Paper: The Place of Discovery

The Department of Art History is pleased to announce a symposium on October 8th and 9th in honor of James Watrous (1908-99), who joined the faculty of the Art History Department in 1935, where he taught for many years as the Oskar Hagen Professor. Professor Watrous also was a major proponent of the public humanities in Madison, the driving force in founding the Elvehjem (now Chazen) Museum of Art and its collection of prints, and a practicing artist, known especially for his murals and mosaics around campus.

Given Watrous’s contribution to the study of prints and drawings, and in keeping with his dedication to making art historical knowledge accessible, our keynote speaker, John Resig, will present his path-breaking development of software to promote techniques of art historical analysis. The speakers on Friday morning will investigate the importance of works on paper to artistic thought and art historical investigation with papers on the silverpoint technique, the bizarre and imaginative fantasies of the jewelry designer Wenzel Jamnitzer, the importance of letter writing to the artistic practice of Albrecht Dürer, and Rembrandt’s trials and failures.

This symposium is generously supported the James Watrous Fund and the Anonymous Fund.

All events are free and open to the public.

Schedule:

Thursday, October 8, 6pm: "Computer Vision as Art Historical Investigation"

L160 Elvehjem Building

John Resig, Developer, Khan Academy; Creator, jQuery Java Script Library

Friday, October 9, 10am-12:30pm: "Paper: The Place of Discovery"

Chazen Auditorium, Chazen Museum of Art

Stephanie Buck, Curator of Drawings, The Courtauld Gallery, London

Thomas Rassieur, Curator of Prints and Drawings, The Minneapolis Institute of Art

Shira Brisman, Assistant Professor, Art History, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Madeleine Viljoen, Curator of Prints, The New York Public Library

Andrew Stevens (Moderator), Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, Chazen Museum