T. J. Clark

Noted art historian T. J. Clark, professor of modern art at the University of California, Berkeley, focuses on a single painting in this presentation: Willem de Kooning's intriguing Suburb in Havana.

This is the first lecture presented with the support of The Lambert Family Lecture Series Endowment at the Wexner Center. In this lecture, Clark reconstructs de Kooning's working process and gives an account of the artist's possible intentions in painting Suburb in Havana. One key to understanding this strange and complex painting, Clark notes, is the near-coincidence of its first showing in New York with Fidel Castro's triumphal entry into Havana on New Year's Day 1959.

Clark's interests and numerous publications span the 19th and 20th centuries. He is currently working on a book about Picasso in the 1920s. Past publications include The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France 1848ñ1851 (1973), Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution (1973), The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (1984), and Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism (1999). Born in Bristol, England, Clark earned a B.A. in modern history at Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in art history at the Courtauld Institute, University of London.

The Lambert Family Lecture Series Endowment at the Wexner Center for the Arts was established through the generosity of Bill and Sheila Lambert to provide opportunities for experts to engage with diverse audiences about global issues in art and contemporary culture. The endowment supports an annual lecture in the contemporary arts by a distinguished speaker.