Perspective, movement and composition in early 20th-century art are the themes that will be explored in the 1997 Lydia Winston Malbin Lectures, which will be presented 2-6 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 8, at the Yale University Art Gallery.
This year's lectures, titled "Conversations on Pictorial Space," celebrate the 75th birthday of Anne Coffin Hanson, the John Hay Whitney Professor Emerita of the History of Art and acting curator of European and contemporary art at the Yale Art Gallery.
Art historians who were influenced by Professor Hanson's popular course on pictorial space will present illustrated talks on images by Edouard Vuillard, Umberto Boccioni and the Russian avant-garde, as well as films by the Dadaist Hans Richter. Among the topics they will explore are the ways children's pictorial space engages such modern masters as Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee and Joan Miro. Admission to the event is free, and the public is welcome.
The afternoon will open at 2 p.m. with a welcome from Susan Vogel, the Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Yale Art Gallery. This will be followed by a screening of the documentary "An Interview with Hans Richter on Pictorial Space" and his film "Rhythm 21."
At 3 p.m., there will be a talk on "Vibratory Modernism: Early Twentieth Century Artists and the Ether" by Linda Henderson, professor of art history at the University of Texas, Austin, and author of "The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art." A lecture on "Edouard Vuillard's Use of Pictorial Space in Painting and Photography" by Elizabeth Easton, associate curator of European painting and sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum, will follow.
"Umberto Boccioni's Domestic and Urban Spaces" will be discussed at 4 p.m. by Christine Poggi, professor of art history at the University of Pennsylvania and author of "In Defiance of Painting: Cubism, Futurism, and the Invention of Collage." This will be followed by a talk titled "Being There in Children's Pictorial Space" by Jonathan Fineberg, professor of art history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The final lecture, "Speculations on the Pictorial Space of the Urban Signboard in the Art of the Russian Avant-Garde," will be given by Jane Ashton Sharp, assistant professor in the department of art history and archaeology at the University of Maryland at College Park. Romy Golan, associate professor in the history of art at Yale, will offer closing remarks. The afternoon will conclude with a reception in the sculpture hall.
Professor Hanson has been a member of the Yale faculty since 1970. In addition to numerous articles on 19th- and 20th-century art, her publications include "Edouard Manet: 1832-1883," "Manet and the Modern Tradition" and "Severini Futurista, 1912-1914," the latter published in conjunction with her 1995 exhibition for the Yale Art Gallery and the Kimbell Art Museum. In 1988 Professor Hanson co-curated "The Graphic Art of Umberto Boccioni -- Selections from the Lydia Winston Malbin Collection" at the Yale Art Gallery. She was instrumental in the gallery's acquisition of the Lydia Winston Malbin Papers in 1991 and the establishment of an endowed lectureship in Ms. Malbin's honor.
Lydia Winston Malbin (1897-1989) was the daughter of the pioneering industrial architect Albert Kahn. Guided by the writings and advice of such friends as Alfred Stieglitz and Alfred H. Barr Jr., Ms. Malbin created one of the world's foremost private collections of modern art. She focused particularly, but not exclusively, on Italian Futurist art, acquired through direct contact with the artists or their relatives.