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Posts Tagged 'Arts & Letters Live'

Ten Times Dwight Schrute Was Your Spirit Animal

Published March 9, 2016 Arts & Letters Live , Collections 1 Comment
Tags: Arts & Letters Live, Dallas Museum of Art, DMA, DMA Arts & Letters Live, Rainn Wilson, The Office

Sage Life Lessons and Wisdom from the Duke of Dunder Mifflin Himself

In anticipation of Rainn Wilson’s visit to the DMA on March 19 as part of our 25th anniversary season of Arts & Letters Live, we’ve pulled together a list of ten times our favorite obnoxious beet farmer just “got us,” with a little visual help from art in our collection. For you Jim and Pam types out there, I apologize, but let’s be honest, our pre-coffee selves will always belong to this mustard shirt-wearing maven.

Calculating Speed…

Fred Darge, Survival of the Fittest, c. 1941, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, anonymous gift, 1944.13

“I am fast. To give you a reference point, I am somewhere between a snake and a mongoose . . . and a panther.”

Brain Power…

Salvador Dalí, Spectacles with Holograms and Computers for Seeing Imagined Objects, 1976, etching, drypoint, lithograph, silkscreen, and collage, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Lois and Howard B. Wolf, 1998.6.1, © 2008 Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

“Through concentration, I can raise and lower my cholesterol at will.”

Healthcare…

Edward Hicks , The Peaceable Kingdom, c. 1846-1847, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Art Museum League Fund 1973.5

Edward Hicks, The Peaceable Kingdom, c. 1846-47, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Art Museum League Fund, 1973.5

“In the wild, there is no healthcare. Healthcare is “Oh, I broke my leg!” A lion comes and eats you, you’re dead. Well, I’m not dead, I’m the lion, you’re dead!”

Flu Season…

George Platt Lynes, W. H. Auden Reaching into Garbage Can, 1947, gelatin silver print, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of William B. Jordan and Robert Brownlee, 2000.375

“The principle is sound. To avoid illness, expose yourself to germs, enabling your immune system to develop antibodies. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do this. . . . Maybe they have something against living forever.”

Water Cooler Gossip…

Susan Magilow, Seven Deadly Sins: Gossip, 1986, ink on paper, Dallas Museum of Art, anonymous gift, 1989.126.6

“It’s a real shame because studies have shown that more information gets passed through water cooler gossip than through official memos. Which puts me at a disadvantage because I bring my own water to work.”

Stress Management…

Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich, The Satyr in the House of the Peasants, 1739, etching, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Carnegie Inc., 1940.48

“Nothing stresses me out. Except having to seek the approval of my inferiors.”

Dealing with Crowds…

François-Auguste Biard, Seasickness on an English Corvette, 1857, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of J. E. R. Chilton, 2011.27

“Why are all these people here? There are too many people on this earth. We need a new plague.”

The “R” Sound…

Fish knife, c. 1870, silver, Dallas Museum of Art, The V. Stephen Vaughan Collection, gift of the 1991 Silver Supper, 1992.7.10.1

“No, I disagree. “R” is one of the most menacing of sounds. That’s why they call it murder not ‘muckduck.’”

Utopia…

From Paintings in Old Imperial Palace, n.d., hand-colored etching, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mrs. B. Hopkins, 1964.44.9

“In an ideal world, I would have all ten fingers on my left hand so my right hand could just be a fist for punching.”

Paying Attention…

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Lise in a White Shawl, c. 1872, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.58

“You couldn’t handle my undivided attention.”

Julie Henley is the Communications and Marketing Coordinator at the DMA.

Silver Belles Lettres

Published December 9, 2015 Arts & Letters Live , Staff Closed
Tags: Arts & Letters Live, Dallas Museum of Art, Daniel James, Dave Isay, DMA, Erik Larson, Hanya Yanagihara, Kate Tempest, Mary Karr, Mary-Louise Parker, Padma Lakshmi, Rainn Wilson

The DMA Arts & Letters Live series is thrilled to celebrate its 25th season—our silver anniversary—in 2016! As the DMA’s literary and performing arts series, we are known for presenting literary icons, and this year is no different, with authors from Hanya Yanagihara (author of one of the most talked about books of 2015), Erik Larson, Dave Isay, Daniel James Brown, Rainn Wilson, Elizabeth Gilbert, Padma Lakshmi, and Kate Tempest, just to name a few. We’re kicking off the season with an award-winning duo of “Memoiristas” on January 11: Mary Karr, who will discuss her new book The Art of Memoir, and Tony and Emmy Award–winning actor Mary-Louise Parker, who will play Mary Karr in Showtime’s forthcoming series Lit.

This year you may notice a new look on the cover of our season brochure, which you can view online or pick up in person the next time you visit the Museum. The DMA hosts a staff art show every two years, and I’ve always admired Cathy Davis-Famous’s (you’ve probably all met Cathy on a visit to the DMA; she is always ready with a smile and warm hello at our Visitor Services Desk) whimsical paper dolls made out of discarded exhibition rack cards and notecards. So, I invited her to create a special cover for our 25th season brochure. Here’s what she has to say about designing it:

“When I was asked if I would be interested in creating a design feature for the cover of the DMA Arts & Letters Live brochure celebrating its 25th anniversary, I was ecstatic! I couldn’t believe it–what an honor to be considered for this milestone event. During the fifteen years that I’ve been a part of the DMA, there has always been an impressive lineup of authors and great books. One of my favorite moments is meeting Nanny McPhee’s Emma Thompson at the booksigning table, where I made her burst into a roaring laugh when I told her that I still cry with her at the end of Sense and Sensibility when she finds out Edward Ferris isn’t married. I’ll never forget that!

“I was supplied with an large stack of images of many book covers of great authors, titles, illustrators, and photography, so much to choose from. Then the excitement gave way to stress and the pressure of coming up with a design worthy of this 25th year recognition.

“I had two or three ideas in mind, so I looked through past projects for inspiration but kept going back to what I enjoy creating the most, “Paperdolls.” I needed an image that could display a variety of covers. With the space that I had to work within, the best design would be the likeness of a Marie Antoinette–style, 17th-century fashion big skirt.

“I proceeded to clip out images of book covers and arranged them and rearranged them until the pattern was suitable. Then I began to piece the paper images onto the template of the doll parts using paper glue, tweezers, and a toothpick. Time intensive but gratifying, she is outfitted with some of Arts & Letters Live’s best! Thanks for letting me be a part of the celebration.”

The 25th season promises to deliver several exciting one-of-a-kind experiences. We hope you enjoy this star-studded special anniversary season as much as we enjoyed bringing together these award-winning authors, actors, and performers. Visit DMA.org now to see our entire season and purchase your tickets.

Carolyn Bess is the Director of Programming and Arts & Letters Live at the DMA; Cathy Davis-Famous is a Visitor Services Representative at the Museum.

Thrills and Chills at the DMA

Published September 1, 2015 Family Fun Closed
Tags: Arts & Letters Live, books, BooksmART, families

On September 13, we have a super exciting Arts & Letters Live BooksmART event, our series that brings children’s authors to the DMA!

R. L. Stine and Marc Brown will be at the Museum discussing their new picture book, The Little Shop of Monsters. The two renowned children’s book icons have crafted a tale that is bound to make you quake and shake… in fits of fear and laughter! With a narrative voice reminiscent of The Monster at the End of this Book, but with Stine’s signature spooky charm and Brown’s wildly imaginative illustrations, this is sure to be a new Halloween favorite.

The presentation begins at 4:00 p.m., but you’ll want to get here early to enjoy a family-friendly tour of the creepy creatures in the DMA’s collection at 3:00 p.m.

Purchase your tickets online and start celebrating the Halloween season early with us next week!

Madeleine Fitzgerald
Audience Relations Coordinator for Programming

Our Portal Into Publishing

Published August 12, 2015 Arts & Letters Live , Behind-the-Scenes Closed
Tags: Arts & Letters Live, books, Dallas Museum of Art, DMA, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, New York City, Paula McLain, Scholastic, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art

View from Macmillan Children's Publishing Group located in the famous Flatiron Bldg

View from Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group located in the famous Flatiron Building

The annual DMA Arts & Letters Live planning trip to New York provides the foundation for each season of the DMA’s literary and performing arts series. During more than 30 meetings in five days at the end of July, Carolyn Bess and I learned which authors are generating a lot of buzz for their new books, and who will be on tour during our 25th anniversary season. These meetings provide a portal into the publishing world not yet revealed to the media or to the public. Here begins the dialogue regarding the authors and books publishers want to catapult into public conversation. We share statistics and successes from our recent events as we attempt to woo such “wish list” writers as Donna Tartt, Bill Bryson, and Nick Hornby. Authors often tour to a predetermined number of cities and only for a short time following their book release date, so there can be significant competition when it comes to securing them for Arts & Letters Live. We seek to balance the type of books, speakers, and performances we feature in each season to construct a mix of literary and historical fiction, poetry, memoir, nonfiction, pop culture, and emerging authors.

: On top of the Whitney Museum of American Art

: Scholastic headquarters

: Hachette Book Group

: The “Pool Room” at Hachette Book Group

: Murphy’s Cocktail at the Whitney

: Carolyn Bess, Director of Programming and Arts & Letters Live, with author Paula McLain

: Carolyn Bess and Michelle Witcher in New York City

Though our meeting schedule certainly kept us busy, we managed to squeeze a few excellent cultural outings into our visit. The Tony Award-winning Broadway musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s acclaimed illustrated memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic was excellent and would fit nicely into our Artful Musings category (if only Alison weren’t in such high demand these days!). We enjoyed seeing Gerald Murphy’s Cocktail on view in the glorious new Renzo Piano building of the Whitney Museum of American Art as we look forward to hosting Liza Klaussmann tomorrow night at the DMA for her new fictional account of Sara and Gerald Murphy in Villa America. On a Friday evening visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we joined the Museum Hack tour for what their brochure terms “a highly interactive, subversive, fun, non-traditional museum tour.” Their strategy did not disappoint. During our three-hour tour, we learned obscure and whimsical tidbits about a select number of pieces in the Met’s collection and wandered the galleries after hours, inciting childhood fantasies of spending the night in the Met like Claudia in E. L. Konigsburg’s iconic novel, The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

One of the things that impressed me most during these meetings was the number of times publishers commented on the excellent reputation of the Dallas Museum of Art and Arts & Letters Live. After working on events with publicists all year via phone and e-mail, it is gratifying to meet with them in person and to hear how much they appreciate the quality of events that we host at the DMA. The professional relationships built and fostered during this New York trip are a key component to Arts & Letters Live’s success.

Michelle Witcher is the Program Manager, Arts & Letters Live, at the DMA.

Friday Photos: Touch But Don’t Look

Published June 19, 2015 Friday Photos 1 Comment
Tags: Art, Artist, Arts & Letters Live, Arts and Letters Live, books, Contemporary Art, sculpture, Sculpture Garden, teaching, tours

Blind-folded touch-tour attendees experience Jurgen Bey’s “Tree-Trunk Bench” (1999) in our Sculpture Garden.

WARNING: Do not attempt a touch tour on your own–our trusty Gallery Attendants will stop you! However, on rare occasions (with a staff member present and the Conservation Department’s approval), you may be given permission to touch the art!

One such opportunity occurred this past Monday, June 15, when Amanda led a touch tour in our Sculpture Garden with painter John Bramblitt, who became blind in his late twenties. This tour was in tandem with the Arts & Letters Live program featuring Rebecca Alexander, author of Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found. Rebecca was diagnosed with Usher Syndrome Type III when she was 19 years old. This rare genetic disorder is causing her to slowly lose her vision and hearing.

Hearing both John and Rebecca’s inspiring stories, we thought it would be a great experience for a few of our visitors to learn what it is like to experience art with more than just their eyes. Amanda led a conversation focused on two different works of art and suggested techniques for exploring them with touch. We got to explore with our fingers Jurgen Bey’s Tree-Trunk Bench and Mark Handforth’s Dallas Snake.

Unfortunately, this is not something we can do all of the time. So don’t get any ideas!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Madeleine Fitzgerald
Audience Relations Coordinator

A Soft Touch

Published June 15, 2015 Acess Programs , Arts & Letters Live , Behind-the-Scenes , Education 1 Comment
Tags: Arts & Letters Live, Dallas Museum of Art, DMA, John Bramblitt, Rebecca Alexander, Touch Tours, visual impairment

This evening, in advance of our special DMA Arts & Letters Live event with Rebecca Alexander, who will discuss her memoir about losing her vision and hearing due to a rare genetic disease, we will host our first Touch Tour for adults in the Museum’s Sculpture Garden. Last summer, the DMA hosted a similar tour for a group of children with visual impairment; you can explore photos from the event below and learn more about the history here.

Tonight, artist John Bramblitt will lead participants to three works of art and then discuss his process as an artist who happens to be blind. The all-inclusive tour for those attending the Arts & Letters Live event (those with full vision will be given blindfolds for the tour) begins at 6:15 p.m. Visit DMA.org for additional information about tonight’s program and to purchase tickets.

Amanda Blake is the Head of Family, Access, and School Experiences at the DMA.

Summer Reading

Published April 15, 2015 Collections 1 Comment
Tags: Arts & Letters Live, B.J. Novak, book club, books, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dallas Museum of Art, DMA, Edward Rutherfurd, Fernand Léger, François Auguste Biard, Helen Bryan, Jeffrey Eugenides, Mary Cassatt, Miguel Cabrera, Nigeria, Pablo Picasso, reading, Virginia Woolf

Whether you’ll be on a beach or in the air-conditioned comfort of your home, get some inspiration from works in the DMA’s collection and dive into a good book this spring and summer. In addition, don’t miss the upcoming DMA Arts & Letters Live authors appearing at the Museum through July.

(left) Miguel Cabrera, Saint Gertrude (Santa Gertrudis), 1763, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Laura and Daniel D. Boeckman in honor of Dr. William Rudolph; (right) The Sisterhood book jacket, source: Amazon.com

Saint Gertrude the Great (1256–1301 or 1302) was a German Benedictine nun and a prolific mystic writer. The artist, Miguel Cabrera, is considered one of the greatest 18th-century Mexican painters. Saint Gertrude is sure to enjoy The Sisterhood by Helen Bryan. In this beautifully written novel, a woman’s journey to finish her thesis shifts as she uncovers biblical and art historical secrets that stretch back to the Spanish Inquisition.

(left) Mary Cassatt, The Reading Lesson, c. 1901, oil on canvas, Lent by the Pauline Allen Gill Foundation; (right) The Book With No Pictures jacket cover, source: EmertainmentMonthly.com

(left) Mary Cassatt, The Reading Lesson, c. 1901, oil on canvas, lent by the Pauline Allen Gill Foundation; (right) The Book with No Pictures book jacket, source: EmntertainmentMonthly.com

Mary Cassatt’s The Reading Lesson looks like a peaceful reading scene between a woman and a young child. Perhaps they need a little more excitement, and Arts & Letters Live alum B. J. Novak has just the book for that! The Book with No Pictures encourages the reader to read every word, even if it’s silly or loud!

(left) Vessel (itinate), early 20th century, Cham or Mwona peoples, ower Gongola River Valley, Nigeria, Africa, terracotta, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of The Cecil and Ida Green Foundation; (right) Half of a Yellow Sun book jacket , source: Mr. Kew blog

(left) Vessel (itinate), Nigeria, Lower Gongola River Valley, Cham or Mwona peoples, early 20th century, terracotta, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of The Cecil and Ida Green Foundation; (right) Half of a Yellow Sun book jacket , source: Mr. Kew blog

This vessel from the early 20th century, featuring a stylized female figure, was traditionally used in divination and healing rituals among the diverse peoples in the Lower Gongola River Valley in northeast Nigeria. This figure, were she to come alive, might be interested in reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun, which narrates the story of five individuals whose lives were dramatically altered by the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70).

(left) Pablo Picasso, Bust, 1907-1908, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of Joshua L. Logan, Loula D. Lasker, Ruth and Nathan Cummings Art Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Edward S. Marcus, Sarah Dorsey Hudson, Mrs. Alfred L. Bromberg, Henry Jacobus and an anonymous donor, by exchange © Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; (right) Middlesex book jacket, source: Amazon.com

(left) Pablo Picasso, Bust, 1907-08, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of Joshua L. Logan, Loula D. Lasker, Ruth and Nathan Cummings Art Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Edward S. Marcus, Sarah Dorsey Hudson, Mrs. Alfred L. Bromberg, Henry Jacobus, and an anonymous donor, by exchange © Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; (right) Middlesex book jacket, source: Amazon.com

Picasso’s Bust, with its ambiguous gender and powerfully defined lines, would be enthralled by Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex. This bestselling novel, featuring an intersex main character, explores the theme of identity and the many forms that it can take.

(left) Fernand Léger, The Divers (Red and Black), 1942, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of the James H. and Lillian Clark Foundation, © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris; (right) Mrs Dalloway book jacket, Source: penguin.com.au

Fernand Léger’s The Divers shows many different views of a body as it moves and dances throughout space. What better way to explore Léger’s modernist art theories than to enjoy Virginia Woolf’s modernist writing? Set during a single June day in London, a memorable event ties multiple characters together in this mid-20th-century masterpiece.

(left) François Auguste Biard, Seasickness on an English Corvette (Le mal de mer, au bal, abord d'une corvette Anglaise), 1857, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of J.E.R. Chilton; (right) Paris: The Novel book jacket, Source: Amazon.com

(left) François Auguste Biard, Seasickness on an English Corvette, 1857, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of J. E. R. Chilton; (right) Paris: The Novel book jacket, Source: Amazon.com

Seasickness on an English Corvette depicts travelers, bound for France, crossing the English Channel. The woman in the middle is clearly entranced by her book, which might be Paris, written by Edward Rutherfurd. This epic narrative of the City of Lights introduces a cast of characters whose fates have been intertwined since the Middle Ages.

Madeleine Fitzgerald is the Audience Relations Coordinator, Education, and Taylor Jeromos is the McDermott Education Intern for Adult Programming and Arts & Letters Live at the DMA.

Austen Abounds

Published March 18, 2015 Arts District , Dallas , European Art , Film , Late Nights , Lecture , Special Events , Uncategorized 1 Comment
Tags: Arts & Letters Live, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Theater Center, DMA, Jane Austen, Late Night

It all started last year when a colleague sent me a link to a portrait we have in our collection of Jane Austen, done by Austen’s sister Cassandra. This colleague knew I was an Austen fan and wanted to see if I was aware that we had this in our collection. I had no idea!

After Cassandra Austen, Jane Austen, n.d., engraving, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts, The Alfred and Juanita Bromberg Collection, bequest of Juanita K. Bromberg

I shared this awesome news with other Austen fans on staff, which led us to think about how great it would be do a Jane Austen-themed Late Night. Around that time, we also heard that the Dallas Theater Center would be doing a spring production of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Voilà, an Austen Late Night was born.

We brainstormed a lot of ideas, researched speakers who had talked at local and national meetings of The Jane Austen Society of North America, and met with staff from the Dallas Theater Center to talk about connections to their production.

After months of planning, we are excited to see the event take shape, and we invite you to join us for our Jane Austen Late Night on Friday, March 20, from 6:00 p.m. to midnight. You can hear music from the Romantic era, learn about the fashion world of Jane Austen, watch a Victorian fencing demonstration, listen to a dramatic reading by Dallas Theater Center actors, take quizzes to test your knowledge of all things Austen, watch films, including the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice staring Laurence Olivier, and learn how Kate Rorick helped modernize Austen for the digital age.

For those of you who like to bring the world of Austen to life, we invite you to come dressed as your favorite Jane Austen character or in a costume inspired by England’s Regency era for a chance to win great Austen-themed prizes, including a pair of tickets to the Dallas Theater Center’s production of Sense and Sensibility. Baronda Bradley, a specialist in Regency fashion, will judge the contest, starting at 8:30 p.m.

Our March Late Night is also our annual Spring Block Party in the Arts District. There will be a lot to do that evening with the Nasher Sculpture Center and Crow Collection of Asian Art also staying open until midnight.

And, for anyone needing an Austen appetizer, there are still tickets available to see Jo Baker, author of Longbourn, at tomorrow night’s DMA Arts & Letters Live event.

I hope to see all my fellow Austenites on Friday!

Stacey Lizotte is Head of Adult Programming and Multimedia Services at the DMA.

Get BooksmART at the DMA!

Published January 23, 2015 Family Fun Closed
Tags: Arts & Letters Live, books, BooksmART, Collection Connections

Looking to spark your young reader’s interest in fun and artsy books? Check out our Arts & Letters Live BooksmART series, which will be welcoming lots of great authors to the DMA this spring!

Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming, a collection of beautifully wrought poems depicting her childhood in South Carolina and New York, won the 2014 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Much of her writing in Brown Girl Dreaming explores the issues of gender, class, and race, as well as family and history, themes she addresses in groundbreaking ways.

Jacqueline Woodson
Sunday, February 22 at 3:00 p.m.

Author Rick Riordan has hailed author Peter Lerangis’ The Seven Wonders adventure series as a “high-octane mix of modern adventure and ancient secrets.” In it, thirteen-year-old Jack McKinley learns he has a rare genetic anomaly that gives him a unique skill, but the cure is located at each of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Peter Lerangis
Sunday, March 15 at 3:00 p.m.

2:00 p.m. Enjoy an adventure-filled tour of the DMA’s collection related to themes and cultures in the Seven Wonders series.

Illustrator Harry Bliss asks audiences, old and young alike, the question “what is art?” in his newest collaboration, Grandma in Blue with Red Hat. In this book, a young boy offers up his grandmother for a museum exhibition. Bliss is also a cartoonist whose work appears regularly in the New Yorker.

Barney Saltzberg, author and illustrator of almost 50 books for children and a singer/songwriter, explores the creative process of writing and illustrating in his latest work Inside this Book. The story features three siblings crafting their own books and learning about their creative processes.

Harry Bliss & Barney Saltzberg
Sunday, April 26 at 3:00 p.m.

This is event is designed primarily for families with children ages 6 and younger

1:30 p.m. Enjoy an illustration workshop with Harry Bliss – for ages 10 through adults.

Get cozy with these books while the weather is still chilly, then come see us at the DMA to make some artful literary connections!

Madeleine Fitzgerald
Audience Relations Coordinator

Open Book

Published December 10, 2014 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: Aimee Mann, Anthony Doerr, Arts & Letters Live, Billy Collins, Candice Bergen, Dallas Museum of Art, DMA, Doris Roberts, Elliot Ackerman, Fredrik Logevall, G. W. Bailey, Gail Sheehy, Glenn Morshower, Grace Pettis, Heidi Julavits, Huan Hsu, Ina Garten, Jacqueline Woodson, Jim Shepard, Joshua Wolf Shenk, Leanne Shapton, Lela Rose, Lynsey Addario, Marcus Samuelsson, Peter Mendelsund, Philipp Meyer, Rabih Alameddine, Rebecca Alexander, Roz Chast, Sheila Heti, Tim Federle

The 24th Arts & Letters Live season promises to be varied and exciting, with a celebrated lineup of award-winning authors, artists, and performers. When we were creating this season, several themes kept rising to the surface:

ART – Peter Mendelsund on the art of book jacket design and on what we see when we read; illustrator and New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss; Sue Roe on Matisse, Picasso, and other artists working in the Montmartre area of Paris in the early 1900s—a group portrait of men and women on the cusp of fame who profoundly changed the arts of painting, sculpture, dance, music, literature, and fashion.
MEMOIR – Candice Bergen, Roz Chast, Gail Sheehy, Rebecca Alexander, Lynsey Addario, and Huan Hsu will all share their recent memoirs this season.
MULTICULTURALISM AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES – MacArthur Genius Grant–winner and photojournalist Lynsey Addario, who has captured war and human crises around the globe; Oral Fixation, back by popular demand with “Destination America,” featuring seven new personal stories told by immigrants to North Texas.
FOOD AND COCKTAILS – Emmy Award–winning host of the Barefoot Contessa television show Ina Garten, James Beard Award–winning chef Marcus Samuelsson, and Tim Federle, author of the whimsical and witty Tequila Mockingbird and Hickory, Daiquiri, Dock, which serve up a blend of literary commentary, puns, and drink recipes.
IDENTITY – editors of the Women in Clothes anthology (Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, and Leanne Shapton) as well as fashion designer Lela Rose; Rabih Alameddine exploring identity both in writing and painting; Jacqueline Woodson, award-winning young adult author on Brown Girl Dreaming, a collection of poems depicting her childhood, which won the 2014 National Book Award for young adult literature; rising literary novelists Jacob Rubin and Rebecca Scherm
TEXAS – Philipp Meyer and Grace Pettis (“Texas Tales in Story, Song, and Art”—involves commissioning Pettis to write a new song inspired by a work of art of her choice in the DMA’s collection); Texas Bound this year features star actors Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond), Glenn Morshower (24), and G. W. Bailey (Major Crimes) as well as many members of the Dallas Theater Center’s Brierley Resident Acting Company.
LOVE – Selected Shorts presents “Surprised by Love,” featuring award-winning actors Jane Kaczmarek, Mary Kay Place, and James Naughton; Graeme Simsion, bestselling author of The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect, about a brilliant but socially inept scientist who crafts a scientific survey to find a wife.
WAR IN FICTION AND NONFICTION – a look back at the meaning of the Vietnam War with Pulitzer Prize-winner Fredrik Logevall; Anthony Doerr and Jim Shepard on their novels, both featuring teenage protagonists in World War II; and Elliot Ackerman, a decorated veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars whose debut novel, Green on Blue, told from the perspective of an Afghan orphan recruited by a US-funded militia, is garnering high praise.
CREATIVE COLLABORATION – Award-winning poet Billy Collins and Oscar- and Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Aimee Mann team up for a rare evening of poetry, acoustic music, collaboration, and conversation; Joshua Wolf Shenk‘s book Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs examines the creative collaboration found in iconic pairs such as Matisse and Picasso, the Beatles, and many more.

Don’t miss out on your favorite authors this year. Tickets, and the entire season schedule, are available online starting today!

Carolyn Bess is the Director of Programming and Arts & Letters Live at the DMA.

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Dallas Museum of Art Uncrated

Posts Tagged 'Arts & Letters Live'

Ten Times Dwight Schrute Was Your Spirit Animal

Silver Belles Lettres

Thrills and Chills at the DMA

Our Portal Into Publishing

Friday Photos: Touch But Don’t Look

A Soft Touch

Summer Reading

Austen Abounds

Get BooksmART at the DMA!

Open Book

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