EVENT: OU symposium on
Taos artists
DATE: October 2-3
“Drawn to the Light: The Artists of Taos,” the third biennial symposium of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma, is scheduled for Oct. 2 and 3 on the OU Norman campus.
Dean A. Porter, director emeritus for the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind., will deliver the keynote address at the symposium’s opening event, set for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, in the ballroom of Oklahoma Memorial Union, 900 Asp Ave. Porter will speak on “Taos Society of Artists: Contemporary Criticism,” focusing on how members of the art colony in Taos, N.M., were viewed by American art critics during the early 20th century.
The symposium continues at 8:30 a.m. Friday, Oct. 3, in the union’s Meacham Auditorium. During the daylong event, which is free and open to the public, noted scholars and museum curators will discuss the work and significance of the Taos Society of Artists and other late 19th- and early 20th-century artists who made New Mexico home.
Symposium speakers include:
• Virginia Couse Leavitt, art historian from Tucson and Taos, who
will discuss “Painting the Light: Eanger Irving Couse, a Tonalist
in New Mexico”
• Elizabeth Cunningham, art historian in Taos, who will discuss
“Ernest Blumenschein: New Light on his Painting and Artistic Development”
• Michael Duty, executive director of the National Center for American
Western Art, Kerrville, Texas, who will present “Taos Legacy: The
Continuing Influence of the Taos Masters on Contemporary Western Art”
• Michael Grauer, curator of art at the Panhandle-Plains Historical
Museum, Canyon, Texas, who will discuss “What Buck Brought to the
Table: W.H. Dunton in Taos, 1912-1936”
• Ellen Landis, curator of art at the Museum of Albuquerque, N.M.,
who will address “Collectors and Collaborators: Museums and the
Artists of Taos”
• Sharyn Udall, art historian at the College of Santa Fe, N.M.,
who will talk on “Embodied Landscape: the Urge to Anthropomorphize
in Southwest Painting.”
Registration may be made by e-mail at russellcenter@ou.edu or by calling the Russell Center at (405) 325-5939. A luncheon will be offered between sessions on Friday, Oct. 3, for registered participants, at a cost of $15 per person or $7.50 per registered student participant. For more information and accommodations on the basis of disability, contact the Russell Center at (405) 325-5939.
Founded in 1998, the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West is the first such university-based program in the nation. The center is dedicated to the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge in the field of American art history as it relates to the western United States. Through its resource holdings, national symposia, lecture series, course offerings and outreach programs, the Russell Center actively engages students and the public in developing a better understanding of, and appreciation for, 19th- and 20th-century Euro-American and Native American artistic traditions. Special focus is given to the art of Charles M. Russell and his contemporaries.
Contact: Sharon Burchett, 1-405-325-5939