at home: Art in Context
Art in Context, the Center's gallery talk series, is now online. Presented by faculty, staff, visiting scholars, and student guides, these lectures are held on the last Tuesday of each month during the academic year. Each talk focuses on a particular work of art in the Center's collections or a special exhibition, and takes an in-depth look at its style, subject matter, technique, or time period.
About this program
In the last two decades of his life, Jonathan Richardson (1667–1745) produced hundreds of portrait drawings, a substantial portion of which were self-portraits. Laurel Peterson discusses a selection of these striking images of the artist, his son, and his friends, looking at Richardson’s techniques in chalk and graphite. She explores the professional and personal significance of these intimate portraits to the artist, who considered drawing “the very Spirit, and Quintessence of art.”
About Laurel Peterson
Peterson is the Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Yale Center for British Art. She received her BA and PhD in the history of art from Yale University, in 2006 and 2018 respectively, and holds an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art. Peterson has held positions in the prints and drawings departments of the Morgan Library & Museum and the British Museum. Her research focuses on artistic practice in Britain at the turn of the eighteenth century, and she has a particular interest in the history of drawing.
