Organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the following lectures present a forum for engaging the public in the creative experience and a discussion of what American art is today. Each year, the series offers new insights and perspectives by an artist, a critic, and a scholar.

September 28 – James Rosenquist, artist presents “Painting Could Be Fun!”
James Rosenquist is world-renowned for his large-scale paintings, combining images from advertising and mass media with vibrant color and abstraction. In 1994, he created a limited-edition lithograph entitled Discover Graphics for the Art Collectors Program. Rosenquist studied art at the University of Minnesota, and at the Art Students League in New York City. In the 1960s, he was included in several group exhibitions which established pop art as a movement. Rosenquist achieved international acclaim with his monumental painting F-111 (1964–65), often considered one of his most important works. The most recent touring exhibition of his work, James Rosenquist: A Retrospective, was organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2003.

October 5 - Roberta Smith, art critic for the New York Times presents “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Art Criticism, Art Theory and the Art Market”
Roberta Smith is a widely acclaimed art critic for the New York Times and a popular lecturer on currents in contemporary art. Smith participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program after graduating from Grinnell College in 1969. She was the art critic for the Village Voice (1981–85), and a senior editor at Art in America (1976–80) before moving to the New York Times in October 1986. Smtih has contributed essays to exhibition catalogues on Donald Judd, Alex Katz, Elizabeth Murray, and Cy Twombly. She has received art criticism grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1975 and 1980. In 2003, Smith won the College Art Association’s prestigious Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism.

November 2 - Wanda M. Corn, professor at Stanford University presents “Telling Tales: Georgia O’Keeffe as Autobiographer”
Wanda M. Corn is among the most respected and well-published scholars of American art. She is currently the Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor in Art History at Stanford University. In 1974, she earned her Ph.D. from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. She has been a guest curator for several exhibitions, including Grant Wood: The Regionalist Vision (1983–84). In 1980, she became the first permanent appointment in the history of American art at Stanford. She was awarded the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Art in 2000 for her book The Great American Thing: Modern Art and National Identity, 1915-1935 (1999). Corn is currently working on an exhibition based on her award-winning book, and an exhibition on Gertrude Stein and the American avant-garde.

All lectures begin at 7 p.m., in Lisner Auditorium, The George Washington University (730 21st St, NW, Washington, DC). Lectures are free, no reservations required, and will be followed by a reception. This annual series is made possible by the generosity of Clarice Smith. For more information, email saamprograms@si.edu or visit www.AmericanArt.si.edu.