Please join us on Monday, May 24 at 7PM EDT, for “Revisiting the Beaux-Arts Style,” a discussion of the current exhibition at the New-York Historical Society, “The Art of Architecture: Beaux-Arts Drawings from the Peter May Collection,” and its implications for nineteenth-century art and architectural historians. This is the second “Virtual Salon,” a series of events co-sponsored by the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art (AHNCA) and the Dahesh Museum of Art.

The exhibition at the New-York Historical Society comprises more than fifty architectural drawings from a little-known private collection of more than seven hundred works on paper. The selection on view represents different stages in the education of architects and the practice of architecture in nineteenth and early twentieth century France and America. The drawings range from admission and diploma drawings at the Paris École des Beaux-Arts, Rome Prize submissions and ‘envois de Rome,’ to work by professional architects working for the state. The exhibition will continue until June 13, 2021. For more information: https://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/art-architecture-beaux-arts-drawings-peter-may-collection/

Maureen Cassidy-Geiger will provide an overview of the collection and exhibition, presenting the École system via relevant drawings in the show and in the broader collection, including non-French drawings. She is curator of the exhibition and of the May Collection, and co-author and editor of the catalogue Living with Architecture as Art: The Peter W. May Collection of Architectural Drawings, Models, and Artefacts. She has published on architecture, including the Philip Johnson Glass House, but is better known as a specialist in Dresden court culture, Meissen porcelain and the Grand Tour.

Marilyn Satin Kushner will briefly discuss how this exhibition engages with the New-York Historical Society collections, as well as her decision to install the exhibition floor to ceiling, Salon style. Dr. Kushner is Curator of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections at New-York Historical Society; she previously headed the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Brooklyn Museum. She was co-curator and co-editor of the N-YHS exhibition and catalogue The Armory Show at 100: Modernism and Revolution; her most recent publication, The Art of Winold Reiss, An Immigrant Modernist, will be available in late Spring 2021.

Kevin D. Murphy will focus on the worldwide prestige of the Beaux-Arts style in the nineteenth century, and its impact on both buildings and architectural education, especially in the United States. While the influence of Beaux-Arts classicism in the US has been recognized, less widely acknowledged has been the impact of Americans on the Ecole, especially of American women who were among the first female students there. He is Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities, and Professor and Chair in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Vanderbilt University. His work has focused on historicism in France and the United States. Among his many publications are Memory and Modernity: Viollet-le-Duc at Vézelay and, most recently, The Cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris: A Quick Immersion.

A Q&A will follow the three presentations. 

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The event is free but advance registration is required: https://tinyurl.com/revisitingbeauxarts.

Future events will be announced on the websites of AHNCA (www.ahnca.org) and the Dahesh (www.daheshmuseum.org) as well as through social media.