Posted by vrcvanderbilt on Thursday, October 22, 2015 in Events, Fine Arts Gallery, HART, Student/Alumni, VRC.

Please join the Department of History of Art at a reception for our HART alumni and friends on Friday, October 23, from 4:10-5:00 pm in Cohen Memorial Hall.  Those attending the reception can view Syria Widowed:  Remembering Palmyra, an exhibit in the rear atrium that commemorates recently destroyed monuments at Palmyra, only one of a growing number of ancient sites devastated by ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).  On view through December 10, the exhibit was organized by Betsey A. Robinson, associate professor of the history of art, and E.B. Armstrong, a junior in the College of Arts and Science.

“Relying on the power of images, we respond to ISIL not with scenes of violence and destruction but with memories of more peaceful times,” said Robinson.  “By celebrating the history and humanity encapsulated in the stones of what was an amazing place, we hope to make Palmyra, and Syria, more real and accessible to our community.”

Also on view during the reception are two exhibits currently housed in the Fine Arts Gallery near the front entrance to Cohen.  In honor of the centenary of World War I, Forging Identity—Imagining the Enemy: American Propaganda and the Great War features posters by some of the early twentieth century’s most accomplished artists and illustrators, who found their role in wartime by appealing to the hearts and minds of the American people.   The exhibit was curated by Margaret F. M. Walker, art curator assistant.

Presented in honor of Mathew Ramsey, professor emeritus of history, Selma Freeman Ramsey and the Social Realist Tradition explores 150 years of art about city life, work, and community. The daughter of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Ramsey took a distinctly social-minded approach to her artwork of the 1930s, with a focus on the working class. Her art from this period, along with that of other social realists featured in the exhibition such as Reginald Marsh and Isabel Bishop, grew out of a tradition of exposing through art the lives of the downtrodden and those whom society tends not to see.  The exhibit was curated by Joseph S. Mella, gallery director.

Parking is available in Lot 95 outside Cohen Hall, off 21st Avenue South on the Peabody campus and across from Medical Center East. For more information, call the department at 615.322.2831.

*Ruines d’un Arc de Triomphe, à Palmyre, from Voyage pittoresque de la Syrie, de la Phoenicie, de la Palaestine, et de la Basse Aegypte, volume 1, published 1799, copper-plate engraving