Exhibition Celebration | “Sightlines: British Landscape Photography, 1840 to Now” & “John Constable: The Landscape Reimagined”
Celebrate the opening of our fall exhibitions with an in-depth conversation featuring the curators and special guests, followed by in-gallery talks and a reception.
About this program
Landscape painting and photography are powerful forces for both reflecting and shaping how we observe the natural world. Together, these exhibitions reveal a through-line between the groundbreaking work of John Constable and the landscape photography of the last three centuries.
Our exhibition celebration will explore this and more, starting with a wide-ranging conversation from 5 to 6 pm that explores ways in which Constable’s pioneering vision helped shape early British landscape photography, revealing new ways to observe the ever-changing landscape.
The conversation features YCBA curators Edward Town (Constable: The Landscape Reimagined) and Jackson Davidow (Sightlines: British Landscape Photography, 1840 to Now), along with Yale Professor of History of Art Jennifer Raab. It will be moderated by Paul Mellon Professor in the History of Art Tim Barringer.
With viewpoints and insights that will appeal to art historians and first-time visitors to the YCBA, this expansive dialogue will examine the parallel themes in our two fall exhibitions, including tensions between industry and nature and society’s evolving relationship with the land and the contemporary issues it raises.
After the conversation in the Lecture Hall, drop into the galleries from 6 to 6:30 pm to get a closer look at the exhibitions with focused talks centered on a few of the key works in each exhibition and join us for a public reception in the Library Court.
This event is open to all, and everyone is welcome; no registration required.
About the speakers
Tim Barringer is Paul Mellon Professor of the History of Art at Yale. He specializes in the art of Britain and the British Empire, nineteenth-century American art, and art and music. His recent publications include Constable (2026), and co-edited books Frederic Church: Global Artist (2026), On the Viewing Platform: The Panorama from Canvas to Screen (2020), and Victorian Jamaica (2018).
Jackson Davidow is an art historian, writer, and curator who serves as Project Manager in the YCBA’s Public Engagement Division. His essays have appeared in The New York Times, Boston Globe Magazine, The Baffler, Boston Review, Poetry, and numerous art publications and photobooks. His scholarly work has been published in Afterimage, American Art, Art Journal, ASAP/Journal, and several edited volumes. He has curated exhibitions at the Harvard Art Museums, Tufts University Art Galleries, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art and Atlanta Contemporary.
Jennifer Raab is Professor of the History of Art at Yale University, where she specializes in the arts of the United States and the history of photography. She is the author of Relics of War: The History of a Photograph (2024), awarded the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award from the College Art Association, and Frederic Church: The Art and Science of Detail (2015). She is currently working on a co-authored book with Siobhan Angus, What Lies Beneath an Empire: A Visual History of Guano, Bones, and Rock. She is a founding member of Yale’s Environmental Humanities Program.
Edward Town is the YCBA’s Associate Curator of Paintings and Sculpture. He is the curator of both John Constable: The Landscape Reimagined and the current display Loyalists and Sons of Liberty: America 250, which runs to the end of the year. A forthcoming exhibition on Elizabethan portraiture that he is curating will open in 2027. He has published on a variety of topics on historic British art. Previous edited volumes include Painting in Britain 1500-1630 and Marking Time: People, Objects and Their Lives: 1500-1800.
