PRESENTATIONS
Alice J. Walkiewicz, Ph.D.
“Creating an Art for the People: Hits and Flops in Early U.S. Art”
How should an American President be portrayed? Should U.S. art moralize and elevate? Or should it be approachable and entertaining? And just what defines the American identity? U.S. artists sought to answer these questions (and more) in the years following Independence — and met with varying degrees of success. With the founding of the new nation, some artists aspired to elevate the status of U.S. art to the lofty heights of the European tradition. The nature of the American market, however, was notably different from that of Europe, and some of these artistic ambitions fell flat. Why did Gilbert Stuart’s portraits of George Washington, Hudson River School landscapes, and the genre scenes of painters like Lily Martin Spencer succeed while Samuel F. B. Morse’s history paintings and Horatio Greenough’s sculpture of the first president ultimately floundered? From the elevated subjects of portraiture and history painting to the “lower genres” of landscape and scenes of everyday life, this talk will explore examples of early U.S. art that worked . . . and some that did not.
BIO
Alice J. Walkiewicz is an educator and art historian, with over a decade of experience teaching both in the academic classroom and as a public historian. An Oklahoma native, she is currently based in New York City, where she received her Ph.D. in Art History from The City University of New York Graduate Center. She specializes in 19th-century European and U.S. art and her work explores the relationship between fashion, labor, and urban-industrialization in the visual culture of Britain, France, and the United States.
Dr. Walkiewicz has taught Art History courses at The City University of New York, Parsons The New School for Design, Pace University, and Pratt Institute. She has also worked at the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York, where she wrote the publication “A View of New York in the Gilded Age: East 64th Street at the Turn of the Century,” which combines her interests in art and local history through the story of one block on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In addition to her academic and museum work, Dr. Walkiewicz has also served as a historic walking tour guide for Big Onion Walking Tours for over ten years. Her public history tours aim to tangibly bring New York — and oftentimes U.S. — history to life through the art, architecture, people, and events that have shaped the historic neighborhoods of Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Bill Dedman
The Homes, Treasures, and Artistic Life of Huguette Clark and Her Empty Mansions
Bill Dedman will offer stunning visuals to bring the rich story of the W.A. Clark family to life. We will tour the palatial Clark homes, see their treasures, and learn the secrets of the extraordinary life of the copper heiress Huguette Clark. We will see the paintings made by Huguette herself, and also hear her voice in conversation. Dedman will introduce us to W.A. Clark, the copper king, founder of Las Vegas, and controversial U.S. senator, whose estate at his death in 1925 was estimated to be worth $300 million, (equivalent to $4.15 billion in today’s dollars) making him one of the wealthiest Americans ever. Clark’s art collection was donated to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. after his death. Huguette, who was the daughter of Clark and his second wife, Anna, 39 years his junior, had an unused ticket on the Titanic, was still living in New York City on 9/11, and died at the age of 104. Though the reclusive heiress, artist, and philanthropist owned palatial homes, she chose to live for 20 years in a simple hospital room. Huguette’s life story is extreme, but it holds lessons for us all, a story of American aspiration, excess, and generosity.
BIO
Bill Dedman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and author. He got his start in journalism at 16 as a copy boy at The Chattanooga Times. Dedman has written for The Associated Press, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, working in newspapers, online news, television, and magazines. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting for The Color of Money, an investigation of racial discrimination by banks in middle-income Black neighborhoods. Thirty years later, he was one of the lead reporters on Long Island Divided, a Peabody Award-winning investigation of illegal steering by real estate agents in violation of the Fair Housing Act.
Dedman stumbled onto the mystery of the reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, who was featured in his series of reports in 2010. The Clark series was the most popular story ever on NBCNews.com, with more than 110 million page views. He co-wrote with Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., the biography Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune. The book debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times best seller list and was chosen among the best books of 2013 by critic Janet Maslin, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Goodreads readers. HBO is developing a TV series based on this best-seller.
Nancy G. Heller, Ph.D.
A (Very) Short History of American Women Artists, From the 18th Century to World War II
Most people are familiar with the names Mary Cassatt and Georgia O’Keeffe. But the history of American women artists—successful, professional women artists–goes back to the 1700s. This richly illustrated talk will survey important examples of these extraordinary individuals–well-known at the time, but less familiar in 2024–from the 18th century to the Second World War.
These pioneers include: Patience Lovell Wright, famous for creating life-sized wax portraits–and also a spy for the American colonists at the court of King George III; Edmonia Lewis, a Black/Native American woman raised on a reservation who became much sought-after in 19th-century Rome for her Neoclassical-style art; and Julia Morgan, the first female architect licensed to practice in California, who designed the so-called “Castle” of influential publisher, businessman, and politician William Randolph Hearst. Considering the lives and work of these women will help us more fully understand and appreciate their spiritual descendants: the many prominent American women artists who are active today.
BIO
Nancy G. Heller is Professor Emerita of Art History at The University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA). She has also taught at the University of Maryland (College Park), Texas A & M @ Commerce, and Georgetown University. She has lectured for numerous organizations—including the Smithsonian Institution, for which she has been a regular speaker for several decades, and presented scholarly papers at art and dance-history conferences across the U.S. as well as in Lisbon, London, Seville, Rome, and Cluj (Romania). Dr. Heller has received awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Smithsonian Institution, American Association of University Women, Richard C. von Hess Foundation, Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation, and the government of Spain. Since 1984 she has been a student, teacher, and performer of Spanish dance, and a writer/lecturer on related subjects.
Dr. Heller’s books include the 4th revised-and-expanded edition of Women Artists: An Illustrated History and Why a Painting is Like a Pizza: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying Modern Art. She also contributed a chapter to Flamenco on the Global Stage: Historical, Critical, and Theoretical Perspectives; and wrote the catalogue essay on flamenco for the National Gallery’s 2022-2023 exhibition, “Sargent and Spain.”