VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents The 35th Annual Ruth K. Shartle Symposium Friday and Saturday Afternoon Lecture Series: War, Siege, and The Commune: The Crisis in France, 1870—1871, Friday, February 4, 2011, at 1:30 p.m. and repeated on Saturday, February 5, 2011, at 4:00 p.m at the Caroline Wiess Law Building. Presented by David E. Brauer, Senior Lecturer, Glassell School of Art, MFAH.

Inaugurated in 1975 by Alice Pratt Brown (Mrs. George R. Brown), a major benefactor who served twenty-six terms as a museum trustee, this annual symposium was established in memory of Ruth K. Shartle, a longtime museum benefactor. William C. Agee, the museum´s former director, described the symposium as a commemoration of Ruth K. Shartle´s "unstinting friendship, her intellectual curiosity and generous spirit of sharing her enthusiasm for man´s creative accomplishment, and most of all, her unselfish, fresh spirit and unfailing joy of life."

The Ruth K. Shartle Symposiums have celebrated important exhibitions such as Hispanic Art in the United States; Basquiat; and The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890—1950; have explored key areas of the museum´s collection, and have probed issues of connoisseurship, patronage, conservation, and museum architecture.

The exhibition Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art offers Houstonians an unprecedented opportunity to view 50 iconic paintings by some of the greatest artists who were active in France between the 1860s and the early 20th century. In celebration of the exhibition, the 35th Ruth K. Shartle Symposium expands the traditional two-day symposium into a series of Friday and Saturday Afternoon Lectures at which some of the most distinguished scholars of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in the world will consider the environment which fueled the rise of Impressionism, and the distinctive contributions of key artists to the history of Modernism.

Lectures are open to the public and free with general museum admission. Museum members always receive free admission. Seating is limited. A reception to meet the speaker follows each program.

Pictured above: detail La ligne de feu, 16 août 1870- painted 1886. Pierre-Georges Jeanniot, depicting the Battle of Mars-La-Tour .