Conference Program — The Course of Empires

Thursday, October 19, 2017
Embassy of Italy

6:00 p.m., Introduction
Renato Miracco, Cultural Attaché, Embassy of Italy

6:30 p.m., Keynote Address
Ester Coen, Professor of Art History, Università degli Studi dell’Aquila,
“American-Italian Artistic Exchange after World War II”

 

Friday, October 20, 2017
Smithsonian American Art Museum, McEvoy Auditorium

9:00 a.m., Registration and Coffee

9:30 a.m., Welcome
Stephanie Stebich, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director, Smithsonian American Art Museum

9:45 a.m., Introduction
Melissa Dabakis,* Professor and Chair of Art History, Kenyon College

10:00 a.m.
Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Alice Pratt Brown Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Thomas Cole’s Travels from Rome to Catskill: Republican Ideals”

10:30 a.m.
Caitlin Beach, PhD Candidate, Columbia University, and Wyeth Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, “Francesco Pezzicar’s L’Abolizione della schiavitù in America across Empires”

11:00 a.m.
Jane Dini, Independent Scholar, “Sargent’s and Duveneck’s Working-Class Venetian Muses”

11:30 a.m.
Daniele Fiorentino,* Professor of U.S. History and Political Science, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, “A Transatlantic Cultural Landscape: America in Rome at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century”

12:00 p.m., Question and Answer Session
Moderator: Paul Kaplan,* Professor of Art History, Purchase College, SUNY

2:00 p.m., Introduction
Amelia Goerlitz,* Fellowship and Academic Programs Manager, Smithsonian American Art Museum
Karen Lemmey,* Curator of Sculpture, Smithsonian American Art Museum

2:30 p.m.
Sergio Cortesini,* Assistant Professor of Art History, Università di Pisa, “The Myth of the Italian Renaissance in New Deal Murals”

3:00 p.m.
Peter Benson Miller, Andrew Heiskell Arts Director, American Academy in Rome, “Painting in the Contact Zone: American Artists in Postwar Rome”

3:30 p.m.
Marin R. Sullivan, Assistant Professor of Art History, Keene State College, and George Gurney Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian American Art Museum, “Sculpture in the (Ancient) City: Calder, Smith, and Smithson in Italy”

4:30 p.m.
Raffaele Bedarida, Assistant Professor of Art History, Cooper Union, “Eterna Primavera: When Hollywood Fell in Love with Modern Italian Art, 1954-1960”

5:00 p.m.
Erika Doss, Professor of American Studies, University of Notre Dame, “Death, Decay, and Ruination: Paul Thek’s Technological Reliquaries and the Muses of Italy”

5:30 p.m., Question and Answer Session
Moderator: Paul Kaplan,* Professor of Art History, Purchase College, SUNY

 

Saturday, October 21, 2017
Scholars’ Day: “Washington as the New Rome”
Smithsonian American Art Museum, MacMillan Education Center

11:00 a.m., Introductory Remarks
Paul Kaplan,* Professor of Art History, Purchase College, State University of New York

11:15 a.m.
Barbara Wolanin, Curator Emerita, Architect of the Capitol; and Tiarna Doherty, Former Chief Conservator, Lunder Conservation Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum, “Constantino Brumidi and his Roman-Inspired Murals for the U.S. Capitol”

11:45 a.m.
Alexander Nagel, Research Associate, National Museum of Natural History, “Ancient (and Modern) Rome on the Move: Three Stories on the Art of Displaying an Empire in Washington, D.C., around 1900”

 

* denotes conference organizers