Author Robert Mattison will give a lecture, "Grace Hartigan: Painting the Past and the Present," Thursday, Nov. 16, at 4 p.m. in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, located on the first floor of Syracuse University's E.S. Bird Library. His lecture, sponsored by Syracuse University Library Associates, is free and open to the public. A reception will follow the lecture. Paid parking is available in the Marion visitor lot on Waverly Avenue.
Grace Hartigan (1922-) was a major participant in the explosion of creative energy that was the New York artistic and literary scene of the early 1950s. An important abstract expressionist painter, Hartigan was included in the famous show "Twelve Americans" at the Museum of Modern Art in 1956. Mattison's lecture will focus on Hartigan's distinctive inventions during her long career and place her in the cultural context of the modern era, with particular emphasis on her relationships with such writers and artists as Frank O'Hara, Larry Rivers, Barbara Guest and Joan Mitchell.
Mattison is the Marshall R. Metzgar Professor at Lafayette College and is the author of four books and more than 60 articles and exhibition catalogs on modern art. In addition to Hartigan, Mattison has written on such artists as Robert Motherwell, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Stella. His particular fascination is working with living artists.
