2008 Woodie Awards
Art goes 'camp'
Gina Pusateri - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 3/6/08 Section: 80 Hours
Each year, the Graduate Art History Symposium has a theme that all graduate students and speakers use for their speeches. With this year's theme being "Fun and Games: The Principle of Pleasure in Art and Architecture," it seemed only fitting to have someone speak on the art of leisure in Winslow Homer's paintings. This year's keynote speaker, Margaretta Lovell of the University of California-Berkeley will do just that.
Lovell will deliver the lecture "Winslow Homer, the Adirondack Mountains, and the Great Camps: Scenes of Instruction, Predation, and Play," on Friday at 8 p.m. in 240 Art Building West to kick off the 23rd-Annual Art History Symposium. In addition to her and assorted graduate speakers, artwork from students in the School of Art History and Art will be displayed in the IMU Gallery. There will be a reception for the exhibit at 1 p.m. on Friday.
Although Homer is most famous for his watercolors of marine life from the 1870s to the early 1900s, his talent is still appreciated on the prairies and the cornfields of the Midwest. The collection of his work that Lovell will focus on includes scenes of what may be described as an early version of "eco-tourism."
"In the 19th century, there were lots of what today may be considered 'great camps' in the Northeast," said Kurt Rahmlow, an art-history graduate student and symposium keynote-speaker coordinator. "New Yorkers stayed in log cabins in the Adirondack Mountains, but it was also very social."
In her lecture, Lovell will include Homer's scenes of the high-society people in fancy dress against natural backdrops of waterfronts and mountains, capturing the tension of trying to get away from the industrialization of the city while re-creating its social atmosphere in a rough environment.
Lovell, who received a Ph.D. in American studies from Yale in 1980, specializes in (among other things) American artwork in the 17th and 18th centuries, focusing on landscapes and nature. She has taught art history at Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and the University of Michigan. Following her lecture on Friday, the symposium will continue on Saturday, and graduate students from across the country will give talks from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
"The keynote speaker is always someone with expert knowledge on the subject," Rahmlow said. "Entertainment and leisure has high importance in the visual arts."
E-mail DI reporter Gina Pusateri at:
gina-pusateri@uiowa.edu
Lovell will deliver the lecture "Winslow Homer, the Adirondack Mountains, and the Great Camps: Scenes of Instruction, Predation, and Play," on Friday at 8 p.m. in 240 Art Building West to kick off the 23rd-Annual Art History Symposium. In addition to her and assorted graduate speakers, artwork from students in the School of Art History and Art will be displayed in the IMU Gallery. There will be a reception for the exhibit at 1 p.m. on Friday.
Although Homer is most famous for his watercolors of marine life from the 1870s to the early 1900s, his talent is still appreciated on the prairies and the cornfields of the Midwest. The collection of his work that Lovell will focus on includes scenes of what may be described as an early version of "eco-tourism."
"In the 19th century, there were lots of what today may be considered 'great camps' in the Northeast," said Kurt Rahmlow, an art-history graduate student and symposium keynote-speaker coordinator. "New Yorkers stayed in log cabins in the Adirondack Mountains, but it was also very social."
In her lecture, Lovell will include Homer's scenes of the high-society people in fancy dress against natural backdrops of waterfronts and mountains, capturing the tension of trying to get away from the industrialization of the city while re-creating its social atmosphere in a rough environment.
Lovell, who received a Ph.D. in American studies from Yale in 1980, specializes in (among other things) American artwork in the 17th and 18th centuries, focusing on landscapes and nature. She has taught art history at Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and the University of Michigan. Following her lecture on Friday, the symposium will continue on Saturday, and graduate students from across the country will give talks from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
"The keynote speaker is always someone with expert knowledge on the subject," Rahmlow said. "Entertainment and leisure has high importance in the visual arts."
E-mail DI reporter Gina Pusateri at:
gina-pusateri@uiowa.edu
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