Titans of the Italian Renaissance
(single talk or 3-part series)

The High Renaissance was a brief - 30 year - tranquil period at the end of the 15th and start of the 16th centuries when the technical mastery to produce illusionistic art and the desire to make classically- inspired art came togther in the hands of profound thinkers.  

We'll look at a rich variety of images by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael while exploring their personal stories and the times in which they lived as well as their contributions to art.  

Celebrities, courted by princes and popes, these men produced some of the most influential works of western art.

Sensuous Poetry: The Art of 16th Century Venice

Bellini, Giorgione, Tiziano – even their names are poetic.  Their art was no less so.  Venetian artists revel in the sensuality of color and the glory of the female form.  Compared to the Venetians, contemporary Renaissance Italians painted only prose.

Revisit Rembrandt

In this tribute, we'll explore the rich art world of 17th century Holland from which Rembrandt emerged, and look not only at his uniquely sensitive paintings but also at revolutionary prints and drawings created by this master draftsman.  Along the way we'll tell the story of Rembrandt's life, his eclipse and the rediscovery of this very human artist.

Manet to Picasso

This richly illustrated talk presents artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who changed the course of western art.  

Paul Gauguin: Dreaming amid Nature

Art is abstraction when you dream amid nature

We can tell many stories about the Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin:

• How he turned from banker to impoverished artist.

• How he escaped from the "artificial and conventional" Paris to seek the primitive

• How he fought with Vincent van Gogh over what art should be

• How he went from husband and father of five to seek love on tropical islands.

We'll touch on all these but focus on Gauguin's emergence from a mediocre impressionist to a strong original artist who left a legacy that influenced 20th century artists.

Georgia O'Keeffe

O'Keeffe was one of the first artists to experiment with abstraction in America.  Her large paintings of flowers were designed to make even busy New Yorkers want to stop and examine them.  We'll follow her long career from her early drawings to the paintings of her beloved New Mexico.  Her obituary in the New York Times declared "Her colors dazzled, her erotic implications provoked and stimulated, her subjects astonished and amused." 

Painters of Urban Life: The Ashcan School

In the early 20th century the cities of America were expanding rapidly with immigrants from rural areas and overseas creating a lively mix of rich and poor, parks and tenements.  Artists flocked to New York to teach and to study. This talk focuses on those artists, such as John Sloan, George Bellows, and Maurice Prendergast who depicted scenes of life in city streets, parks, and bars.