Boston Athenæum

(above: Boston Athenæum, photo, © 2004 John Hazeltine)

Boiston, MA

617-227-0270

http://www.bostonathenaeum.org/

• Acquired Tastes: 200 Years of Collecting for the Boston Athenaeum (3/15/07)
• Leo Dee (1931-2004); essay by David B. Dearinger (4/11/05)
• Seen But Not Heard: Images of Children from the Collection of the Boston Athenæum (9/13/04)
  

The Boston Athenæum, founded in 1807, is one of the oldest and most distinguished independent libraries in the United States. Its collections comprise over half a million books (with particular strengths in Boston history, New England state and local history, biography, English and American literature, and the fine and decorative arts), paintings, sculpture, prints and photographs, and decorative arts. The Athenæum presents a dynamic exhibition schedule in its Norma Jean Calderwood Exhibition Gallery and sponsors a variety of programs, such as lectures, concerts, and discussion groups. The Boston Athenæum is located at 10 1/2 Beacon Street, Boston, MA  02108. Athenæum membership is open to all.

For hours and admission fees please see the Athenæum's website.

The WGBH/Boston Forum Network is an audio and video streaming web site dedicated to curating and serving live and on-demand lectures, including a number of videos on Art and Architecture. Partners include a number of Boston-area museums, colleges, universities and other cultural organizations.

Boston Athenaeum partnered with the Forum Network for a series of lectures on American art by David Dearinger, who is Susan Morse Hilles Curator of Paintings and Sculpture at the Boston Athenaeum. An art historian and curator, he received his Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, with a specialty in nineteenth-century American art. Titles include:

• Hudson River School of American Landscape Painting, (1 hour, 11 minutes) a general introduction to the famous Hudson River School of American landscape painting. [March 29, 2005]
• The Academy and Art in America, (1 hour, 5 minutes) a lecture about the role of the formal art academy in the development of American art and art criticism. [March 24, 2005]
• Seen But Not Heard: Images of Children in American Art (1 hour, 27 minutes) uses nineteenth and early twentieth-century American art to illustrate perceptions of childhood. [November 30, 2004]
• Marmorean Affair: Neoclassic Sculptors and Boston (1 hour, 6 minutes) reveals the Bostonian obsession with neoclassical sculpture from the 1820s through the 1860s. [May 6, 2004]

also from the Boston Athenaeum:

• Life Drawing in 19th Century America, (55 minutes) an illustrated lecture by Elliot Bostwick Davis, John Cabot Chair, Museum of Fine Arts, compares Darwin's evolutionary theory to the style of life drawing taught in Boston and New York by William Rimmer (1816-1879). [February 24, 2005]

A Google Book Search conducted June 19, 2008 located the following books indicated as having been published by the Museum.

The following catalogues feature Google Books "snippet view":

The Athenæum Gallery, 1827-1873: The Boston Athenæum as an Early Patron of Art, By Mabel Munson Swan. Published 1940. The Boston Athenæum. Art. 312 pages. Original from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Digitized Sep 12, 2007

The following catalogues do not feature Google Books' "full view" or "limited preview":

Artists and the Athenæum in the Early 19th Century, by Boston Athenaeum - Art, American - 1992. "September 3 through December 31, 1992."

Boston Lithography, 1825-1880: The Boston Athenæum Collection, by Sally Pierce, Catharina Slautterback - Art - 1991

The Work of J. Gregory Wiggins, Woodcarver; Catalogue of an Exhibition, Held ..., by Boston Athenaeum - 1951. "Printed by the Anthoensen press, Portland, Maine."

Hewins's Journal: A Boston Portrait-painter Visits Italy; the Journal of ..., by Amasa Hewins - Italy - 1931 - 145 pages

Book information courtesy of Google Books.

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