National Gallery of Art’s Eric Denker at Gustavus Sunday

Eric Denker, Senior Lecturer at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., will present a public lecture titled “In the Wake of Whistler: Prints of Venice, 1900-1940,” on Sunday, April 15 at 3:30 p.m. in Wallenberg Auditorium, Nobel Hall of Science, Gustavus Adolphus College.  The lecture is sponsored by the Hillstrom Museum of Art and is presented in conjunction with its current exhibition Reflections & Undercurrents: Ernest Roth and Printmaking in Venice, 1900-1940 (on view through April 22).  Denker will also present a gallery talk the following evening (Monday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m.) in the exhibition space in the Museum.  The lecture, gallery talk, and the exhibition are free and open to the public.

Reflections & Undercurrents features prints by artists who, following the lead of the great American aesthete and expatriate artist James Abbott MacNeill Whistler (1834-1903), explored in their art the picturesque aspects of Venice.  The artists represented in the exhibit include German-born American painter and etcher Ernest Roth (1879-1964), who trained at the National Academy of Design and was one of the foremost etchers of the early twentieth century; John Taylor Arms (1887-1953), known for his technically-accomplished etchings that include astonishing levels of detail; Joseph Pennell (1860-1926), who, in addition to having made many prints in a variety of media also was a devoted follower and biographer of Whistler; and Whistler himself, who is represented both by a print in the exhibition proper as well as by the Museum’s addition of its own etching, an example of the 1879-1880 Long Venice, which depicts the familiar Venetian skyline from a distance.

Reflections & Undercurrents is based on Eric Denker’s extensive research.  Denker is a long devoted fan of Venice whose publications include the 2003 exhibition catalogue Whistler and His Circle in Venice (The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington) and an etiquette guide to the city co-written with his friend Judith Martin, better known as “Miss Manners” (No Vulgar Hotel: The Desire and Pursuit of Venice, 2007).

Reflections & Undercurrents is a traveling exhibit organized by The Trout Gallery, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Reflections & Undercurrents: Ernest Roth and Printmaking in Venice, 1900-1940 will be on exhibit in the Hillstrom Museum of Art through April 22, 2012. Admission to the Hillstrom Museum is open to the public at no charge.