BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 X-WR-CALNAME;VALUE=TEXT:Four Paintings, Four Stories, Four Uncharted Points in the History of European Painting PRODID:-//Harvard events data//EN BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event_1936951_0 SUMMARY:Four Paintings, Four Stories, Four Uncharted Points in the History of European Painting DESCRIPTION:

The Henri Zerner Lectures are sponsored by Harvard’s Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Harvard Art Museums, and through the generosity of alumni and friends in establishing the Henri Zerner Lecture Fund.

Speaker: Stephan Wolohojian, The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Curator in Charge of the Department of European Paintings

and will be in person only.

Museums acquire works of art not only to expand and strengthen their collections, but also to reshape the narratives those collections make possible. The greatest excitement come with the acquisition of previously unknown or unpublished works, whose emergence can alter established understandings of artistic practice, historical chronology, and cultural context.

This lecture examines four paintings that were unknown until their recent acquisition by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rather than simply augmenting the historical record, these works invite a fundamental reconsideration of an artist, a period, and the wider cultural world in which they were made.
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Stephan Wolohojian

John Pope-Hennessy Curator in Charge, European Paintings; The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stephan Wolohojian received his PhD from Harvard University and has held academic as well as museum positions. His broad interests are reflected in the range of this exhibition and gallery renovation projects. Before going to The Met, he was a curator at the Harvard Art Museums, where he played a central role in the re-installation of the Renzo Piano-designed building (2014). At The Met, he was responsible for Look Again, The Met’s critically acclaimed rethinking of its European paintings collection, pre-1800 (2023).

He has currently turned his attention to the 19th century collection and galleries at The Met. His many exhibition projects focus on the Italian Renaissance and the 19th-century. Among them, A Private Passion: Nineteenth-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection (2003), winner of the George Wittenborn Prize for outstanding publication in the visual arts and architecture; Degas at Harvard (2005); Manet/Degas (2023); and Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350 (2025), winner of the Apollo Magazine Exhibition of the Year Award.

 

LOCATION:Harvard History of Art and Architecture, Lower Lecture Hall, 485 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02138 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20261201T230000Z DTEND:20261202T045859Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR