"The Art of Winslow Homer" to Be Topic of Sept. 28 Fox-Adler Talk
"Winslow Homer and the Art of the Book" is the topic of 18th annual Fox-Adler Lecture
at Skidmore, to be presented by Syracuse University scholar David Tatham at 5:15 p.m.
Thursday, Sept. 28, in Davis Auditorium of Palmountain Hall. The public is welcome
to the talk and to the reception that follows. Admission is free.
Tatham, an expert on American art of the 19th and 20th centuries, is known for his
research on the work of Winslow Homer, including seminal studies of the remains of
Homer's library, his long association with the Adirondack region, his Quebec paintings,
and his many illustrations for both books and magazines. One of his most recent books
is a consideration of the artist's late paintings titled Winslow Homer: The Master in His Prime.
The author of books on artists as varied as the Quaker Edward Hicks and the modernist
Florine Stettheimer, Tatham recently completed a visual arts study titled Death, Dying, Dead: Popular Imagery for a Grave Subject.
Tatham twice chaired the Department of Fine Arts at Syracuse University and taught
a number of years in the university's London program. In 2001 he served as the Batza
Family Distinguished Professor in Art and Art History at Colgate University. Since
2002 he has been an emeritus professor of fine arts at S.U., continuing periodically
to teach undergraduates in the London program and to conduct a graduate seminar on
visual studies at Syracuse.
A native of Wellesley, Mass., Tatham earned a bachelor's degree at the University
of Massachusetts at Amherst and master's and doctoral degrees at Syracuse. Research
fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment for the
Humanities, and the Archives of American Art, among others, have led to seven books,
four exhibition catalogues, and more than 80 scholarly articles on the history of
American art.
He holds a number of honors, including the American Art Journal Award for Outstanding
Scholarship (1983), the John Ben Snow Prize for Historical Studies of New York State
(1996); and the Ewell Newman Prize for outstanding book in the field of Historical
American Graphic Arts (2004). S.U. presented Tatham with the Wasserstrom Award for
Distinguished Graduate Teaching in 1990 and the Chancellor's Citation for Exceptional
Academic Achievement in 1993.
The Fox-Adler Lecture Series honors Hannah Moriarta Adler, a Saratoga Springs native
and avid collector of 18th- and 19th-century books, drawings, and porcelains. In 1967
she loaned her extensive collection of 19th-century books to Skidmore, and they became
a permanent part of Scribner Library last year, due to the generosity of Norman M.
Fox and his family, who took charge of the collection upon Mrs. Adler's death in 1989.
Click here to read more about the collection.
