Speakers

You will find even more intriguing art talks in our Winter and Spring Speakers series, that you can now see in person in the Crocker Auditorium.

Please note that all in-person lectures start at 2:30 pm.

If you can’t make the live event, you will also be able to see the recorded video of these lectures when we post them to our YouTube channel afterwards.

Here is the 2023 Winter and Spring lineup:

Click here for the Kingsley Art Club’s E-Blast about these events. (PDF Version)

Wednesday, June 21:
Lecture 6 – Scott A. Shields, Ph. D., Ted and Melza Barr Chief Curator and Associate Director, Crocker Art Museum

Scott Shields, curator of over 50 exhibitions brings a wealth of knowledge, research and experience in the art world to his upcoming art lecture for our ongoing lecture series. Armed with his masters degree and doctorate in art history from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, he has curated exhibitions for over two decades for the Crocker art museum.

Less often discussed is his skilled and well-researched writing which has resulted in his authoring and co-authoring countless exhibit catalogs and presentation summaries.

At the Crocker, he heads a team of museum staff, while communicating with denizens of the art community, working together to make the exhibits the successes you have come to expect.

And you can look forward to his lecture being both informative and delightful, as it will no doubt be flavored with his disarming and unexpected wit.

A little more about what you will hear in his lecture:

A Country of Blue and Gold: California Impressionism

Impressionism first came to the American West in the late 19th century, when artists brought skills they had learned in Europe to their paintings of the California landscape. Although these early practitioners worked in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Monterey Peninsula, Impressionism would most truly flower in the Los Angeles region. There, sunny hillsides, deserts, and the sparkling sea made the style a logical choice for numerous painters.

Although some California Impressionists painted still lifes and a few depicted people, most artists painted the land, the light and color of Impressionism a perfect match for the local light and the chromatic brilliance of the terrain. The long-lived popularity of the style, which lasted beyond its heyday elsewhere, can be attributed to its enduring ability to capture the qualities that both residents and tourists loved most about the Golden State.

Shields’s talk will focus on the Crocker’s collection, beginning with Impressionist precursors and concluding with the Post-Impressionists. It will showcase beautiful, colorful, and, in many cases, iconic canvases, along with the richly talented artists who painted them.

Are you a Kingsley Art Club member? You enjoy free admission.
Not a member yet? Click here to become a member.