Free Fun Friday At The Clark Art Institute
The Clark Art Institute offers a day of fun and free admission on Friday, August 28 from 10 am to 5 pm as part of the Highland Street Foundation’s Free Fun Friday initiative. Gallery admission is free to all.
For the seventh consecutive year, the Highland Street Foundation’s summer program provides no-cost admission to cultural institutions throughout Massachusetts.
[private]Draw By The Light Of The Moon At
The Clark’s Starry Night Drawing Night
Celebrate the full moon with a night of drawing under the stars at the Clark on Friday, August 28 from 7 to 10 pm on the Moltz Terrace at the Lunder Center at Stone Hill on the Clark’s campus in Williamstown, MA. In a nod to drawing en plein air as did Vincent van Gogh, the free class begins with a half-hour lesson from local artist Frank Gregory, followed by individual assistance in capturing a night scene. Light refreshments will be served.
Students will be provided with drawing boards and oil pastels. Please call 413-458-0410 to register. In the event of rain, this event will be canceled.
This program is supported by funding from the officers and employees of Allen & Company, Inc.
Whistler And ‘Whistler’s Mother’ Lecture
By Williams College Curator Kevin Murphy
In a public lecture on Friday, September 4 at 3:30 pm at the Clark, Kevin Murphy, Eugénie Prendergast Curator of American Art at the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA), investigates artist James McNeill Whistler’s bravura brushwork and delicate use of line, with which he created some of the most beautiful – and most controversial – artwork of the nineteenth century. The lecture, free with paid admission, will be held at the Lunder Center at Stone Hill on the Clark’s campus. The galleries at the Lunder Center are the site of the exhibition Whistler’s Mother: Grey, Black, and White, on view through September 27.
Whistler was known for his radical artistic processes, among them the thin ground used for Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (Portrait of the Artist’s Mother), familiarly known as Whistler’s Mother. The painting, on a rare loan from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, is the centerpiece of the Clark’s exhibition, which also includes a selection of Whistler’s prints and drawings, Japanese woodblock prints that inspired the artist, and ephemera that explore the image’s role in popular culture.
Kevin Murphy holds a BA from Pitzer College of The Claremont Colleges in California and an MA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He earned a PhD in art history from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Before joining WCMA, he was a curator and program manager at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Previously, he served as associate curator of American art at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Murphy has taught art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara; the University of California, Los Angeles; and San Diego Mesa College. He is the recipient of several fellowships and grants, including the Terra Foundation for American Art award and the Henry Luce Foundation Dissertation Research Grant.[private]