This Symposium is being held in conjunction with the Eskenazi Museum of Art’s current exhibition Swing Landscape: Stuart Davis and the Modernist Mural.
Professor Jody Patterson contributed to the exhibition catalogue, which was selected as Outstanding Exhibition Catalogue of 2020 by the Midwest Art History Society.
Learn more about mid-twentieth-century mural painting in this symposium, which will be held on Zoom and is open to the public.
This day-long symposium is held in conjunction with the Eskenazi Museum of Art’s exhibition Swing Landscape: Stuart Davis and the Modernist Mural. The exhibition re-situates Davis’s 1938 mural Swing Landscape, originally painted for New York’s Williamsburg Housing Project, in its historical context. Speakers will expand upon the exhibition’s themes, examining pioneering abstract muralists of the 1930s, the role of women muralists in the mid-twentieth century, the significance of swing music within Stuart Davis’s oeuvre, and the challenges of interpreting a mural as visually and conceptually rich as Swing Landscape.
Symposium Agenda (subject to change):
10 - 10:45 a.m., Jenny McComas, Curator of European and American Art, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Welcome and virtual tour of the exhibition
10:45 - 11:30 a.m., Greta Berman, Professor of Art History, The Juilliard School, New York, The Williamsburg Housing Project Murals: Pioneering Abstraction
11:45 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., Emily S. Warner, Teaching Fellow, Queen Mary, University of London (Assistant Professor of Visual Arts, University of Oklahoma, as of Fall 2022), Women and Modern Muralism
1:30 - 2:15 p.m., Jody Patterson, Associate Professor and Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Chair of Art History, Ohio State University, All that Jazz: Stuart Davis and the Modern Art of Swing
2:30 - 3:15 p.m., Harry Cooper, Senior Curator and Head of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Swinging In and Out of View
3:30 - 4:15 p.m., Panel Discussion
You may use the same link to attend any portion of the symposium. The presentations will be recorded and will be available after the event.
The Modernist Murals Symposium is supported by a grant from Indiana University’s College Arts & Humanities Institute.
Image credit: Stuart Davis (American, 1892–1964). Swing Landscape. 1937–38. Oil on canvas. 86 3/4 × 173 1/8 inches (224.8 × 443.9 × 8.9 cm). Allocated by the U.S. Government, Commissioned through the New Deal Art Projects, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University.