2023-2024 Online Lecture Series

Welcome to our fourth series of online lectures! Inspired by our three internationally-acclaimed Summer Schools in Newport, London, and Chicago, speakers will examine a wide variety of subjects including the Victorian Building Site and Gilded-Age fashion, the work of Edith Wharton, Lewis Carroll and stained-glass artist Henry Holiday, and upcoming exhibitions on Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelites. We look forward to exploring the great art, architecture, and design of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Britain and America with you!

Thanks to a generous grant from the Victorian Society Scholarship Fund, all lectures are offered for FREE!

Our fourth season of lectures has now concluded, but some recordings are still available below. (Click here.

** Watch our site for details of our fifth season, coming this fall! **

 

Edith Wharton and the Decoration of Houses, by Richard Guy Wilson

Edith Wharton, in addition to writing great novels, also co-authored one of the most important books ever written in America: The Decoration of Houses (1897). Her fiction is not understandable without reference to her interest in decoration and architecture. This talk will consider Wharton’s works and also her houses including The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts. Richard Guy Wilson Richard Guy Wilson is Commonwealth Professor emeritus in Architectural History at the University of Virginia and Director of the VSA’s Newport Summer School.

Henry Holiday: His Stained-Glass Windows for Gilded-Age New York, by George Bryant

George Bryant will give an illustrated preview of his new book, the first book-length study on Henry Holiday (1839–1927) in more than a century and the first detailed study of his important stained-glass windows designed for America.

Holiday was unquestionably one of the greatest stained-glass artists of the Victorian-Edwardian period, yet his considerable achievements have not received the recognition that they deserve. Taking Holiday’s commissions for New York State churches as its focus, George Bryant’s ground-breaking study places the artist’s transatlantic accomplishments in the context of the social, artistic, religious and economic shifts that shaped his success in the US during America’s Gilded Age. It also provides a clear understanding of the technical and aesthetic differences that set Holiday’s stained-glass apart from that of his contemporaries such as Edward Burne-Jones, John La Farge, and Louis Comfort Tiffany. Click here for more information on George Bryant’s book

The Victorian Building Site, by Kit Wedd

The suburbs of British towns and cities expanded enormously during the Victorian period, to house a growing population of industrial and professional workers. Kit’s talk explores the world of the small-scale speculative developer and his workforce of skilled artisans and tradesmen. Kit Wedd is an independent historic buildings consultant, and the course director of the VSA’s London Summer School. 

Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920: An Exhibition at Tate Britain, by Dr. Amy Lim 

This exhibition, to be held at Tate Britain from May to October 2024, will follow 400 years of women artists on their journeys to becoming professional artists. Artists such as Elizabeth Butler, Rosa Bonheur and Henrietta Rae challenged what it meant to be a working woman of the time by going against society’s expectations – having commercial careers, taking part in public exhibitions, and painting what were usually thought to be subjects for male artists: history pieces, large-scale animal compositions, battle scenes and the nude. The exhibition shows how these artists championed equal access to art training and academy membership, negotiated copyright and commerce, and overcame many obstacles to establish their professional status. In this talk, Dr. Amy Lim, a researcher on the exhibition, will give an overview of the exhibition, and explore in greater depth some of the Victorian artists whose work will be featured.

Pre-Raphaelites: A Modern Renaissance (Part II), by Liz Prettejohn and Peter Trippi 

Opening in February 2024 at the Musei di San Domenico in Forlì, near Bologna, Italy, is the exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: A Modern Renaissance. It will trace the profound impact of historical Italian art on the Pre-Raphaelite movement between the 1840s and 1920s by placing British works alongside their Italian prototypes. The project will particularly intrigue English-speaking visitors by considering, for the first time, pieces by late 19th-century Italian artists inspired by their British forerunners. On view will be approximately 350 works of fine and decorative art borrowed from museums and private collections worldwide. The exhibition’s lead co-curators are Liz Prettejohn, Peter Trippi, and Francesco Parisi, and their fellow co-curators are Cristina Acidini, Tim Barringer, Stephen Calloway, Véronique Gerard-Powell, and Charlotte Gere.

Last May, Liz Prettejohn and Peter Trippi offered a richly illustrated preview of this unique, one-venue-only project. Now they return with another talk that has been fully updated to include more extraordinary artworks recently confirmed by such generous lenders as The Royal Collection and The Victoria and Albert Museum. They will also offer details on how viewers can visit the exhibition for themselves (its run is 23 February – 30 June 2024). Please visit the Musei San Domenico site for additional information.

Second Presbyterian Church of Chicago: An Arts & Crafts Masterpiece, by William Tyre

Second Presbyterian Church of Chicago is the only church in the city to be designated a National Historic Landmark. Recognized for its distinctive Arts & Crafts interior designed by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw in 1900, the sanctuary contains significant examples of mural painting, light fixtures, ornamental plaster, carved wood, and stained glass. There are nine windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany, and two by the English designer Edward Burne-Jones for Morris & Co. The interior is largely intact, with the various elements working together to form a Gesamtkunstwerk – a total work of art – the true beauty of which is being revealed through a series of recent projects including the restoration of the massive Tree of Life mural by Frederic Clay Bartlett. Bill Tyre is the Executive Director and Curator of Glessner House, and has served on the board of Friends of Historic Second Church since February 2007, a preservation-based non-profit for which he has researched and written extensively on the history, art and architecture of the church. For more information about the church (including tours) visit https://www.historicsecondchurch.org/ 

Dressed in Diamonds: American Princesses in Gilded-Age Fashion, by Kevin Jones

The time-period between the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the beginning of World War I in 1914 is known as “The Gilded Age,” a term popularized by prolific writer and social-commentator Mark Twain.  Twain’s visionary insight revealed that America’s desire for all things modern and industrial was at odds with its undemocratic nostalgia for class hierarchy and aristocratic bearing.  Social distinctions between the ‘Old World’ and the ‘New’ were lessened by those few who were able harness this fierce industrial era in which an uneducated nobody could become a respected somebody through sheer hard work, luck, and a “public-be-damned” attitude. The veneer that separated Yankee worker from European gentleman was thin, but the Industrial Revolution’s greatest asset—money—helped to gild American and re-gild European societies. And, for the most part, this highly reflective gloss was applied with layers of elaborate dresses and overlapping jewels worn by the ‘Dollar Princess’ daughters of these ‘Robber Barons’, five of whom are discussed in this lecture: Jennie Jerome, Consuelo Yznaga, Consuelo Vanderbilt, Helena Zimmerman, and May Goelet. Kevin Jones is Curator of ASU FIDM Museum at the Herberger Institute of Design & the Arts in downtown Los Angeles.

Pictures and Conversations: The Photographs of Lewis Carroll, by Diane Waggoner

Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, practiced photographed for almost twenty-five years, spanning the years 1855 to 1880. He made numerous portraits of his family and his social circle, photographing some of the most prominent artists and writers of the day, like Alfred Tennyson and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He was dedicated to photographing the children of his acquaintance, including most famously Alice Liddell, his muse for the writing of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This talk will trace the arc of Carroll’s photographic career. Diane Waggoner is Curator of Photographs at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Click here for details about Diane’s recent publication, Lewis Carroll’s Photography and Modern Childhood.