John Hallmark Neff Discusses the Expat Community of American

Press Room

John Hallmark Neff Discusses the Expat Community of American Artists in Giverny at Reynolda House

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

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. (April 30, 2009) Reynolda House Museum of American Art presents a lecture by art historian John Hallmark Neff on Tuesday, May 19 at 5:30 p.m. The title of the lecture is "American Idyll: Yankee Artists in Giverny." Admission to the lecture is $5, free to members and students.

The lecture is held in conjunction with the current Reynolda House exhibition, "American Impressions: Selections from the National Academy Museum," on view through June 28, 2009. Reynolda House is the only venue for this exhibition outside of New York.

In his lecture Neff will talk about the young American artists of the late 19th century who traveled to France to study with the French Impressionists. Many of them settled in the village of Giverny in order to study with Claude Monet, and the Hotel Baudy became a central meeting place for these expatriates. Neff will also address the larger context of late 19th and 20th century Impressionism, both French and American, giving close readings of paintings from this period. His collection of images of the village of Giverny and its gardens will further illustrate life in a rural French village and its impact on the artists.

Neff, former director of Reynolda House, is an historian of 19th and 20th century European and American art. He is also the former director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Terra Museum of American Art, sister institution to the Terra Foundation's Musée d'Art Américain Giverny.

ABOUT REYNOLDA HOUSE
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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