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Calendar of Events
Programs take place in the museum unless otherwise specified. Click here for public tour registration.
Highlights Tours | Thursdays–Sundays, 12:30 & 2pm
Family Tour: Eyes on Art | Every Second Saturday, 12:15pm
English silversmith Isaac Dighton fashioned silver objects for London’s well-to-do at the end of the seventeenth century, including an ornately decorated punch bowl housed in the Wadsworth’s collection. Objects conservator Casey Mallinckrodt and conservation assistant Kat Sarris discuss the steps taken to prepare the Wadsworth’s silver collection for the new Silver Vault installation and the processes involved in helping Dighton’s punch bowl shine for the occasion. Free with museum admission. Meet in front of the Museum Shop.
Glass is a medium full of magic and possibility, championed by artists who are innovating through techniques, materials, and personal inspirations. Follow Brandy Culp, curator of Fired Up: Glass Today, as she sheds light on the ways contemporary glass artists are pushing boundaries, forging new paths, and encouraging viewers to take a closer look at the art form. Free with museum admission. Meet in front of the Museum Shop
Artist Stephanie Syjuco uses photography as a means of reframing the museum collection and exploring America’s colonial history in her MATRIX exhibition. Syjuco will discuss her process of working with the museum’s registration, photography, and conservation departments, bringing to light the complexities of collection stewardship and the role art plays in shaping our view of history. Join us in the galleries before the program for a first look at the exhibition. Free with required reservation.
5pm gallery viewing, 6pm artist talk
From the dustbin of American design, Amber Cowan creates glass sculptures that tell stories of self-discovery, escapism, and loneliness. Come meet this internationally acclaimed glass artist and see how she uses recycled, upcycled, and second-life American pressed glass to create her diorama-style sculptures through various techniques such as flameworking, hot-sculpting, and glassblowing. Free with required reservation.
5pm gallery viewing, 6pm artist talk
This program is sponsored by the Trinity College Fine Arts Department (James and Isabelle English Endowment).
American artist James McNeill Whistler divided his time between Paris and London throughout his career. In the autumn of 1861, he spent three months on the coast of northern France to recover from illness. While there, he painted his first ever seascape, Alone with the Tide, which he later renamed The Coast of Brittany. Listen in as curator Erin Monroe, Krieble Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture, and Director Dr. Matthew Hargraves explore the meaning and story behind Whistler’s powerful composition. Free with museum admission. Meet in front of the Museum Shop.
In MATRIX 190, Stephanie Syjuco turns to incorporates imagery of nineteenth–century works from the Wadsworth’s American art collection as a lens to explore how art and museums shape our view of history. Join curators Erin Monroe and Jared Quinton as they discuss the shifting narratives around these grand portraits, idealized landscapes, and dramatic history paintings, including John Vanderlyn’s The Murder of Jane McCrea (1804). Free with museum admission. Meet in front of the Museum Shop.
In-person tickets have SOLD OUT. Register for the live stream to attend the lecture via Zoom.
5pm reception, 6pm lecture—In museum & virtual
Jelani Cobb, PhD, is an expert on how race, politics, history, and popular culture intersect in America. Author of the highly acclaimed book The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress, Cobb also writes about police brutality, voter access, racial discord, and partisan polarization and eloquently explores how the past looms in our contemporary societal landscape and how we can collectively push toward a more equitable America. Jelani Cobb discusses the complex dynamics of race and racism in America, to clarify them and inspire his audience to collective activism with the goal of achieving equity in the form of genuine democracy. He shows us that not only are the levers of justice in our hands, but we can move them in the direction we see fit.
The Pennington Lecture is presented in honor of the Rev. Dr. James W. C. Pennington and is part of Capital Community College’s Black Heritage Project. The project aims to surface the remarkable history of the first Black church and school for Black children in Hartford through an exhibition on Hartford’s Black community formation (now on view at the college), curriculum in a variety of courses, and programs such as this.
This lecture is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Capital Community College Foundation and presented as a collaboration between Capital Community College, The Amistad Center for Art & Culture, and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
The Wadsworth cares for a large costume and textile collection spanning centuries of construction and representing cultures from around the globe. Join Ned Lazaro, the Wadsworth’s new associate curator of costume and textiles, for an in-depth exploration of two mid-nineteenth-century costumes on view. Free with museum admission. Meet in front of the Museum Shop.