American Art Online Audio

a catalogue of audio recordings of lectures and conversations with artists, scholars and others

with content focusing on representational art listed by source name

and presented free of charge

 

 

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

In November 2005, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art launched a podcast program as a way to further serve Museum visitors and foster involvement with the local and online communities. Dubbed SFMOMA Artcasts, these audio productions included exhibition features, artist interviews, and newly commissioned contributions by Bay Area music, sound, and spoken word artists. Co-developed in an innovative collaboration with Antenna Audio of Sausalito, the podcasts are available for download free of charge. Some of the downloads are audio files with images, which TFAO describes as Illustrated Audio Online. (right: graphic courtesy of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)
 
As of 8/13/09 archived audio files include:
 
Richard Diebenkorn on his artistic aspirations from January, 2000
Dorothea Lange on becoming a photographer from January, 2000
Dorothea Lange on the subjects of her photographs from January, 2000
Dorothea Lange on witnessing the Dust Bowl Migration from January, 2000
Kiki Smith: A Gathering, 1980 - 2005 from December, 2005
Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967 - 2005 from December, 2005
Tina Modotti and Edward Weston's partnership from September, 2006
Robert Rauschenberg's White Paintings from November, 2008
Kerry James Marshall on Painting the Founding Fathers from February, 2009
Kerry James Marshall on His Use of Games and Puzzles from February, 2009

 

Sangre de Cristo Arts & Conference Center

As of February 2009 Sangre de Cristo Arts & Conference Center is offering podcasts of its latest exhibitions.

 

Santa Barbara Museum of Art

As of February 2010 Santa Barbara Museum of Art is offering podcasts of music to accompany viewing of art works in the collection and recent exhibitions.

 

Sheldon Museum of Art

Recorded at the Sheldon, the Audio/Video Library enhances the understanding and enjoyment of visitors. Quotes are from the museum's website. Recordings include:
 
Voyage to Italia: Americans in Italy in the 19th Century
Genevieve Ellerbee, curator of Voyage to Italia: Americans in Italy in the 19th Century, talks about the exhibition on view at the Sheldon Museum of Art from May 7 through September 5, 2010. (4 min 40 sec)
 
Ann Rawley Discusses Collecting Whistler Prints
In May, 2010 the Sheldon Museum of Art added a podcast titled Ann Rawley Discusses Collecting Whistler Prints in which "Sheldon Curator Sharon Kennedy talks with collector Ann K. Rawley about how she and her husband, James, started to collect prints by James McNeill Whistler" The Rawleys lent Whistler prints to the exhibition James McNeill Whistler: 40 Years of Printmaking, held May 26 through September 20, 2009. (4 min 5 sec)
 
John Singleton Copley's [portrait of Nicholas Boyston]
In 2008, Aaron Holz, Assistant Professor of Painting at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, discussed "John Singleton Copley's portrait of Nicholas Boyston, an early American masterpiece on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston." A photo of the painting accompanies the podcast. In another podcast titled John Singleton Copley's Nicholas Boylston, "Curator Sharon Kennedy tells how John Singleton Copley's became one of America's foremost early painters."
 
Women Artists in Nebraska, 1880-1950
In this podcast illustrated by images of paaintings of Nebraska women artists, "Sheldon Curator Sharon Kennedy reviews her thesis about 12 early women artists in Nebraska. Talented, indomitable and yet largely overlooked, these art pioneers left an enduring artistic legacy in the state."
 
Theodore H. Robinson's Port Ben, Delaware and Hudson Canal 1893
In this 4 1/2 minute podcast, "Sheldon Director Jan Diresbach discusses Theodore H. Robinson's painting Port Ben, Delaware and Hudson Canal with Ashley Conaster, a senior Art History major."
 
John Twachtman's Bark and Schooner 1900
"Sheldon Director Jan Driesbach discusses John Henry Twachtman's painting Bark and Schooner 1900 with Ashley Conaster, a senior majoring in Art History. Their talk is about three minutes."
 
Expressing Identity, American Prints Since 1980
"Jan Driesbach, curator for Expressing Identity, American Prints Since 1980, spoke about the exhibition to a gathering in the gallery on Sunday, November 12, 2006. Visitors may download this audio file to an MP3 player and listen as they view the artworks. Her talk lasts about 34 minutes. She discusses 11 of the 20 prints in the exhibition. For listeners with a Quicktime application, images of the prints will appear as she discusses them. The first print, which is on view during the introduction, is North by Keith Jacobshagen. "
 
Anxious Objects: Willie Cole's Favorite Brands
"This audio records a panel discussion on Tuesday, October 24, 2006, in Ethel S. Abbott auditorium about the exhibition, Anxious Objects: Willie Cole's Favorite Brands. Oyekan Owomoyela, professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, moderated the panel, which included Christin Mamiya, a UNL art historian, Wanda Ewing, an artist and art faculty member at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Dan Siedell, Sheldon curator. The discussion, which includes some questions from the audience, last about 54 minutes. Professor Owomoyela starts the discussion with a series of questions."
 
American Art, 1920s through the 1950s
"Sheldon Director Jan Driesbach leads docents on a tour through two galleries with artworks from the 1920s through the 1950s. The pieces she discusses are part of the Sheldon's permanent collection exhibition, American Art, 19th Century to Present. Visitors may download this audio file to an MP3 player and listen as they view the artworks. The talk is about 42 minutes long.."

 

Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery

The Smithsonian American Art Museum offers audio podcasts, illustrated audio podcasts for some of its exhibitions. Examples include:
 
The Great American Hall of Wonders, July 15, 2011 - January 8, 2012: 8 episode audio podcast recorded by Guest Curator Claire Perry
 
Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities, September 26, 2008 - January 4, 2009: audio podcast with a conversation between curators Eleanor Harvey and Toby Jurovics about the work and lives of Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams.

 

Snite Museum of Art

The Snite Museum of Art announced in February, 2007 a new feature on its Web site. Twenty  podcasts, or "SniteCasts," were added that can enhance a walk through the Museum's galleries or an Internet visitor's virtual experience of selections from the collection.
 
SniteCasts are three- to five-minute audio programs describing paintings and sculptures on view in the Museum's permanent collection galleries. They were produced by students in an Applied Multimedia Technology class taught by Chris Clark, associate professional specialist in the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning. Each consists of three parts: a reading of the essay describing the artwork from the Museum's Selected Works, the student's own thoughts and personal reactions to the piece, and a background music track that can be legally shared.
 
SniteCasts are published online on a free subscription basis.through iTunes (free of charge), or via other podcast sites, all linked to the Museum's site. They can be downloaded through iTunes to a portable media player, such as an iPod, and then played as a self-guided tour when visiting the Snite Museum of Art. Some devices can display a small image of the artwork while playing the audio track.
 
As of April, 2008, the fifty SniteCasts describe works by artists including:
 
William Merritt Chase, Abbott Handerson Thayer, Frederic Remington, Charles Marion Russell, Marsden Hartley, Joseph Cornell,  Georgia O'Keefe and Walter Ufer.

 

Speed Art Museum

The Speed Art Museum's Web site contains a page highlighting examples of artworks in its collection of American Painting and Sculpture. Audio clips from the museum's onsite Passport to the Speed audio guide tour are included for these artworks:
 
Mary Cassatt (American, 1844-1926), L'Enfant (The Child), 1905, oil on canvas. Gift of Mrs. Blakemore Wheeler 1964.22
 
Paul Manship (American, 1885-1966), Cycle of Life (Armillary Sphere), 1924, gilt bronze. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jouett Ross Todd 1964.17.6. Conservation funded by Dr. Charles F. Mahl and Louanne Mahl of Rostrevor and by Louise Ross Todd.

 

Spencer Museum of Art / University of Kansas

The Spencer Museum of Art's Web site contains a cell phone guide page named "An Ear for Art." As of February, 2010, the page contains commentary on works by American artists including Thomas Hart Benton, Birger Sandzen, Grant Wood and others. Each referenced work contains a link to a cell phone presentation as well as written information.

 

Tacoma Art Museum

For the exhibition The Great American Thing: Modern Art and National Identity, 1915-1395, being held February 4 - May 21, 2006, the Tacoma Art Museum created a 12-part audio tour which is available through its website's Educational Resources section as mp3 files or by RSS feed. In 2006, the museum advised TFAO that the audio files will be left on its website after close of the exhibition. Segments include:
 
1 - Introduction
2 - Archibald J. Motley Jr. - Blues
3 - Charles Demuth - Paquebot "Paris"
4 - Man Ray - New York 17
5 - Charles Demuth - Buildings, Lancaster
6 - Marcel Duchamp - Traveler's Folding Item
7 - Stuart Davis - Odol
8 - Charles Sheeler - Interior
9 - Georgia O'Keeffe - Horse's Skull with White Rose
10 - Marsden Hartley - Painting No. 50  from the Amerika series
11 - Arthur Dove - Dawn III
12 - Alfred Stieglitz - Equivalent

 

Taft Museum of Art

For the exhibition Michael Scott: Farny Fables, the Taft Museum of Art developed an accompanying podcast. Michael Scott's West is an intensely imaginary and personal place. It does have cowboys, but they incarnate mercenary Dutch gamblers and art racketeers trying to turn a greedy profit from sell-ing paintings. It has Indians, but they are expert chefs named Blue Plate, Shortbread, Crisco, and Sourdough, who work cosmic transformations in the kitchen. It has the requisite tough, wise old matriarch, Grandma, who narrates the tale of the temptation of Henry Farny (the real 19th-century painter of western scenes, who makes an appearance in this invented tale) by the Dutch cowboys, who urge him to sell out and paint for money, big money. It has a county fair, where Farny's paintings will compete against Grandma's famous MoonPie cake recipe, which has always won the Best of Show ribbon-until now, perhaps? (Link found expired as of 8/13/09 audit. Source site may contain this content via a revised URL) (8/13/09 advanced search failed to locate content on source's site)

 

University of Virginia Art Museum

William Christenberry: Site/Possession, June 11, 2007 - The University of Virginia Art Museum and the Quality Community Council host an event featuring multi-media artist William Christenberry, who discusses his Klan Room Tableau within the context of over 40 years of art-making.

 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Art on the Air features two-minute radio artist and curator interviews narrated by Daphne Maxwell Reid, produced by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and New Millennium Studios, and directed by Ruth Twiggs and Anne Barriault, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The broadcasts focus on works of art and artists, materials, and techniques. Transcripts are also provided. (right: Art on the Air graphic courtesy of Virginia Museum of Fine Arts)
 
Selections include:
 
Deborah Butterfield (8/12/05)
 
Winslow Homer (8/15/05)
 
Mary Cassatt  (8/17/05)

 

Walker Art Center

The Walker Art Center's Walker Channel provides archives of it's webcasts of artist talks, lectures and related topics. Titles include:
 
Two or Three Things I Don't Know About Jasper Johns, with David Shapiro (11/9/03)
 
Artist Talk: John Baldessari (11/18/03)
 
Opening-day Artist Talk: Chuck Close (7/24/2005)
 
Art On Call provides phone, podcast and browsing options for its audience to hear to artists and curators discuss works from the Walker Art Center's collection. Cell phone users call a phone number to hear an audio segment. Listeners can also access an index of mp3 streams on the Art On Call home page. Titles include:
 
Deborah Butterfield, Woodrow
 
Chuck Close, Big Self-Portrait
 
Chuck Close, Kiki
 
Barry Flanagan, Hare on Bell on Portland Stone Piers
 
Roy Lichtenstein, Artist's Studio No. 1 (Look Mickey)
 
Edward Ruscha, Steel
 
George Segal, Walking Man

 

WGBH/Boston Forum Network

The WGBH/Boston Forum Network includes a number of audio recordings and 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]
 
Boston College partnered with the Forum Network for:
 
Religious Imagery in Navajo Textiles (1 hour, 11 minutes) a lecture by Rebecca Valette, professor, french, Boston College, who explains that seemingly abstract Navajo designs are, in fact, religious symbols imbued with specific meanings. [November 7, 2002]
 
Harvard Graduate School of Education partnered with the Forum Network for:Conversation with Edmund Barry Gaither, (1 hour, 24 minutes) a lecture by Edmund Gaither, director, Center Afro-American Artists and co-founder of the African American Museum Association, discusses his experiences as an art historian, lecturer, writer, and advocate for African American artists. [April 10, 2002]
 
Paradigm Spinning: Artists as Agents of Social Change, (1 hour, 25 minutes) a lecture by Suzi Gablick, artist, art critic, cultural philosopher, discusses the role that both art and the artist play in the contemporary world, and how their work is vital to society and to social change. [March 14, 2001]
Museum of Afro-American History partnered with the Forum Network for:
 
Looking For Mr. Gilbert: African-American Photographer, (55 minutes) a lecture by John Hanson Mitchell., author, presents slides of works by Robert Alexander Gilbert, who was a 19th century African American artist. Mitchell talks about the life of this unassuming Renaissance man who took haunting photos of the Boston landscape and its people. [March 30., 2005]
 
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston partnered with the Forum Network for:
 
Modern Art in America, (43 minutes) in which Heather Cotter, Museum of Fine Arts Gallery Lecturer, gives an overview of the roots of American modern art using examples from the Museum's collection. This talk in the galleries of the Museum of Fine Arts investigates the foundations of modern art in America, focusing on works by Georgia O'Keefe, Arthur Dove, Charles Sheeler, and Stuart Davis. [September 28, 2003]
 
Picturing Boston: Painting the Town, 42 minutes) a lecture by Erica Hirshler, senior curator, Museum of Fine Arts, who uses images from the MFA's collection to explore how artists represented Boston and its inhabitants throughout its history. [April 13, 2003]
 
At Home and Abroad: American Expatriate Artists, (56 minutes) in which Heather Cotter, fellow, Adult Learning Programs, Museum of Fine Arts, explores the various influences reflected in the art of American expatriate artists -- including John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, and James McNeill Whistler -- working at home and abroad. [Spring, 2003]
 
Old South Meeting House partnered with the Forum Network for:
 
Deaf Artist: The World of John Brewster, Jr.,(32 minutes) a lecture by Harlan Lane, psychologist, historian and distinguished professor at Northeastern University, examines this extraordinary American portrait artist and how his memberships within multiple worlds (Puritan, Federalist elite, Deaf and Art) converged to leave an enduring legacy. [September 23, 2004]
 
Wheaton College partnered with the Forum Network for:
 
Six Good Reasons Not To Paint a Landscape, (51 minutes) with Wolf Kahn, landscape artist. [September 19, 2002]
The WGBH Archives contains a series of 22 original WGBH/FM radio essays by leading thinkers in the 20th Century on the nature of creativeness in American arts, sciences, and professions. One of the essays is titled Creative Method: Edward Steichen on Photography, with Lyman Bryson interviewing Edward Steichen, photographer and painter. [December 31, 1969]
 

Whitney Museum of American Art

The Whitney Museum of American Art's online American Voices audio tour presents numerous artworks in the Museum's permanent collection. A transcript accompanies each audio clip. Voices include the Museum's curators, other scholars, authors and artists.
 
 

WKSU/Kent State University

Arts & Crafts Movement in Europe and America 1880-1920 at Cleveland Museum of Art reported by WKSU's Mark Urycki.
 
 

WNET/New York

WNET/New York produced Religion & Ethics Newsweekly: The Legacy of Howard Finster on October 26, 2001. Tom Patterson, Howard Finster's biographer, provides insights into the life and career of the acclaimed artist in two audio clips:
 
1. "Howard Finster's ministry and his visual art career were parallel forces..."
2. "His work came very much out of his Appalachian background..."

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