American Art of Shelburne Museum

Katie Wood Kirchhoff will present the OLLI-Osher Lifelong Learning Institute program on Tuesday, Nov. 14, “Painting a Nation: American Art at Shelburne Museum.”

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American Art of Shelburne Museum November 4, 2017 Shelburne Winslow Homer. Milking, 1875. Oil on canvas. Museum Purchase, 1960, 1960-197. Photo provided by www.shelburnemuseum.org SPRINGFIELD, Vt. – Katie Wood Kirchhoff will present the OLLI-Osher Lifelong Learning Institute program on Tuesday, Nov. 14, “Painting a Nation: American Art at Shelburne Museum.” It will be presented at 2 p.m. at the Nolin Murray Center next to St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Pleasant St. in Springfield, Vt. American paintings were the last objects assembled by Shelburne Museum founder Electra Havemeyer Webb before she died in 1960. The collection is particularly strong in 19th-century portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings and is distinctive because of the juxtaposition of academic paintings by formally trained artists with folk art paintings by self-taught artists. We will hear a discussion of the collection and its history, highlighting works by artists like John Singleton Copley, William Matthew Prior, Albert Bierstadt, Fitz Henry Lane, Andrew Wyeth, and others. Looking closely at selected paintings, we’ll discuss the formal relationships between academic and folk traditions and explore the methods artists used to tell their stories via the brush. Trained as a specialist in American art history, decorative arts, and material culture, Kirchhoff holds a B.A. from Smith College, an M.A. from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, and a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware. She has worked for a range of museums and cultural organizations including the American Philosophical Society, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, and is currently the associate curator at Shelburne Museum where she researches and organizes exhibitions focusing on the museum’s historic collections of fine, folk, and decorative arts. OLLI-Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, affiliated with the University of Vermont, is a local membership program geared towards seniors 50 years and older who want to engage in meaningful learning “just for the fun of it!” People of all ages are welcome to attend. The OLLI series programs are selected with input from the local members and carry varied themes from semester to semester including history, art, music, literature, health, nature, science and current events. Programs are held at 2 p.m. on Tuesday afternoons and last about an hour and a half. Non-members are encouraged and welcome to attend individual lectures for a single program fee. Memberships, as well as single program fees, may be paid at the program. The following OLLI program will be two weeks later on Nov. 28 and will be “Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Truth” with Michael Atkinson. Brochures have been distributed throughout the area towns at businesses, the local libraries, town halls and Chamber of Commerce offices. The complete Springfield and statewide program list is available at www.learn.uvm.edu/olli. Choose State-wide programs from the menu, and then scroll to Springfield.