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How Does Religion
and Spirituality Influence the Creation of Art?
Art Institute Curator Dr. Gloria Groom to Speak at Elmhurst Art
Museum
ELMHURST, IL - Dr. Gloria
Groom will present a lecture, Spirituality, Religion and Art, at the
Elmhurst Art Museum on Wednesday, December 6 at 6:30 p.m. in
conjunction with the Museum’s current exhibition entitled Andre
Ferrella: Artist of the Spirit, which runs through January 7. Dr.
Groom is the David and Mary Winton Green Curator of 19th Century
European Painting at The Art Institute of Chicago. Her lecture will
focus on the historical influence of spirituality and religion
relating to the creation and appreciation of art.
Dr. Groom will discuss the tradition
of religious paintings including scenes from the life of Jesus
Christ. Her focus will be on the time period from the early
modernism of Edouard Manet and Jean-François Millet in the 1860s, to
Picasso in the early 1900s. Additionally, she will provide a special
emphasis on the post Impressionist artists, Vincent Van Gogh and
Paul Gauguin. Dr. Groom’s talk will include information about
previous upheaval in the predominantly Catholic culture and the
attack on mainstream Christian beliefs at the time. She will discuss
how artists developed religious art in a new direction during the
time period. The lecture is FREE with the price of museum admission,
but registration is required and light refreshments will be served.
To register, please call (630) 834-0202, x16.
Dr. Groom received her Ph.D. from the
University of Texas at Austin with a specialty in late l9th century
French painting. She studied in Paris at the Université de la
Sorbonne, Ecole du Louvre and UNESCO. Dr. Groom moved from Paris to
Chicago after accepting a position as a research assistant for the
popular exhibition, A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the
French Landscape (1984-1985). Additionally, she provided research
and writing for the exhibition and catalogue, The Art of Paul
Gauguin (1986-1987).
She has been involved in a number of
exhibitions. Currently she is co-organizing and writing essays for a
catalogue to accompany a major loan exhibition, Cézanne to Picasso:
Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, which opens this fall
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and comes to the Art
Institute of Chicago in February 2007. As an internationally
acclaimed author, curator, and lecturer, Dr. Groom has recently been
bestowed the honor of Chevalier des Arts et Lettres by the French
government. Most recently Dr. Groom co-curated with Douglas Druick
three major loan exhibitions: Manet and the Sea (fall 2003), Seurat
and the Making of La Grande Jatte (summer 2004), and
Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre (summer 2005). In 1993, Yale
University Press published Dr. Groom’s book, Edouard Vuillard:
Painter-Decorator, which is a study of Vuillard’s mural-like
paintings commissioned for private Parisian residences.
The Elmhurst Art Museum’s
award-winning modern museum structure incorporates the Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe-designed McCormick House, one of three such residences
designed by the internationally known architect, and contains museum
galleries, an education center and a variety of outdoor sculpture.
Located only 15 miles west of Chicago and adjacent to the Metra West
train line, the Museum offers public tours and programs, guest
lectures and art classes on a regular basis. Its mission is to
enrich the lives of its visitors by broadening their knowledge,
increasing their sensitivity to the fine arts and sparking the
development of their own creative talents.
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