A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
StatusActive
GenreLecture series
FrequencyAnnually
VenueNational Gallery of Art
Location(s)Washington, D.C.
CountryUnited States
Years active71
Established1949 (1949)
FoundersAilsa Mellon Bruce
Paul Mellon
Most recent2022

The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts is an annual public lecture series, hosted by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., based on topics in the fine arts. Established in 1949 from an endowed gift from Ailsa Mellon Bruce and her brother, Paul Mellon, the series held its first lecture in 1952. While the series has featured mainly art historians, artists, composers, journalists, musicologists, poets, and scientists have also been invited to speak on art-related topics.

History

Established in 1949, the Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts were created as part of an endowed gift to the National Gallery of Art from the Avalon Foundation and the Old Dominion Foundation, ran respectively by Ailsa Mellon Bruce and her brother, Paul Mellon, of the wealthy Mellon family. The series was created in order to "to bring to the people of the United States the results of the best contemporary thought and scholarship bearing upon the subject of the Fine Arts," and speakers must be of "exceptional ability, achievement, and reputation."[1] The production of a book based on the talks has been funded by the Bollingen Foundation, ran by Paul and his wife, Mary Conover.

The Mellon Lectures began in 1952. Its first speaker was the French philosopher Jacques Maritain of Princeton University, who gave a talk titled "Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry."

Since 1967, the Princeton University Press has published the book based on each talk. In 1969, the foundations merged to form the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

In 1987, the Mellon Lecture did not take place for the first time since its inception. It restarted a year later, with 2020 being the only other stoppage. In that year, the French art historian Yve-Alain Bois was named as the annual speaker, but the event was postponed for a later date.[2] Again, the series would restart in the following year.

Speakers

A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts
YearSpeakerAffiliationLecture Title
1952Jacques MaritainPrinceton UniversityCreative Intuition in Art and Poetry
1953Kenneth ClarkArts Council of Great BritainThe Nude: A Study of Ideal Art
1954Herbert ReadHarvard UniversityThe Art of Sculpture
1955Étienne GilsonPontifical Institute of Mediaeval StudiesArt and Reality
1956Ernst GombrichUniversity College LondonThe Visible World and the Language of Art
1957Sigfried GiedionUniversity of ZurichConstancy and Change in Art and Architecture
1958Anthony BluntUniversity of LondonNicolas Poussin and French Classicism
1959Naum GaboArtistA Sculptor's View of the Fine Arts
1960Wilmarth Sheldon LewisYale UniversityHorace Walpole
1961André GrabarCollège de FranceChristian Iconography and the Christian Religion in Antiquity
1962Kathleen RainePoetWilliam Blake and Traditional Mythology
1963John Pope-HennessyVictoria and Albert MuseumArtist and Individual: Some Aspects of the Renaissance Portrait
1964Jakob RosenbergHarvard UniversityOn Quality in Art: Criteria of Excellence, Past and Present
1965Isaiah BerlinUniversity of OxfordSources of Romantic Thought
1966David CecilUniversity of OxfordDreamer or Visionary: A Study of English Romantic Painting
1967Mario PrazSapienza University of RomeOn the Parallel of Literature and the Visual Arts
1968Stephen SpenderPoetImaginative Literature and Painting
1969Jacob BronowskiScientistArt as a Mode of Knowledge
1970Nikolaus PevsnerUniversity of LondonSome Aspects of Nineteenth‑Century Architecture
1971T. S. R. BoaseUniversity of OxfordVasari: The Man and the Book
1972Ludwig Heinrich HeydenreichLudwig-Maximilians-UniversitätLeonardo da Vinci
1973Jacques BarzunColumbia UniversityThe Use and Abuse of Art
1974H.W. JansonNew York UniversityNineteenth‑Century Sculpture Reconsidered
1975H. C. Robbins LandonMusicologistMusic in Europe in the Year 1776
1976Peter von BlanckenhagenNew York UniversityAspects of Classical Art
1977André ChastelCollège de FranceThe Sack of Rome: 1527
1978Joseph AlsopJournalistThe History of Art Collecting
1979John RewaldCity University of New YorkPaul Cézanne and America
1980Peter KidsonUniversity of LondonPrinciples of Design in Ancient and Medieval Architecture
1981John HarrisRoyal Institute of British ArchitectsPalladian Architecture in England, 1615–1760
1982Leo SteinbergUniversity of PennsylvaniaThe Burden of Michelangelo's Painting
1983Vincent ScullyYale UniversityThe Shape of France
1984Richard WollheimColumbia UniversityPainting as an Art
1985James S. AckermanHarvard UniversityThe Villa in History
1986Lukas FossBrooklyn PhilharmonicConfessions of a Twentieth‑Century Composer
1988John ShearmanPrinceton UniversityArt and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance
1989Oleg GrabarHarvard UniversityIntermediary Demons: Toward a Theory of Ornament
1990Jennifer MontaguWarburg InstituteGold, Silver, and Bronze: Metal Sculpture of the Roman Baroque
1991Willibald SauerländerZentralinstitut für KunstgeschichteChanging Faces: Art and Physiognomy through the Ages
1992Anthony HechtGeorgetown UniversityThe Laws of the Poetic Art
1993John BoardmanUniversity of OxfordThe Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity
1994Jonathan BrownNew York UniversityKings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe
1995Arthur DantoColumbia UniversityContemporary Art and the Pale of History
1996Pierre RosenbergMusée du LouvreFrom Drawing to Painting: Poussin, Watteau, Fragonard, David, Ingres
1997John GoldingArtistPaths to the Absolute
1998Lothar LedderoseHeidelberg UniversityTen Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art
1999Carlo BertelliUniversità della Svizzera ItalianaTransitions
2000Marc FumaroliCollège de FranceThe Quarrel Between the Ancients and the Moderns in the Arts, 1600–1715
2001Salvatore SettisScuola Normale Superiore di PisaGiorgione and Caravaggio: Art as Revolution
2002Michael FriedJohns Hopkins UniversityThe Moment of Caravaggio
2003Kirk VarnedoeInstitute for Advanced StudyPictures of Nothing: Abstract Art Since Pollock
2004Irving LavinPrinceton UniversityMore Than Meets the Eye
2005Irene J. WinterHarvard University“Great Work”: Terms of Aesthetic Experience in Ancient Mesopotamia
2006Simon SchamaColumbia UniversityReally Old Masters: Age, Infirmity, and Reinvention
2007Helen VendlerHarvard UniversityLast Looks, Last Books: The Binocular Poetry of Death
2008Joseph KoernerHarvard UniversityBosch and Bruegel: Parallel Worlds?
2009T. J. ClarkUniversity of California, BerkeleyPicasso and Truth
2010Mary MillerYale UniversityArt and Representation in the Ancient New World
2011Mary BeardUniversity of CambridgeThe Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from Ancient Rome to Salvador Dalí
2012Craig ClunasUniversity of OxfordChinese Painting and Its Audiences
2013Barry BergdollColumbia UniversityOut of Site in Plain View: A History of Exhibiting Architecture Since 1750
2014Anthony GraftonPrinceton UniversityPast Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe
2015Thomas CrowNew York UniversityRestoration as Event and Idea: Art in Europe, 1814‒1820
2016Vidya DehejiaColumbia UniversityThe Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855‒1280
2017Alexander NemerovStanford UniversityThe Forest: America in the 1830s
2018Hal FosterPrinceton UniversityPositive Barbarism: Brutal Aesthetics in the Postwar Period
2019Wu HungUniversity of ChicagoEnd as Beginning: Chinese Art and Dynastic Time
2020Yve-Alain BoisPrinceton UniversityTransparence and Ambiguity: The Modern Space of Axonometry
2021Jennifer RobertsHarvard UniversityContact: Art and the Pull of Print
2022Richard J. PowellDuke UniversityColorstruck! Painting, Pigment, Affect
2023Stephen D. HoustonBrown UniversityVital Signs: The Visual Cultures of Maya Writing

See also

Further reading

  • Cropper, Elizabeth, ed., The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts: Fifty Years, National Gallery of Art, 2002 ISBN 978-0300099614

References

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