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
Mark Aronson discusses works by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts. Reynolds was a preeminent British painter of the eighteenth century who promoted the Grand Manner style of portraiture. Despite being criticized by his contemporaries for his use of ephemeral painting materials such as fugitive or impermanent pigments, he became one of London’s most successful and sought-after artists. In this talk, Aronson explores the pitfalls of Reynolds’s practice and gives “the skinny” on a selection of paintings from the Center’s collections.
About Mark Aronson
Mark Aronson is a Deputy Director and Chief Conservator of the Yale Center for British Art as well as a critic at the Yale School of Art. He received his M.S. in the conservation and preservation of artistic and historic artifacts from the University of Delaware, Winterthur Museum program, and a certificate of study in painting conservation from the Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Fogg Museum, Harvard University. He is particularly interested in the history of painting techniques and attitudes toward restoration and conservation.
