November Gallery Talks at Reynolda House Museum of American

Press Room

November Gallery Talks at Reynolda House Museum of American Art Address Politics, Voyeurism, and Mass Transit

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Sharyn Turner
336.758.5580
sturner@reynoldahouse.org
or Sarah Mansell
336.758.5524
manselss@reynoldahouse.org

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (October 21, 2008) The November gallery talks at Reynolda House Museum of American Art will cover topics ranging from politics and voyeurism to mass transit and skyscrapers as visitors view the current exhibition, "Seeing the City: Sloan's New York."

"Art for the Masses" is the title of the gallery talk on November 4 with Wake Forest University Professor of English Barry Maine. He will discuss the political engagement of writers and artists in early 20 th century New York, including those who contributed to the magazine The Masses, "muckraking" journalists, reform-minded novelists like Stephen Crane, and more detached observers like Henry James.

The November 11 gallery talk, titled "Sex and the City: Sloan's Erotic Metropolis," will be led by Wake Forest University Charlotte C. Weber Professor of Art David Lubin. Using Sloan's rooftop scenes and views through tenement windows, Dr. Lubin will lead us through the voyeuristic city in the period just before and after national women's suffrage.

"Manhattan Transit (and Skyscrapers)" is the title of the gallery talk on November 18. The guest speaker will be Gus Preschle, former general manager of the World Trade Center and, later, assistant chief technology officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Preschle will discuss the evolution of skyscrapers and mass transit in New York while referring to the images in John Sloan's art.

Gallery talks are held on Tuesday evenings from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. They are informal and usually focus on a specific aspect of an exhibition. Visitors have the opportunity to ask questions and engage in discussion as they stroll through the gallery to consider particular works in the exhibition. Future gallery talks will be held on December 2, 9, and 16. Admission is $5, and a cash bar reception follows. For information, please call 336.758.5150 or visit reynoldahouse.org.

"Seeing the City: Sloan's New York" is on view through January 4, 2009 at Reynolda House, the final stop on a four-city tour and its only venue in the South. The exhibition was organized by the Delaware Art Museum.

Reynolda House Museum of American Art is one of the nation's premier American art museums, with masterpieces by Mary Cassatt, Frederic Church, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe and Gilbert Stuart among its permanent collection. Affiliated with Wake Forest University, Reynolda House features traveling and original exhibitions, concerts, lectures, classes, film screenings and other events. The museum is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the historic 1917 estate of Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband, Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Reynolda House and adjacent Reynolda Gardens and Reynolda Village feature a spectacular public garden, dining, shopping and walking trails. For more information, please visit reynoldahouse.org or call 336.758.5150.

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