025), 210 pages, ISBN (hardback): 978-1032756783, $180 / ISBN (ebook): 978-1003478898, $50.
This edited volume explores the notion of ‘artifice’ in modern visual culture, ranging from the eighteenth century to the present, in countries around the globe.
Artifice has been regarded as a primarily Western phenomenon, playing as it does a central role in European art theory since the Renaissance. This volume proposes that artifice is better understood as a transcultural artistic phenomenon and requires far broader conceptualization across international contexts. It acquaints readers with works of art, visual modes of communication, and concepts originating in France, Germany, the United States, Japan, and China, and includes painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, photographs, film, and virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR) objects. Contributors demonstrate how practices of artifice function as both symbol and form, in parallel and divergent ways, in multiple cultural settings.
Sonia Coman, PhD is a Contributor and Consultant at Smarthistory and Director of Digital Engagement at Washington National Cathedral. Vasile-Ovidiu Prejmerean is a PhD candidate at Université de Fribourg, Switzerland. Michael Yonan, PhD is a Professor of Art History and Alan Templeton Endowed Chair in the History of European Art, 1600–1830, at the University of California, Davis.
c o n t e n t s
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Introduction: Art and Artifice in a Transcultural Perspective — Sonia Coman, Vasile-Ovidiu Prejmerean, Michael Yonan
Part 1 | Artifice and Spectatorship
1 Fractured Perception: Drawings, Prints, and Verres Casses — J. Cabelle Ahn
2 Rococo Aesthetics and the Problem of Trompe l’Oeil — Michael Yonan
3 Degas’s ‘Histories’ and the Foreshadowing Artifice of Self-Candaulism — Vasile-Ovidiu Prejmerean
Part 2 | Haptic Illusions
4 Suggestive Surfaces: The Self-Referential Texture of Woodgrain in Japanese Woodblock Prints — Kit Brooks
5 Reconsidering the Origins of Yongzheng Guwantu: From the Aniconic Period to Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra — Chih-En Chen
6 Fooling Art History: John F. Peto and William Harnett — Yinshi Lerman-Tan
Part 3 | Alternative Realities
7 First Nations’ Wampum Belts: A Colonial Vision of Artifice in Eighteenth-Century New France — Clémence Fort
8 ‘An Opportunity to Grapple with the Picture Plane…’: The Stereo-Illusion’s History of Frustration — Eszter Polonyi
9 Self-Reference and Medium-Reference in Virtual Reality and Trompe l’Oeil — Sonia Coman
Index
Morgan Library & Museum Seminar | Drawing Nature, 1500–1900
The Morgan presents this day-long seminar for graduate students:
Drawing Nature, 1500–1900
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Friday, 4 April 2025
Proposals due by 21 February 2025
Led by Sarah Mallory, Assistant Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan; Olivia Dill, Moore Curatorial Fellow at the Morgan; and Roberta J. M. Olson, Curator of Drawings Emerita at The New York Historical
European and North American Natural History drawings made before 1900 are historically understood as either works of fine art or as scientific records. The Morgan Library & Museum’s significant collection of natural history drawings, however, provides an opportunity to rethink longstanding divisions between the arts and sciences. This seminar will focus on collection holdings made by artists working in The Netherlands, Germany, England, France, and the Americas, from ca. 1450 to ca. 1850. Participants will have the opportunity to closely examine a large selection of works by Maria Sibylla Merian, Mark Catesby, Madeleine Françoise Basseporte, Georg Dionysius Ehret, John James Audubon, and many others. Lively discussions will address the production and subsequent uses of natural history drawings, including the ways in which techniques of observation and scientific developments informed drawing praxis. Key too will be instances in which artistic practice conditioned the production of empirical knowledge. We will also consider how gender, patronage, collecting practices, and colonial expansion inform natural history drawings.
This seminar is open to graduate students of the history of art, the history of science, and related fields, and also to graduate students interested in the conservation of works on paper. Applicants are kindly invited to submit a one paragraph statement which should include the following:
• Name and email
• Academic institution
• Class year
• Field of study
• Interest in natural history drawings and relevance of the seminar to your research
Applications should be submitted electronically with the subject header ‘Drawing Nature Seminar’ to drawinginstitute@themorgan.org by 21 February 2025. Participants will be notified by March 4.
AIC Receives Horvitz Collection of over 2200 Works of French Art
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Installation view of French Neoclassical Paintings from The Horvitz Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, 2024.
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From the AIC press release (11 February 2025) . . .
The Art Institute of Chicago is honored to announce a transformative gift of 16th- to 19th-century French art from Jeffrey and Carol Horvitz. The Horvitz Collection is the preeminent collection of French Old Master paintings, drawings, and sculptures in the United States, and while the Art Institute is already renowned for one of the most comprehensive collections of 19th-century French art worldwide, this unparalleled gift will allow the museum to provide its visitors with a 300-year panorama of French art that is wholly unique outside of France.
This gift is made up of nearly 2,000 drawings, 200 paintings, and 50 sculptures, and includes works by well-known artists Charles Le Brun, François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jacques-Louis David, and Théodore Géricault; numerous works by women artists, including Anne Vallayer Coster, Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun, Marie-Gabrielle Capet, and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard; and rare works of art where few or none otherwise exist in America, such as artworks by Jacques Bellange, Reynaud Levieux, and Nicolas Prevost.
Jean-Charles-Niçaise Perrin, Death of Seneca, ca. 1788 (Chicago: AIC, Horvitz Collection).
The collection has been built over four decades and continues to grow and evolve. For the last three decades, it has been widely featured in thematic exhibitions in museums across the United States and Europe. More recently, two spectacular exhibitions in late 2024 at the Art Institute—French Neoclassical Paintings from The Horvitz Collection and Revolution to Restoration: French Drawings from The Horvitz Collection—featured just a small portion of the paintings and drawings in this vast collection.
To ensure the care, stewardship, accessibility, and long-term sustainability of the collection and programming for French art, phased financial gifts will accompany the collection and are expected to become one of the largest financial gifts in the history of the Art Institute. These funds will be dedicated to supporting French art across the permanent collection—conserving and caring for works, creating special exhibitions, supporting museum staff, and conducting groundbreaking research.
Jeffrey Horvitz explains, “We have always envisioned this collection remaining as a whole in order to be more than the sum of its parts, and for it to go to a major American museum where the most visitors can experience these artistic treasures, where scholars and curators can avail of the resources and advance this important research, and where our enthusiasm will resonate long after we are gone. We spent years thinking about where the collection should ultimately go—there was no more perfect choice than the Art Institute.”
This ongoing collaboration is the result of significant partnership between Jeffrey and Carol Horvitz; Alvin Clark, the Horvitzes’ curator of French drawings, paintings, and sculpture; and the Art Institute. Carol is an active member of the museum’s Board of Trustees and works closely with the museum regarding other aspects of the Horvitz’s collection, including superb Chinese cinnabar lacquer and the most significant collection of contemporary Japanese ceramics outside of Japan. Many of these works were loaned to the recent acclaimed Art Institute exhibition Radical Clay: Contemporary Women Artists from Japan, which was seen by more than 100,000 visitors.
“We are so grateful to Jeffrey and Carol for this impactful gift,” James Rondeau, President and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago said. “Their continued support and passion for the museum is truly special, not only because it will allow millions of visitors to experience a fuller story of French art, but also because their generous financial support of the ongoing care and research of this collection will allow us to continue advancing our broader mission.”
Conference | CAA 2025, New York
Very warm wishes to everyone attending this week’s conference! –CH
113th Annual Conference of the College Art Association
New York Hilton Midtown, 12–15 February 2025
The CAA 113th Annual Conference will take place at the New York Hilton Midtown, New York City, 12–15 February 2025. Noted below is just a small selection of this year’s offerings, with a full schedule available here.
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Women Artists and the Politics of Neoclassicism
Wednesday, 12 February, 2.30–4.00, Hilton Midtown, 2nd floor, Nassau East
Chairs: Andrea Morgan (The Art Institute of Chicago) and Megan True (The Art Institute of Chicago)
• Marie-Thérèse Reboul Vien and the Emergence of Neoclassicism — Tori Champion (University of St Andrews)
• Marie-Guillemine Benoist (1768–1826): A Neoclassicism of Her Own — Jennifer Germann (Independent Scholar)
• La Créatrice in Flux: Women’s Artmaking and Ambition in Revolutionary France — Maura Gleeson (Valencia College)
• The Genre Anecdotique and Feminine Historical Consciousness in Early 19th-Century France — Marina Kliger (Harvard Art Museums)
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Gender, Class, and Empire: Women and the Representation of Animals in 18th- and 19th-C. Art
Thursday, 13 February 13, 11.00–12.30, Hilton Midtown, 3rd floor, Mercury Ballroom
• The Shepherdess in the Colonies: Young Women in the Pastoral Mode — Patricia Johnston (College of The Holy Cross)
• Bridging Relationships: Pet Animals as Connectors in Eighteenth-Century British Portraiture — Luba Stephania Kozak (University of Regina)
• Vincent van Gogh, Jules Michelet, and Working-Class Women — Christa Rose DiMarco (New College of Florida)
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The Art of Collaboration in the Long 18th Century (HECAA)
Friday, 14 February, 2.30–4.00, Hilton Midtown, 2nd floor, Nassau East
Chairs: Yasemin Diba Altun and Tori Champion
• Layers of Collaboration: The Making of Toiles de Jouy, — Melissa Percival (University of Exeter)
• Beyond the Inner Chamber?: The Making of Female ‘Elegant Gathering’ Paintings in Late 18th-Century China — Michelle Tian (Princeton University)
• Materials as Collaboration in 18th- and 19th-Century Philadelphia — Cambra Sklarz (Harvard Art Museums)
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Unboxing the Long 18th Century (American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies)
Friday, 14 February, 4.30–6.00, Hilton Midtown, 2nd floor, Nassau East
Chairs: Dani Ezor and Jennifer Germann
• Machines for Naturalization: The Cajones of the Spanish Botanical Expeditions — Rebecca Yuste (Columbia University)
• Unveiling the Trans-regional Journey of Red Ginseng: Joseon Korea’s Commercial Expansion in the 18th Century — Jeffrey C. Youn (College of Charleston)
• ’Wat men veerst haelt, dat smaeket soetst’: The Pomander as a Miniature Cabinet of Curiosities — Jasper Martens (University of California Santa Barbara)
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HECAA@CAA Lunch
Friday, 14 February, 12.45
Join HECAA members for lunch on Friday, before the “Art of Collaboration” panel. Catch up with other HECAA members over a buy-your-own lunch at a nearby food hall. The group will meet at the lobby of the conference Hilton hotel between 12.45 and 1.00 and then head to Urban Hawker; please be in touch with Tori Champion (tc217@st-andrews.ac.uk) so we can know how many people to expect!
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On Prints: From Fragonard to the Legacy of the Harlem Renaissance
Hauser & Wirth, Thursday, 13 February, 6.30–8pm
Registration Required
HECAA members attending CAA are invited to attend an off-site gathering On Prints: From Fragonard to the Legacy of the Harlem Renaissance at Hauser & Wirth (443 W 18th Street). The event is organized by Michelle Foa, Tulane University, for the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art (AHNCA), who have generously extended the invitation to HECAA members to join. Speakers will include Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Rachael DeLue, Ashley Dunn, Michelle Foa, Rena Hoisington, Meredith Martin, and Britany Salsbury. HECAA members can register and find more information here.
Enfilade 
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