Color in Modern Sculpture (lecture)

Date: Thursday, May 29, 2008
Time: 8:00 p.m.
Location: Getty Villa, Auditorium
Admission: Free; a ticket is required.

For centuries, the human form rendered in white marble was considered the pinnacle of sculptural beauty in Western art. But in the 20th century, sculpture exploded with new subjects and vibrant colors—from the thickly painted sculpture of Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró to the smooth painted metal constructions of Alexander Calder and Mark di Suvero to the sculpted light of James Turrell and the riotous technicolor of Jeff Koons. Art historian Steven Nash examines this development, tracing it from statues that emulate paintings to works incorporating colored light.

The lecture complements The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present (on view through June 23 at the Getty Villa), which explores the uses of color in figural sculpture over the course of four millennia.

About Steven Nash
Steven Nash is executive director of the Palm Springs Art Museum and an expert on modern sculpture. Most recently the founding director of the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, which displays selections from one of the world's important collections of modern sculpture, Nash also served as research curator and chief curator at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, deputy director and chief curator at the Dallas Museum of Art, and associate director and chief curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Nash has participated in the design and installation of many pioneering new museums and has organized exhibitions on artists as varied as Henry Moore, Wayne Thiebaud, and Henri Matisse.



How to Get Here
The Getty Villa is located at 17985 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, approximately 25 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. See Hours, Directions, Parking for directions and parking information.