Art on the edge

Lecture by curator Dr. Patrica Berman at Scandinavia House in New York.

Dr. Patricia Berman, curator of “Luminous Modernism” will give a lecture titled “Universal Truths and Local Fictions: Nordic Art on the Edge” at Scandinavia House in New York on Jan. 26 at 6:30 p.m.

Focusing on selected works in the Luminous Modernism exhibition, this lecture will explore the tensions between internationalism and national and regional identities that characterized Nordic art at the turn of

Patricia Gray Berman, a leading specialist in early modern Scandinavian art, is professor of art history at Wellesley College and the University of Oslo’s Institute for Philosophy, the History of Ideas, Art History, and Classical Studies. Dr. Berman has curated or co-curated numerous exhibitions, including, most recently, I Munchs Laboratorium: Veien til aulen (In Munch’s Laboratory: The Road to the Festival Hall); (co-curator) which opened in September 2011 at the Munch Museum, Oslo.

Early in her career she worked closely with Kirk Varnedoe on the landmark exhibition Northern Light: Realism and Symbolism in Scandinavian Painting, 1880-1910, which toured the United States in 1982-83.

The author of many books, articles, and essays, Dr. Berman is currently at work on the book Edvard Munch: Fashioning the Self and the Nation. She has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Anna and Samuel Pinanski Teaching Prize, Wellesley College, in 2008, and both a Fulbright Senior Scholar Grant and an American Philosophical Society Fellowship in 2006. Patricia Gray Berman received a BA from Hampshire College, Amherst, Mass., and an MA and PhD from New York University, Institute of Fine Arts.

“Luminous Modernism: Scandinavian Art Comes to America, 1912,” an exhibition of paintings by leading Nordic artists

of the late 19th and early 20th century, including Prince Eugen, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Vilhelm Hammershøi, Eugène Jansson, Ásgrímur Jónsson, Carl Larsson, Edvard Munch, Harald Sohlberg, and Anders Zorn, celebrates the 1912 Exhibition of Scandinavian Art that was a critical model for North American regional modernism on the eve of the 1913 Armory Show.

Organized by the American-Scandinavian Foundation (ASF) in recognition of its centennial anniversary, in collaboration with an international team of scholars headed by Dr. Patricia Berman, Professor of Art History at Wellesley College and the University of Oslo, the exhibition includes loans from major museums and private collections in Scandinavia and the U.S.

Visit www.scandinaviahouse.org/events_exhibitions_current.html.

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