Ekphrasis is a monthly book club devoted to the history of art. Works of fiction and non-fiction are featured, covering periods ranging from the ancient world to the present. For this unique program, staff members lead presentations to provide visual context for the chosen books. To reserve lunch from Cafe M, call 240-4365, or email edsecy@mmfa.org. Payment must be received by 10 A.M. the Friday before the book club meets. Ekphrasis is free program for Museum members.
Art Held Hostage: The Battle Over the Barnes Collection
Wednesday, September 13, noon
Led by Jennifer Jankauskas
“This is the story of how a fabled art foundation―the greatest collection of impressionist and postimpressionist art in America, including 69 Cézannes, 60 Matisses, and 44 Picassos, among many priceless others―came to be, and how more than a decade of legal squabbling brought it to the brink of collapse and to a move that many believe betrayed the wishes of the founder, Dr. Albert C. Barnes (1872―1951). Art Held Hostage is now updated with a new epilogue by the author covering the current state of this international treasure and the endless battle over its fate.” amazon.com
Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O’Keefe
Wednesday, October 11, 12 noon
Led by Margaret Lynne Ausfeld
“Georgia O’Keeffe is a young woman, painting and teaching art in Texas, when she travels to New York to meet Alfred Stieglitz, the married gallery owner of 291, modern art promoter, and photographer. Their instantaneous attraction and powerful hunger for each other draw her into his world of art, sex, and passion, and she becomes his mistress and his muse. As their relationship develops, so does Georgia’s place in the art world, but she becomes trapped in her role as the subject of Stieglitz’s infamous nude photographs of her; the critics cannot envision her as her own being. As her own artistic fervor begins to push the boundaries of her life, we see Georgia transform into the powerfully independent woman she is known as today.” (Goodreads)
Heretics and Heroes: How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created Our World
Wednesday, November 8, 12 noon
Led by Elisabeth Palmer
“Beginning with the continent-wide disaster of the Black Death, Thomas Cahill traces the many developments in European thought and experience that served both the new humanism of the Renaissance and the seemingly abrupt religious alterations of the increasingly radical Reformation. This is an age of the most sublime artistic and scientific adventure, but also of newly powerful princes and armies and of newly found courage, as many thousands refuse to bow their heads to the religious pieties of the past. It is an era of just-discovered continents and previously unknown peoples. More than anything, it is a time of individuality in which a whole culture must achieve a new balance if the West is to continue.” (Goodreads)
Art Held Hostage: The Battle Over the Barnes Collection
Wednesday, September 13, noon
Led by Jennifer Jankauskas
“This is the story of how a fabled art foundation―the greatest collection of impressionist and postimpressionist art in America, including 69 Cézannes, 60 Matisses, and 44 Picassos, among many priceless others―came to be, and how more than a decade of legal squabbling brought it to the brink of collapse and to a move that many believe betrayed the wishes of the founder, Dr. Albert C. Barnes (1872―1951). Art Held Hostage is now updated with a new epilogue by the author covering the current state of this international treasure and the endless battle over its fate.” amazon.com
Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O’Keefe
Wednesday, October 11, 12 noon
Led by Margaret Lynne Ausfeld
“Georgia O’Keeffe is a young woman, painting and teaching art in Texas, when she travels to New York to meet Alfred Stieglitz, the married gallery owner of 291, modern art promoter, and photographer. Their instantaneous attraction and powerful hunger for each other draw her into his world of art, sex, and passion, and she becomes his mistress and his muse. As their relationship develops, so does Georgia’s place in the art world, but she becomes trapped in her role as the subject of Stieglitz’s infamous nude photographs of her; the critics cannot envision her as her own being. As her own artistic fervor begins to push the boundaries of her life, we see Georgia transform into the powerfully independent woman she is known as today.” (Goodreads)
Heretics and Heroes: How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created Our World
Wednesday, November 8, 12 noon
Led by Elisabeth Palmer
“Beginning with the continent-wide disaster of the Black Death, Thomas Cahill traces the many developments in European thought and experience that served both the new humanism of the Renaissance and the seemingly abrupt religious alterations of the increasingly radical Reformation. This is an age of the most sublime artistic and scientific adventure, but also of newly powerful princes and armies and of newly found courage, as many thousands refuse to bow their heads to the religious pieties of the past. It is an era of just-discovered continents and previously unknown peoples. More than anything, it is a time of individuality in which a whole culture must achieve a new balance if the West is to continue.” (Goodreads)
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