MFAH Lectures
Take a seat and settle in for these special videos, as experts share insights and go behind the scenes at the MFAH.
William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows
The exhibition William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows surveys 35 years in the career of celebrated South African artist William Kentridge. In this talk with Houston-based artist and curator Christopher Blay, Kentridge explores how the history of South Africa has shaped his life and his art.
Golden Worlds: The Portable Universe of Indigenous Colombia
The groundbreaking exhibition Golden Worlds: The Portable Universe of Indigenous Colombia reframes the approach to ancient Colombian art and invites visitors into a cultural dialogue that spans both space and time.
Philip Guston Now
Philip Guston never stopped questioning the place of the artist in society. The retrospective Philip Guston Now resonates with a profound humanism, defined equally by themes that touch on what he called the “brutality of the world” and the profound commitment he made to the joy of painting.
Calder-Picasso
Experience a fascinating encounter between two of the foremost figures in 20th-century art: Alexander Calder and Pablo Picasso. Explore the exhibition Calder-Picasso in this overview with Ann Dumas, consulting curator of European art.
Afro-Houston Histories
To mark the opening of Afro-Atlantic Histories, this discussion connects themes in the exhibition with historic sites in Houston. The “Afro-Houston Histories” panel includes artist Reginald Adams; scholar Rachel Afi Quinn from the University of Houston; curator Danielle Burns Wilson of Project Row Houses; and filmmaker Isaac Yowman. Presented by the MFAH and the African American Library at the Gregory School.
Incomparable Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Take an inside look at Incomparable Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Helga Aurisch, curator of European art, provides a detailed overview of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works that trace the evolution of the radical movement.
Conversations with Artists
MFAH curators talk with artists whose works shaped the inaugural installations and special commissions for the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, which opened in November 2020. Conversations with Artists, presented in 2021, features Christiane Baumgartner, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Guillermo Kuitca, Ellen Lesperance, Teresa Margolles, César Augusto Martínez, Aaron McIntosh, Julie Mehretu, Vik Muniz, Jason Salavon, Vincent Valdez, and Norwood Viviano.
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Video Showcase
Glory of Spain: Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library
Mitchell A. Codding, executive director and president of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in New York, discusses how the vision of one man, Hispanic Society founder Archer M. Huntington, became a phenomenal impetus in the promotion of the art and culture of the Hispanic world. This talk was presented at the MFAH in March 2020 on opening day of the exhibition Glory of Spain: Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library.
Recorded in collaboration with Art This Week Productions.
Beyond the Sensuous: Chola Bronzes of South India
Vidya Dehejia, professor at Columbia University in New York, is the author of The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Sacred Bronzes from Chola India, 855–1280. In this April 2021 talk, she discusses Chola bronze sculptures, some of the most sensuous and accomplished works of art fashioned anywhere in the world.
Francis Bacon: Late Paintings
Didier Ottinger, curator and deputy director of the Musée national d’art modern at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, delves into the literary sources that inspired painter Francis Bacon. This February 2020 lecture was given in conjunction with preview events for the exhibition Francis Bacon: Late Paintings, which Ottinger curated.
Recorded in collaboration with Art This Week Productions.
Alison de Lima Greene, MFAH curator of modern and contemporary art, explores Francis Bacon’s depiction of the human form and the major themes that dominate the artist’s later works. This February 2020 lecture was presented on opening day of the exhibition Francis Bacon: Late Paintings.
Recorded in collaboration with Art This Week Productions.
Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings
Sarah Kennel, the Byrne Family Curator of Photography at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, looks at the genesis, and the enduring beauty and power, of photographer Sally Mann’s family pictures. “Flashes of the Finite” examines the role of these images as a cultural touchstone for issues such as childhood, motherhood, and the boundaries between public and private. This lecture was presented at the MFAH in the spring of 2019 in conjunction with the exhibition Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings.
Recorded in collaboration with Art This Week Productions.
Michelangelo and the Vatican: Masterworks
David Bomford, organizing co-curator of Michelangelo and the Vatican: Masterworks from the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples, discusses the exhibition in this March 2018 lecture at the MFAH. Michelangelo and the Vatican featured masterworks by Michelangelo and his contemporaries, predecessors and successors, including Raphael, Rubens, Tintoretto, and Titian. The exhibition highlighted the artistic legacy of Pope Paul III and the vital role that drawing played in art production throughout Europe in the late 15th and 16th centuries.
Recorded in collaboration with Art This Week Productions.
Degas: A New Vision
Edgar Degas, The Dance Class, c. 1873, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (William A. Clark Collection).
Edgar Degas, Racehorses in a Landscape, 1894, pastel on paper, Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection on deposit at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
Edgar Degas, Edmondo and Thérèse Morbilli, c. 1865, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of Robert Treat Paine, 2nd.
Edgar Degas, Rehearsal Hall at the Opera, Rue Le Peletier, 1872, oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
Edgar Degas, Woman Seated on the Edge of the Bath Sponging Her Neck, 1880–95, oil and essence on paper mounted to canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
In this series of lectures, renowned Degas scholars celebrate different aspects of Edgar Degas’s restless genius, as revealed in the 2016–2017 exhibition Degas: A New Vision.
• The Private Collection of Edgar Degas
• Degas’s Families
• Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty
• Degas & the 20th Century
• Edgar Degas’s Sculptures: An Inside Look