Effects of the Civil War on American Art

Friday, November 16, 2012

This symposium examines the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on American landscape and genre painting, along with the period's new medium of photography. The program is free and open to the public, and is organized in conjunction with the exhibition The Civil War and American Art.

For more information, contact AmericanArtPrograms@si.edu or (202) 633-8490.

Symposium Program

Session 1 

10:05 – 10:10 a.m.
Greetings and Introduction
Virginia Mecklenburg, Chief Curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum

10:10 – 10:50 a.m.
Keynote—The Coming Storm: The Civil War and American Art
Eleanor Jones Harvey, Senior Curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum

10:55 – 11:35 a.m.
Seeing the Elephant: Photography and the American Civil War
Jeff Rosenheim, Curator in Charge of Photography, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

11:45 a.m. – Noon
Questions & Answers
 

Session 2 

1:30 – 2:15 p.m.
Near Andersonville: Winslow Homer’s Civil War
Peter Wood, Emeritus Professor of History, Duke University

2:15 – 3:00 p.m.
Race and Battlefield: Seeing and Not Seeing the Civil War
John Davis, Alice Pratt Brown Professor of Art, Smith College
 

Session 3

3:15 – 4:00 p.m.
The Civil War and Slavery’s Shadow
Maurie McInnis, Professor of American Art and Material Culture, University of Virginia

4:00 – 4:45 p.m.
Winslow Homer’s Croquet Pictures: Reflections of Loss and Absence
Randall Griffin, Professor of Art History, Southern Methodist University

4:50 – 5:15 p.m.
Questions and Answers

5:30 – 6:30 p.m.
Reception

This program is supported by the Smithsonian Institution’s Consortium for Understanding the American Experience.

Symposium Webcast Playlist