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Up-Close Seminar: The Civil War in American Art

Kara Walker, Confederate Prisoners Being Conducted from Jonesborough to Atlanta, from the portfolio Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), 2005. Offset lithograph and screenprint. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Margaret Fisher Fund, 2008.5. © Kara Walker, Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York.
© Kara Walker, Courtesy of Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York.

Seminar

Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA

Please note that this event is at capacity.

Few conflicts in American history have had as profound an impact on the arts as the Civil War. In this session, we will look closely at a range of material—from Winslow Homer’s engravings for Harper’s Weekly and Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book to contemporary artist Kara Walker’s prints from her Pictorial History of the Civil War—to consider the many ways that American artists have responded to the war and grappled with the cultural and moral questions at its core. Led by Ethan Lasser, the Margaret S. Winthrop Associate Curator of American Art, and Penley Knipe, the Philip and Lynn Straus Conservator of Works of Art on Paper, this session is held in conjunction with the Harvard Civil War Project.

The seminar will take place in the Art Study Center, Level 4.

Free admission, but capacity is limited to 15 and registration is recommended. To register, please call 617-495-1440.

Please arrive 15 minutes before the start of the program to allow sufficient time to sign in at the Art Study Center reception desk. Note that there is a wait list for this program; spots unclaimed by 11am will be released to those on the wait list. Please be prepared to present a photo ID.

Lockers are available on the Lower Level, Level 1, and Level 4 to check bags, coats, umbrellas, and any food or drink.