Father Powell Distinguished Lecture: Divinely Lit with Gaylord Torrence

The Foundation for the Preservation of American Indian Art and Culture, in partnership with The Brinton Museum, is pleased to present the inaugural Father Powell Distinguished Lecture Series featuring Gaylord Torrence.

In his presentation, Divinely Lit: Symbolism in Plains Indian Art, Torrence will explore selected works from The Brinton Museum’s Plains Indian collection, including war shirts, muslin paintings, and other objects. The lecture offers a unique opportunity to encounter familiar works from the Museum’s collection through the perspective of one of the field’s leading scholars.

Gaylord Torrence is the founding curator and curator emeritus of Native American Art at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and professor emeritus of fine art at Drake University. An internationally distinguished scholar of North American Indian visual arts, he is widely recognized for fostering new perspectives on historical Indigenous art and the recognition of contemporary Native artists.

Throughout his career, Torrence has collaborated with Native American communities, cultural leaders, and bearers of traditional knowledge. He has served as a guest and consulting curator for institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Heard Museum; and Peabody Museum at Harvard University. In 2014, he curated the landmark exhibition The Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky, which opened at Musée du quai Branly in Paris before traveling to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Thursday, October 15 | 5–6:30 PM
Free and open to the public.

Image:
Gaylord Torrence — American Citizen.
Wet-plate collodion tintype by Will Wilson (Navajo),
Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CIPX)