Skill Levels: All Levels

In 1900, John Singer Sargent was the world’s most celebrated portraitist. His most famous work today, the Portrait of Madame X, is among the Metropolitan Museum’s most cherished masterpieces. The celebrity that the portrait enjoys today is ironic, given the fact that it had once prompted young Sargent to consider giving up painting. This lecture overviews Sargent’s career achievements with a more in-depth account of how Mme. X was created, why Sargent chose the controversial Virginie Gautreau as his model, and the role she played when the painting created a firestorm at its debut at the Paris Salon in 1884.

Skill Levels: All Levels

Although closely associated with the Impressionists and showing at their exhibits, Edgar Degas rejected the ‘Impressionist’ label along with their improvised compositions and plein air painting. Classicist to the core, he made countless preparatory drawings for his meticulously planned paintings created in his studio. Going beyond Impressionism, Degas became one of the most inventive, prolific, independent-thinking artists of his time. This lecture focuses on his innovations, his relationships with the Impressionists, and the significance of his recurring themes and enduring fixation on the female figure.

Skill Levels: All Levels

George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879) began his career as a self-taught itinerant portrait painter in the rural Midwest. Today he’s known for his compelling depictions of frontier life on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. His Fur Traders Descending the Missouri of 1845 is celebrated as one of the great masterpieces of 19th-century American art. Bingham spent the next decade creating his iconic river series. Dee’s program tells the story behind the creation of these images and the role that politics played in Bingham’s commitment to this theme. You’ll also learn about the unorthodox techniques that the artist used to overcome his lack of formal training.

Skill Levels: All Levels

In 1922, the New York Times reported that ” Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy’ is even more well-known than the Mona Lisa.” This iconic painting, originally titled “Portrait of a Young Gentleman,” was first exhibited in London in 1770. When admiring critics called it “The Blue Boy,” the nickname stuck. In 1922, the painting came to America when it was sold to American railway tycoon Henry Huntington. Its $728,000 sale price was the highest price ever paid for a painting at that time. Learn how and why Gainsborough created this iconic masterpiece (which was not a commissioned work) and what prompted the painting’s extraordinary fame.

Skill Levels: All Levels

In the 1890s, the paintings of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch were deemed so shocking that parents were warned that looking at his art could give their children chickenpox. Today, his haunting painting, The Scream, ranks among western art’s most celebrated and well-known images. Dee’s program provides an overview of Munch’s tumultuous life and career and a more in-depth look at the circumstances surrounding the creation of The Scream and its unique place in the history of Modern Art.