Art historian and author Kirsty Stonell Walker explores the colorful histories of women of the era in her book, Pre-Raphaelite Girl Gang. She will introduce an enchanting and revolutionary band of women – artists, sculptors, inventors, models, wives, sisters, and muses – who provide inspiration for groundbreakers and troublemakers today.

Stonell Walker became a “historian of the Victorian,” mainly because it rhymed. In almost twenty years’ worth of study, she has written the only biography of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s most notorious model and muse, Fanny Cornforth. In 2012, she updated the text to cover all-new research and material that has arisen since the publication of the first edition in 2006, including the BBC series Desperate Romantics. She is also the author of A Curl of Copper and Pearl, published in Spring 2014. In 2015 she published a novel, We Are Villains All, a murder mystery centered on the lives of a Victorian poet and his best friend, a photographer. She has written The Kissed Mouth blog since 2011, airing Victorian dirty linen in a humorous and thought-provoking way.

Program hosted on Zoom. For registration support or questions, email christian.davies@nevadaart.org.

Georgia O’Keeffe saw the modern world in unique ways, including the way in which she perceived the sky. Blue tones, clouds, and unusual perspectives of the horizon characterize much of her work. This talk will focus on O’Keeffe’s representation of the southwest sky in her paintings and fashion as well as in photographs of the artist.

Dr. Brett M. Van Hoesen is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Nevada, Reno.

The Art Bite series is supported by Nevada Humanities.

The central theme of artist Michelle Lassaline’s work can be described by the Portuguese word saudade, which roughly translates to “homesickness,” but also carries the meaning of invented memories. For example, you may feel saudade for your childhood home, a place much grander in your memory than the building that now sits at the same address. Saudade is the homesickness for somewhere that never existed except in the form of that fleeting land called childhood. Learn about these ideas of place and their relation to this emerging artist’s work. 

Robert Adams’ photographs of the American landscape became some of the most famous of the twentieth century. Join photographer Scott Hinton for a gallery discussion of Adams’ most recent body of work, a portfolio of images made in Oregon’s Nehalem Bay State Park.

John James Audubon, the artist, is beloved by many for the naturalistic and life-size illustrations of the creatures he made. Fewer are aware of his reputation as a scientist, natural historian, entrepreneur, and writer. Join Michael Branch for an exploration of Audubon’s life and work, some of which is on display through February 15.

The Nature Conservancy in Nevada has been working with artists Daniel McCormick and Mary O’Brien to restore the channels of the Carson and Truckee River systems with living sculptures. Learn about the scope and purpose of these projects form leaders of The Nature Conservancy.

Learn how President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, and the subsequent ratification of the thirteenth amendment to the United States Constitution, is integrally linked to Nevada having become a state in 1864.