Lectures and Talks

He was a mail sorter in Waco, Texas and the only American ever commissioned by Hermès.

For decades, Kermit Oliver worked the graveyard shift while creating scarf designs treasured worldwide.

A Portrait of a Postman reveals this astonishing dual life, a story of genius hidden in plain sight. But just as his art reaches its zenith, an unfathomable murder pushes Kermit into the darkness.

Would he ever paint again?

Winner of multiple honors, including three Dallas International Film Festival awards and  Best of the Best  at Martha s Vineyard, this haunting documentary explores the razor s edge between brilliance and isolation, and the life of a genius living in shadows. Filmmaker Christopher Charles Scott vividly chronicles Oliver s journey, featuring commentary from his family; art collector Tina Knowles; and colleagues such as art historian Alvia J. Wardlaw and artist Earlie Hudnall Jr.

Discover how the birth of Impressionism in music was ignited by Pissarro, the Father of Impressionism in visual art. Join beloved conductor and storyteller Scott O'Neil, host of CPR Classical's Behind the Baton, and Angelica Daneo, Curator of European Art before 1900, for a captivating evening that brings Impressionism to life through music, art, and insight. From the piano, O'Neil performs works by Debussy and his contemporaries, revealing how composers and painters like Pissarro shaped a new, expressive world. He's joined by curator Angelica Daneo, who shares powerful stories and striking, large-scale images of Pissarro's masterpieces. Together, O'Neil and Daneo they will explore the rich connections between sound and color, movement and mood making Impressionism feel as alive and relevant as ever.

Join Clarisse Fava-Piz, Dr. Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, and Dr. Nerina Santorius, co-curators of The Honest Eye: Camille Pissarro’s Impressionism for a conversation offering a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this groundbreaking exhibition. The curators will share insights into Pissarro’s life and legacy, from his Caribbean roots to his pivotal role in shaping the Impressionist movement, and discuss how they brought together more than 80 works from around the world to present the first major U.S. retrospective of Pissarro in over 40 years. Learn how curatorial decisions, research, and Pissarro’s own letters informed the exhibition’s themes, narrative, and design.

Join Clarisse Fava-Piz, Dr. Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, and Dr. Nerina Santorius, co-curators of The Honest Eye: Camille Pissarro³ Impressionism for a conversation offering a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this groundbreaking exhibition. The curators will share insights into Pissarro³ life and legacy, from his Caribbean roots to his pivotal role in shaping the Impressionist movement, and discuss how they brought together more than 80 works from around the world to present the first major U.S. retrospective of Pissarro in over 40 years. Learn how curatorial decisions, research, and Pissarro³ own letters informed the exhibition³ themes, narrative, and design.

Although the term “Impressionism” often evokes images of lively Parisian cafés and grand boulevards, Impressionist colleagues Camille Pissarro (b. St. Thomas, 1830) and Francisco Oller (b. Puerto Rico, 1833) possessed strong familial, professional, and personal connections to the Caribbean. Pissarro, an immigrant to France who never relinquished his foreign citizenship and Oller, a peripatetic, transatlantic traveler, were both born in the Caribbean on islands that today constitute territories of the present-day United States. This lecture explores the impact of their Caribbean roots on their respective artistic trajectories examining how the aesthetics and ideology of French Impressionism were transmitted across the Atlantic as a result of their creative exchange.

Although the term Émpressionism often evokes images of lively Parisian cafés and grand boulevards, Impressionist colleagues Camille Pissarro (b. St. Thomas, 1830) and Francisco Oller (b. Puerto Rico, 1833) possessed strong familial, professional, and personal connections to the Caribbean. Pissarro, an immigrant to France who never relinquished his foreign citizenship and Oller, a peripatetic, transatlantic traveler, were both born in the Caribbean on islands that today constitute territories of the present-day United States. This lecture explores the impact of their Caribbean roots on their respective artistic trajectories examining how the aesthetics and ideology of French Impressionism were transmitted across the Atlantic as a result of their creative exchange.

Camille Pissarro is celebrated for his deeply human vision of nature—a lived-in landscape where people work, dwell, and leave their mark. This idea of a “gardened earth” is both ancient and, surprisingly, still radical today. Join horticulturist and garden designer Kevin Philip Williams of Denver Botanic Gardens to explore how Pissarro’s impressionistic landscapes continue to shape and challenge contemporary ideas of wildness, cultivation, and beauty in modern garden design.

Kevin Philip Williams is a naturalistic gardener who collaborates with active and passive materials to create dynamic and challenging worlds. His unique style combines bioregional plant palettes, a hardcore punk ethos, and post-human aesthetics to craft wild and captivating spaces. Kevin is currently the Manager of Horticulture for Denver Botanic Gardens where he stewards the Steppe Garden, Conservation Garden, Lilac Collection, Dwarf Conifer Collection, Josephine Streetscape, and the Willow Glade in Celebration of Brandon Mandelbaum. Kevin’s extensive work with Denver Botanic Gardens has also led to the creation of celebrated public gardens throughout the city, including SummerHome Garden, the Denver Art Museum Sensory Garden and Alien Dream Worlds at Meow Wolf Convergence Station.

Kevin was a Gardener on The High Line in Manhattan and studied as a Horticulture Intern at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He holds a MS degree in Public Horticulture from the Longwood Graduate Program at the University of Delaware and a BA degree in The History and Philosophy of Science from Bard College.

Camille Pissarro is celebrated for his deeply human vision of natureá lived-in landscape where people work, dwell, and leave their mark. This idea of a çardened earth is both ancient and, surprisingly, still radical today. Join horticulturist and garden designer Kevin Philip Williams of Denver Botanic Gardens to explore how Pissarro³ impressionistic landscapes continue to shape and challenge contemporary ideas of wildness, cultivation, and beauty in modern garden design.

Kevin Philip Williams is a naturalistic gardener who collaborates with active and passive materials to create dynamic and challenging worlds. His unique style combines bioregional plant palettes, a hardcore punk ethos, and post-human aesthetics to craft wild and captivating spaces. Kevin is currently the Manager of Horticulture for Denver Botanic Gardens where he stewards the Steppe Garden, Conservation Garden, Lilac Collection, Dwarf Conifer Collection, Josephine Streetscape, and the Willow Glade in Celebration of Brandon Mandelbaum. Kevin³ extensive work with Denver Botanic Gardens has also led to the creation of celebrated public gardens throughout the city, including SummerHome Garden, the Denver Art Museum Sensory Garden and Alien Dream Worlds at Meow Wolf Convergence Station.

Kevin was a Gardener on The High Line in Manhattan and studied as a Horticulture Intern at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He holds a MS degree in Public Horticulture from the Longwood Graduate Program at the University of Delaware and a BA degree in The History and Philosophy of Science from Bard College.

Please note that this link is for purchasing tickets to a livestream recording of the lecture so that you can watch from home. To purchase in-person tickets, please click here.

Discover how the birth of Impressionism in music was ignited by Pissarro, the Father of Impressionism in visual art. Join beloved conductor and storyteller Scott O'Neil, host of CPR Classical's Behind the Baton, and Angelica Daneo, Curator of European Art before 1900, for a captivating evening that brings Impressionism to life through music, art, and insight. From the piano, O'Neil performs works by Debussy and his contemporaries, revealing how composers and painters like Pissarro shaped a new, expressive world. He's joined by curator Angelica Daneo, who shares powerful stories and striking, large-scale images of Pissarro's masterpieces. Together, O'Neil and Daneo they will explore the rich connections between sound and color, movement and mood making Impressionism feel as alive and relevant as ever.

Jaye Rhee explores how we navigate physical and virtual spaces, constructing ambiguous environments and imaginary worlds through video, photography, and performance. In her practice, Rhee engages with images and their production, reflecting the way visual culture mediates identity, memory, and perception.

Rhee has shown her work at various international venues, including the Bronx Museum of Arts, New York; Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, South Korea; La Triennale di Milano, Italy; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Norton Museum of Art; Queens Museum of Art, New York; and Seoul Museum of Art.

She has participated in artist residences at Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Changdong International Studio Program, Palais de Tokyo Workshop, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Rhee received a BFA in 2001 and an MFA in 2003 from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives and works in New York and Seoul.

Rhee’s multi-channel video installation Voiceless Song (2025) is currently on view in the Arts of Asia Galleries on level 5 of the Martin Building.

Andrea Carlson imagines in-between spaces of dislocation and belonging, destruction and reclamation, domination and liberation. Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe and European settler descent) considers how the land is an embodiment of a people’s histories and memories, creating intense and deeply introspective landscapes comprising prismatic layers of color, text, flora, fauna, and cultural objects.

As an Indigenous futurist, Carlson contemplates “deep time” and cycles of the natural world, using multiple sheets of paper to suggest the movement of objects, landforms, and other characters. Her dynamic compositions reference issues of ecology, challenge colonial narratives in the US, and envision a future of long-lasting Native resilience, knowledge, and survival.

Born in 1979, Carlson earned her BA in 2003 from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and MFA in 2005 from Minneapolis College of Art & Design. Her honors include fellowships from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and United States Artists Fellowship and awards from Artadia and Creative Capital. Carlson has had solo exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor. Her work is included in permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum; Milwaukee Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. Carlson is the co-founder of the Center for Native Futures, an art space dedicated to the work of Native artists in Chicago, and lives and works in Minnesota.

Carlson joins Rory Padeken, Vicki and Kent Logan Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, in a conversation about her process, inspiration, and influences.

Anna Tsouhlarakis (born 1977, Lawrence, Kansas) uses a stereotype-busting sense of humor to reframe discussions about Native American art and identity. For more than two decades, she has centered Native histories in her practice to address indigenous rights and strategies of decolonization in the United States. From sculptures composed of Ikea furniture remnants, animal parts, and found objects, to large-format text paintings and installations, Tsouhlarakis offers deeper insight into the contemporary Native experience.

A recipient of the Creative Capital Award (2021), Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2023), and Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2024), Tsouhlarakis has had solo exhibitions at the Fine Arts Center Museum at Colorado College, Colorado Springs; Museum of Contemporary Art Denver; and Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, Columbus. She has participated in various artist residencies at MacDowell, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Yaddo. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Center Museum at Colorado College; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona; and Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence.

An enrolled member of the Navajo Nation and of Creek and Greek descent, Tsouhlarakis received a BA in 1999 from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire and an MFA in 2002 from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. She is an associate professor of arts practices at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

David Huffman creates "social abstractions," large-scale paintings combining social and political themes with inventive abstract mark-making. Influenced by progressive Black politics, Afrofuturism, Pop art, basketball, and the television shows Star Trek and Astro Boy, Huffman layers these references to reflect on the African American experience.

In his paintings, Huffman transports us to celestial realms where images of basketballs float like planetary bodies while the circuitous netting of hoop chains ground his work in the urban environment of his youth. His current work recalls NASA’s Cold War-era space race and Sun Ra’s hypnotic sonic experimentations to envision a world where Black Americans may freely prosper.

Huffman joins crystal am nelson, assistant professor of African Diasporic Visual Studies at University of Colorado, Boulder, in a conversation about his almost three-decade-long practice as an artist.

In the two decades following photography’s invention around 1839, a group of French painter-photographers embraced and advanced the new medium’s artistic potential. This formative generation, which included Gustave Le Gray, Charles Nègres, and Eugène Cuvelier, elevated the craft and critical dialogue swirling around photography, a medium many felt was better suited to science, industry, and commerce than art. This lecture by Dr. April M. Watson, Senior Curator, Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, will explore the significance of these artists and the debates they sparked as they helped set the stage for the radical innovations brought about by Impressionism.

In the two decades following photography³ invention around 1839, a group of French painter-photographers embraced and advanced the new medium³ artistic potential. This formative generation, which included Gustave Le Gray, Charles Nègres, and Eugène Cuvelier, elevated the craft and critical dialogue swirling around photography, a medium many felt was better suited to science, industry, and commerce than art. This lecture by Dr. April M. Watson, Senior Curator, Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, will explore the significance of these artists and the debates they sparked as they helped set the stage for the radical innovations brought about by Impressionism.

With Pissarro's Impressionism as a springboard, the Perspectives on Pissarro program series offers a fresh take on the exhibition, the artist, and his world.

Join curators, art historians, and a horticulturalist as they share insights into Pissarro's work and the natural landscapes that inspired him. Register for individual sessions or enjoy a discount for the full series.

Please note that this link is for purchasing tickets to livestream recordings of the lecture series so that you can watch from home. To purchase in-person tickets, please click here.

With Pissarro's Impressionism as a springboard, the Perspectives on Pissarro program series offers a fresh take on the exhibition, the artist, and his world.

Join curators, art historians, and a horticulturalist as they share insights into Pissarro's work and the natural landscapes that inspired him. Register for individual sessions or enjoy a discount for the full series.