Author: Liam Otten

In architecture as in life, the devil is in the details. Few know this better than Edward Ford, an educator, architect and author whose two-volume The Details of Modern Architecture (1990 and 1996) provided the first comprehensive analysis of how detailing and construction techniques can distort, camouflage or enhance a building. On Jan. 24, Ford, the Vincent and Eleanor Shea Professor of Architecture at the University of Virginia, will launch the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Public Lecture Series. 

Since its formation in 1978, Island Press has evolved from a traditional contract print shop — producing high quality editions in standard media and formats — into a uniquely collaborative and educational enterprise known for complex, large-scale works by a range of nationally and internationally renowned artists. In January, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will explore that evolution with Island Press: Three Decades of Printmaking. Curated by Karen K. Butler, assistant curator of the Kemper Art Museum, the exhibition will survey more than two dozen works highlighting the press’ history of technical innovation, artistic experimentation and student participation.

The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will launch its spring Danforth University Center Chamber Music Series with a concert titled “Music from Spain and the Middle East” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 19. The performance will include works by Joaquin Turina, Isaac Albeniz, Enrique Granados and Pablo de Saraste, as well as traditional Kurdish and Persian folk music. Soprano Stella Markou will perform with pianist Martin Kennedy April 7.

One of the most celebrated American painters of her generation, Elizabeth Peyton is among today’s foremost contemporary figurative artists and a renowned chronicler of modern life. Her subjects include personal friends and heroes as well as visual artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, David Hockney, Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe, and historical and cultural figures ranging from William Shakespeare and Richard Wagner to Eminem and Chloe Sevigny. In January, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present Ghost: Elizabeth Peyton, the most extensive critical survey of Peyton’s work as a printmaker to date.

In 1890, the American painter John La Farge embarked on a yearlong journey through the islands of the South Pacific. Just months later, Paul Gauguin began his own Polynesian odyssey. Though the two artists never met, their paths nearly crossed in Tahiti, with Gauguin arriving a mere four days after La Farge departed. So it is perhaps fitting that, last fall, a group of five graduate and undergraduate students from the Department of Art History and Archaeology in Arts & Sciences set out on their own mission of travel, visiting a pair of East Coast exhibition that focused on works by the two artists. 

Readers of all ages have embraced Lois Lowry’s The Giver, a classic of contemporary science fiction and winner of the 1994 Newbery Medal. Beginning Friday, Jan. 7, Metro Theater Company and the Edison at Washington University in St. Louis will join forces to produce the local premiere of playwright Eric Coble’s powerful stage adaptation. 

Chicago has many iconic buildings, but perhaps none as instantly recognizable as Bertrand Goldberg’s Marina City. Now, in their critically acclaimed Marina City: Bertrand Goldberg’s Urban Vision, Igor Marjanović, assistant professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, and Katerina Rüedi Ray, director and professor of the School of Art at Bowling Green State University, present the first book-length history — a “building biography” — of this architectural landmark. 

Acclaimed fiction and nonfiction writer Francine Prose took time during her recent visit to speak with students and faculty over tea in the Ann W. Olin Women’s Building Formal Lounge Nov. 30. Prose was on campus to receive the 2010 Washington University International Humanities Medal, awarded biennially by the Center for the Humanities in Art & Sciences and the Washington University Libraries to a noted scholar, writer or artist who has made a significant and sustained contribution to the world of letters or the arts.

Daily Kos New report: Nearly half of elderly will experience poverty 12/09/2010 A new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis sounds a huge warning bell for America’s seniors, current and future. Nearly half of all Americans between the ages of 60 and 90 will encounter at least one year of […]

The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, a Grammy Award-winning ensemble known for its inventive, virtuoso transcriptions of concert masterworks, will present a special one-night-only St. Louis performance at 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 11. Sponsored by the Saint Louis Classical Guitar Society and Washington University’s Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, the concert will take place in the E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall of the university’s 560 Music Center.