Thursday, June 11, 2026
7:30 PM

Called one of the premier artists of the Baroque Age, paradoxically Velázquez was not a Baroque painter. He was the only artist permitted to paint the king, but his finest, most deeply felt canvases portray the poor and marginalized of society. A Spaniard in the land of the Inquisition, he rarely paints religious subjects. We will analyze his magisterial canvas, Las Meninas, to understand how radical it was.

Thursday, June 4, 2026
7:30 PM

The art of Caravaggio, accused murderer, is tough to experience—its psychological realism too gritty, too bloody—yet his impact on subsequent artists, from Rembrandt to Delacroix, is profound.

Thursday, May 28, 2026
7:30 PM

While Bernini’s genius was realized in marble, Peter Paul Rubens’ artistry with brush and pigment was unmatched. Following an exploration of Rubens’ greatest works, we will turn to the artistic force and tragic life of Caravaggio.

Thursday, May 21, 2026
7:30 PM

We begin in Rome, vortex of Catholic Europe and home of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, a sculptor-architect who fashioned our dream images of Rome, along with embellishments to St. Peter's Basilica. Bernini’s work adds to the paradox of the age: he was so pious he attended Mass every morning, yet he sculpted one of the most shocking works in all European art.

Thursday, April 30, 2026
7:30 PM

With over 800 buildings in the Streamline Moderne style, Miami Beach hosts the highest concentration of Art Deco buildings in the world. Sadly, the style’s origins and uniformity came about as a response to the Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 that left 25,000 people homeless. Comprising seasonal hotels, commercial strips, and small apartments, the quickly rebuilt area epitomized the optimistic futurism extolled at the 1933 Chicago and 1939 New York World Fairs. Originally developed for middle-class seasonal tourists, this internationally famous tropical playground materialized into a cohesive urban resort that was neither centrally planned nor haphazardly built. Its prevailing non-traditional architecture charted a path toward mid-century modern, locally known as MiMo (or Miami Modern).

Thursday, April 23, 2026
7:30 PM

When everyone is an immigrant and anything is possible, fantasy and reality collide, overlap, and blur. Home to the incipient film, oil, and aircraft industries, Los Angeles, with its sunny weather and varied topography, attracted an international crowd of risk-taking entrepreneurs and bohemians. Flat plains were quickly gobbled up by film studios, outdoor back lots, and film support industries, all tied together by a sprawling road network traversed by automobiles. Art Deco movie palaces and glamorous lifestyles associated with—and glorified by—the film industry spread Art Deco fashion, interiors, and design across the country.

Thursday, April 16, 2026
7:30 PM

A burgeoning hub of international trade, New York invented the defining icon of Art Deco architecture—the ziggurat-formed skyscraper. This result of a 1916 zoning requirement enabled light to penetrate at street level in the forest of the ever taller buildings demanded by high finance. Housing offices, apartments, restaurants, boutiques, and nightclubs, resplendent with Art Deco art, furniture, and fashion, and highlighted in glowing neon, these buildings epitomized the bustling energy of Gatsby Era America. This race to the top produced an outstanding collection of distinctive skyscrapers, culminating in the Empire State Building of 1935.

Thursday, April 9, 2026
7:30 PM

Due to its 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, Paris is often credited as the birthplace of Art Deco. Known as the City of Lights, its sophisticated urban lifestyle and historical association with cutting edge art and architecture made Paris an international magnet. In the aftermath of World War I, creative designers and intellectuals flocked to Paris. Receptive to new and imported materials and exotic designs, they incorporated motifs from Africa, Asia, Mesoamerica—and especially Egypt—in meticulously crafted luxury items. This first lecture in the series explores Art Deco’s popularity during the waning days of colonialism and rise of modernism.

Tuesday, March 3, 2026
7:30 PM

Images of the Buddha are among the most widely distributed religious representations. While the Buddha himself was South Asian, the origins of the image of the Buddha remain something of a paradox. The earliest descriptions of him were extraordinary, but Indian Buddhists curiously decided not to represent the Buddha as a human figure for some centuries, only denoting him by symbols. Around the beginning of the Common Era, two traditions of the Buddha image suddenly emerged, essentially fully developed from the schools of Mathurā in North India and of Gandhāra, bordering Central Asia. What had happened to make this dramatic change palatable to the Buddhist communities in India and Central Asia? We will look at images of the Buddha configured by Alexander the Great’s incursions, by image-driven forms of prevailing religion in India, temples to Central Asian kings, and North Indian spirit cults. Working through these influences—and more—the Buddhists managed to convey the Buddha’s sense of spirituality and interiority, spreading a legacy across Asia.

Tuesday, September 16, 2025
7:30 PM

How is authority represented? Romans commissioned portraits in abundance, whether for members of the imperial family or people of lesser rank. Augustus, the first emperor, imbedded in his portraits features and details understood by the well-educated, often with direct allusions to famous Greek examples. Dynasties developed their own visual language for the men and women, establishing portrait trends for the masses. In the second century CE, Emperor Hadrian brought back the short-cropped beard, not seen for more than five hundred years. Communities in northern Egypt, part of the Roman empire, retained traditions established as early as the Old Kingdom, while adapting the prevailing traditions of recent Greek and then Roman occupation. The resulting painted portraits, best known from the Fayum funerary district, bring us into direct contact with people who are individualized and compellingly contemporary to us.

Tuesday, September 9, 2025
7:30 PM

How is knowledge expressed? Portraits of Greeks tended to revolve around famous individuals from the areas of philosophy, literature, and leadership. The first portrait of Homer was created three centuries after he lived. How did the sculptor approach the challenges of this unknown subject? In general, creating an ideal image seemed to be the goal in the Greek world, but the shock of ugliness in portraits of Socrates introduced new options. The portrait could include a multisensory experience, including visually stimulating colors and olfactory scents, as recent research reveals. The Greek speaking world continued to expand, and portraits of the wider populations changed as well, from North Africa to the Greek East. A new emphasis is seen in individualized portraits of people we might expect to see in our own local communities.

Tuesday, September 2, 2025
7:30 PM

How is power revealed? Kingship in portraiture is usually made with enduring materials such as bronze and stone that survive for millennia. Sargon, king of the Akkadian empire, is likely the subject of one of the finest and most costly bronze portraits from Mesopotamia. Through their royal workshops, rulers from Egypt established and controlled distinctive images in stone during the Old and New Kingdoms, perpetuating a youthful and virile image. While these were the standards, exceptions emerged during the Middle Kingdom and again during the succession of queens in the Amarna period of the New Kingdom, most notably with the presentation of the celebrated and beautiful Nefertiti. Beauty and high status, however, were not always the goals.

Monday, April 21, 2025
7:30 PM

Architect Antonio Gaudí was the greatest exponent of Catalan modernism. Influenced by neo-Gothic techniques and orientalism, he forged a unique organic style inspired by the complex geometry of natural forms. Although his very long career predates and postdates Art Nouveau’s heyday, his most original works coincide with the 1890–1915 period of this lecture series. His experimental work with hyperboloid and paraboloid arches influenced mid-century modernism, High Tech, postmodernism, and Deconstructivism.

Monday, April 14, 2025
7:30 PM

The waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire coincided with a flourishing of Belle Époque artistic expressions in Eastern Europe. By the mid-1890s, the experimental Vienna Secession advocated for integrated design, while the “Wagner School” (named after Otto Koloman Wagner) supported a modern architecture where form followed function. Rebuilding, due to modernization, of Vienna led to entire sections of the city built in the Art Nouveau style.  Artisans of the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshops) influenced the later Bauhaus, American Art Deco, Scandinavian Modernism, and Italian Craft and Design.

Monday, April 7, 2025
7:30 PM

The style gained popularity through exposure at the Paris Exposition. French architects Hector Guimard, Jules Lavirotte, and Frantz Jourdain experimented with optics, transparency, motion, and point of view. Decorative artists, like Louis Majorelle, Emile Gallé, and Georges de Feure, contributed furniture, glass, and metalwork that integrated into the overall design, while jewelry, paintings, and poster design continued to use Art Nouveau techniques independent of architecture. 

Monday, March 31, 2025
7:30 PM

Meet Victor Horta, Paul Hankar, and Henri van de Velde who originated the Art Nouveau style in Brussels. The movement elevated “craft” to an “art” and unified all art forms. In using modern materials and construction techniques, it eliminated historicism while emphasizing nature and movement through use of the whiplash line. Open floor plans and expansive use of glass, mirrors, and electricity brought transparency and spatial fluidity to once dark and constricted interiors. 

NEW DATE: Wednesday, February 26, 2025
7:30 PM

As an example of experimental archaeology, in 2009, Dr. Schwab and six students collaborated with a professional hairstylist to test whether or not the six Caryatids’ hairstyles could be recreated with a positive result. Tools and hair products, just like today, were important in the domestic sphere. The arrangement of hair became a clear signal of rites of passage and status within the community. Locks of hair were often dedicated in temples or cut before warriors left for battle. Together we will explore a range of ancient Greek hairstyles and their meanings for both individual and society.

Thursday, February 13, 2025
7:30 PM

Ancient Greek gold jewelry is renowned for its intricate designs and goldsmithing techniques, such as granulation. Adornment applied to both men and women, even to statues and other objects. Gold jewelry accompanied an individual throughout a lifetime to the grave. Statues could be adorned with wreaths or earrings, and vases could be adorned with painted gold necklaces. Women dedicated jewelry to a goddess in her temple. Royal families amassed extraordinary examples of goldwork, all of it ornate and substantial in size and weight. Numerous gold wreaths with leaves and acorns or berries have been discovered in royal tombs. Today some of the finest jewelers in Greece have found inspiration from these artifacts when developing their own jewelry for the public. In this lecture we will explore some of the finest examples of ancient Greek gold jewelry.

Thursday, February 6, 2025
7:30 PM

Several customs, traditions, and events in today’s modern Olympics can be traced back to the ancient competitions held at Olympia. Today’s victors are celebrated for their athletic prowess, as they were in ancient Greece. This lecture will focus on the important role of athletics in ancient Greece, the four Panhellenic sites, and the unique Panathenaic Games celebrated in Athens. As they are today, athletics were popular in ancient Greece, where boys and young men devoted time to working out in the palaestra (gymnasium) to maintain fitness and ultimately to be ready for combat. Even the passage of time was organized around the four-year interval between Olympic Games known as the Olympiad, and specific Olympiads were numbered as markers of the events and political developments associated with those times.

Thursday, January 30, 2025
7:30 PM

We carry pocket change as currency. The idea for these coins or coinage came from the ancient Greek world. The earliest coins, made of electrum at Sardis, rapidly evolved into silver coins of different weights and values. One drachma (the Greek monetary unit at the time) equaled a day’s wage. Both the front and back of the coin displayed designs, resembling miniature relief sculptures. Artists sometimes added their signature to the coins. Cities and islands developed unique images, an early form of advertising and branding. Once in circulation, Greek coins traveled great distances throughout the Mediterranean region and beyond. Even today, many of these ancient coins are admired in museums and sought by collectors for their beauty and rarity.

Thursday, November 21, 2024
7:30 PM

From Paris, surrealism spread to Belgium, where René Magritte became a leading figure. In New York, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Dorothea Tanning represented surrealism at Peggy Guggenheim’s Gallery of the Century. In Mexico City Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera together with a group of exiles from WWII, like Leonor Fini and Remedios Varo, organized and showed surrealist art. Exhibitions sprang up in Belgrade, Cairo, Prague, Brussels, London, and San Francisco. A historical survey of Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at MOMA in 1936 introduced the movement to a wider audience.

Breton’s death in 1966 left no heir to unite the divergent branches of surrealist artists all over the world and led to the end of surrealism as a unified movement, but its influence continues today.

Thursday, November 14, 2024
7:30 PM

A year after publishing his Surrealist Manifesto, Breton organized the first group exhibition for La peinture surréaliste in the Gallery Pierre in Paris. It included work by Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, André Masson, Man Ray, Jean Tanguy, and Pierre Roy. New members joined the group in 1929: former Dadaist Tristan Tzara, Salvador Dalí, filmmaker Luis Bunuel, and sculptor Alberto Giacometti. A group of talented women artists have long stood in the shadow of their famous male peers. This lecture also explores the contributions of Leonora Carrington, photographer Dora Mar, Lee Miller, and Meret Oppenheim. The beginning of WWII scattered the surrealist group all over the world.

Wednesday, November 6, 2024
7:30 PM

It is very fitting to end the series by focusing on the work of Kendrick Bangs Kellogg, the San Diego native who recently passed away. He worked with both Sim Bruce Richards and Frederick Liebhardt before going on to design some of the region’s most dramatic buildings.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024
7:30 PM

Sim Bruce Richards drew from his respect for Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Irving J. Gill to design homes, commercial buildings, and sacred spaces of wood, glass, and adobe across San Diego County. His passion for Native American, Aztec, and Mayan culture, as well as Japanese architecture, landscape, and craft, greatly influenced over 200 projects unique to our region. Wishing to create living and working environments that delight all the senses, Richards imbued a number of his projects with built-in art by James Hubbell, Rhoda LeBlanc Lopez, and others. This presentation unveils his architectural spirit through tales of Richards’ unique client-architect relationships.

Wednesday, October 23, 2024
7:30 PM

When Lilian Rice was working as a teacher she taught a young Lloyd Ruocco. He then worked with her when she was designing the new town of Rancho Santa Fe. Ruocco went on to become the central figure in the San Diego modernist scene. One of the young architects in his orbit was Frederick Liebhardt. He was one of several of the apprentices of Frank Lloyd Wright who made such an impact in the region after the war.

Wednesday, October 16, 2024
7:30 PM

The only place to begin a discussion of modernism in San Diego is with Irving J. Gill. But what was his legacy? Were all his progressive ideas lost amidst the fashion for Spanish revivalism? We will look at the work of Gill’s protégé Richard Requa in a new light and see how he provides a link with the architects of the midcentury. The lecture will conclude with an examination of San Diego’s rogue architect, William Kesling.

Thursday, October 3, 2024
7:30 PM

In his last years, having lost all whom he had loved, along with his large fortune, Rembrandt turns inward; the cockiness of youth yields to a tragic vision of age and loss. Western art has never experienced such magnificent examinations of what it is to be human. Rembrandt’s portraits present compelling, sentient beings, who think … feel … remember. In these lectures, we always speak of the role of art within its given society, but with Rembrandt’s evocations of a human’s inner life and of the tragedy of life, art becomes universal, transcending boundaries and borders, time and place.

Thursday, September 26, 2024
7:30 PM

When the young Rembrandt arrives in Amsterdam in 1631, he is not only ambitious, but, judging from his self-portraits of that period, brash, cocky, and confident of his artistic power. Determined to prove that he is the equal of the great Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt paints in Rubens’s Baroque style. A decade later, Rembrandt realizes that—despite the drama and theatrical lighting effects of Baroque art (characteristics he will retain)—he needs to capture deeper truths, greater profundity. In short, his unrelenting need for drama deepens, but now, buffeted by tragedy, he moves toward the drama of the soul.

Thursday, September 19, 2024
7:30 PM

This lecture will be a meditation on Jan Vermeer, an artist celebrated in literature and movies today, but after his death, forgotten until the 1850s, when a French art critic stumbled upon a masterpiece (View of Delft) by a mysterious artist he thought might be named Meer and devoted the rest of his life to searching out more “Meers.” Today, of course, Vermeer’s crystalline cubes of light-filled space, masterful reflections, and enigmatic, contemplative women make him one of the most revered painters in art history.

Thursday, September 12, 2024
7:30 PM

In the second week, we examine in greater depth the paintings the Dutch loved to see on their walls: landscapes that evoke a land dearly wrested from the sea; still lifes ranging from glorious floral bouquets sparkling with butterflies to dour skulls and smoking candles; genre painting that presents often humorous portrayals of everyday people and everyday lives; and, of course, brilliant portraiture from the easels of artists like Rembrandt and Frans Hals. Dazzling art, to be sure, but also puzzling. How is it that this flat and uninspiring land gives birth to landscapes? Or that this newly minted Protestant nation produces still lifes suffused with religious symbolism? Or that this sober and reserved society invents genre painting, evidence of a people able to laugh at themselves.