T. J. Clark: Picasso's Two Great Nudes from 1932

Join us in welcoming back eminent art historian T. J. Clark, for this lecture and highlight of our 25th Anniversary Season. Clark has written numerous influential books on modern art, including his most recent Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica (2013), which emerged from his 2009 lectures for the prestigious A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts series at the National Gallery of Art. In this lecture he focuses on two large-scale nudes that lie at the center of Picasso’s production in 1932: Nu au plateau de sculpteur (Nude, green leaves, and bust) and Nu au fauteuil noir (Nude in a Black Armchair), the latter of which is featured in this fall’s exhibition.

Among other topics, Clark will guide the audience through the paintings’ differences—in terms of their intimacy and eroticism, the way they position the viewer, and the space they give to the naked subject. He’ll also consider how Picasso’s treatment of the odalisque relates to Henri Matisse’s take on this traditional subject for paintings of female nudes. Clark has dazzled Wexner audiences twice before: delivering the center’s inaugural Lambert Family Lecture in 2004—an illuminating discussion of a single painting by Willem de Kooning—and engaging in a lively conversation with painter Luc Tuymans for the 2008 Lambert Family Lecture. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from one of the most important cultural thinkers of our time.

T. J. Clark was born in Bristol, England, in 1943, and earned a BA in Modern History at Cambridge and a PhD in Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. He taught at various places in England and the US, including the University of California, Berkeley (1988–2010), where he is George C. and Helen N. Pardee Chair Emeritus. Clark’s noted publications include The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France 1848–1851 (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); as well as Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War (2005), and Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life (2013), an exhibition catalogue co-authored with Anne M. Wagner. Clark's many honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and election to the American Philosophical Society (2007), the British Academy (2001), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1992). In 2006, he received The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award, and was the 2009 speaker for the distinguished A. W. Mellon Lecture series at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

This lecture is free for all audiences but tickets are required; click here to reserve and print out yours. Bring your ticket for free admittance to the galleries 5:30–7 PM on a first come, first served basis.