Sponsored by the Grace Slack McNeil Program for Studies in American Art at Wellesley College and the Office of Academic Programs at Historic Deerfield

Date: Saturday, March 10th, 2012
Venue: Collins Cinema, Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, USA
Deadline for submissions: September 30th, 2011

During the second half of the nineteenth century, New England women from both elite and modest backgrounds increasingly traveled outside the United States as tourists, to escape social constraints, and to gain the artistic training largely denied them at home.  Although some of these women chose to remain abroad, the majority eventually returned to the United States, bringing with them a new perspective on their surroundings, their social milieu, and themselves. While Isabella Stewart Gardner most famously built her Venetian palazzo on the Fenway, other women–amateur and professional artists in particular–developed studios, salons, and social networks that supported their individual artistic pursuits. Their paintings, photography, sculptures, interiors, collecting activities, and landscape designs all reflected the experience of their extended stays in foreign cities and artists colonies.

This one-day symposium will explore the influence that travel and study had on New England women, and, in particular, the ways in which their sojourns shaped their artistic expressions.  Papers should be theoretical or analytical in nature rather than descriptive and should be approximately 20 minutes long.

Please submit 250-word proposals and a two-page c.v. via electronic mail to Martha McNamara mmcnamar@wellesley.edu and  Josh Lane lane@historic-deerfield.org. Proposals should include the title of the paper and the presenter’s name.

Contact: Martha J. McNamara
Director, New England Arts & Architecture Program
Department of Art
Wellesley College
Wellesley, MA 02481
781-283-2961