Susan Grace Galassi

Susan Grace Galassi, Senior Curator at The Frick Collection, provides an introduction to the current exhibition, Zurbarán’s Jacob and His Twelve Sons: Paintings from Auckland Castle, on view at The Frick Collection from January 31 through April 22, 2018.

Before its presentation at The Frick Collection, Zurbarán’s series Jacob and His Twelve Sons traveled from Auckland Castle, County Durham, England to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, where the paintings were studied by Claire M. Barry, Director of Conservation, before their exhibition at the Meadows Museum in Dallas in the fall of 2017. The results of this examination and the details it revealed about the artist's process are presented in this video narrated by Susan Grace Galassi, Senior Curator at The Frick Collection.

The grand-scale port scenes of Dieppe and Cologne that J. M. W. Turner painted in the mid-1820s are generally recognized as a turning point in his career. Combining on-site observation with inspiration from past masters and literary sources, Turner shocked the public and critics alike with the canvases’ brilliant golden light when he exhibited them at the Royal Academy in 1825 and 1826, respectively. This lecture explores how these two masterworks offer a clear statement of the direction Turner was taking landscape painting as the most original artist of his time.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), nineteenth-century Britain’s greatest land- and seascape artist, depicted ports throughout his career, both in monumental oil paintings and in watercolors. An insatiable traveler and an artist with a deep fascination with light, topography, and local traditions, as well as with classical antiquity, Turner brought an innovative approach to the depiction of both modern and ancient ports.

Susan Grace Galassi, Senior Curator at The Frick Collection, introduces the exhibition Leighton's Flaming June, on view in the Oval Room from June 9 through September 6, 2015.