| A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts | |
| Status: | Active |
| Genre: | Lecture series |
| Frequency: | Annually |
| Venue: | National Gallery of Art |
| Location: | Washington, D.C. |
| Country: | United States |
| Founders: | Ailsa Mellon Bruce Paul Mellon |
| Last: | 2022 |
The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts is an annual public lecture series, hosted by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., based on topics in the fine arts. Established in 1949 from an endowed gift from Ailsa Mellon Bruce and her brother, Paul Mellon, the series held its first lecture in 1952. While the series has featured mainly art historians, artists, composers, journalists, musicologists, poets, and scientists have also been invited to speak on art-related topics.
Established in 1949, the Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts were created as part of an endowed gift to the National Gallery of Art from the Avalon Foundation and the Old Dominion Foundation, ran respectively by Ailsa Mellon Bruce and her brother, Paul Mellon, of the wealthy Mellon family. The series was created in order to "to bring to the people of the United States the results of the best contemporary thought and scholarship bearing upon the subject of the Fine Arts," and speakers must be of "exceptional ability, achievement, and reputation."[1] The production of a book based on the talks has been funded by the Bollingen Foundation, ran by Paul and his wife, Mary Conover.
The Mellon Lectures began in 1952. Its first speaker was the French philosopher Jacques Maritain of Princeton University, who gave a talk titled "Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry."
Since 1967, the Princeton University Press has published the book based on each talk. In 1969, the foundations merged to form the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
In 1987, the Mellon Lecture did not take place for the first time since its inception. It restarted a year later, with 2020 being the only other stoppage. In that year, the French art historian Yve-Alain Bois was named as the annual speaker, but the event was postponed for a later date.[2] Again, the series would restart in the following year.
| Year | Speaker | Affiliation | Lecture Title | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1952 | Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry | |||
| 1953 | The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art | |||
| 1954 | The Art of Sculpture | |||
| 1955 | Art and Reality | |||
| 1956 | The Visible World and the Language of Art | |||
| 1957 | Constancy and Change in Art and Architecture | |||
| 1958 | Nicolas Poussin and French Classicism | |||
| 1959 | Artist | A Sculptor's View of the Fine Arts | ||
| 1960 | Horace Walpole | |||
| 1961 | Christian Iconography and the Christian Religion in Antiquity | |||
| 1962 | Poet | William Blake and Traditional Mythology | ||
| 1963 | Artist and Individual: Some Aspects of the Renaissance Portrait | |||
| 1964 | Harvard University | On Quality in Art: Criteria of Excellence, Past and Present | ||
| 1965 | Sources of Romantic Thought | |||
| 1966 | University of Oxford | Dreamer or Visionary: A Study of English Romantic Painting | ||
| 1967 | On the Parallel of Literature and the Visual Arts | |||
| 1968 | Poet | Imaginative Literature and Painting | ||
| 1969 | Scientist | Art as a Mode of Knowledge | ||
| 1970 | University of London | Some Aspects of Nineteenth‑Century Architecture | ||
| 1971 | University of Oxford | Vasari The Man and the Book | ||
| 1972 | Leonardo da Vinci | |||
| 1973 | The Use and Abuse of Art | |||
| 1974 | Nineteenth‑Century Sculpture Reconsidered | |||
| 1975 | Musicologist | Music in Europe in the Year 1776 | ||
| 1976 | New York University | Aspects of Classical Art | ||
| 1977 | Collège de France | The Sack of Rome: 1527 | ||
| 1978 | Journalist | The History of Art Collecting | ||
| 1979 | Paul Cézanne and America | |||
| 1980 | University of London | Principles of Design in Ancient and Medieval Architecture | ||
| 1981 | Palladian Architecture in England, 1615–1760 | |||
| 1982 | The Burden of Michelangelo's Painting | |||
| 1983 | Yale University | The Shape of France | ||
| 1984 | Columbia University | Painting as an Art | ||
| 1985 | Harvard University | The Villa in History | ||
| 1986 | Confessions of a Twentieth‑Century Composer | |||
| 1988 | Princeton University | Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance | ||
| 1989 | Harvard University | Intermediary Demons: Toward a Theory of Ornament | ||
| 1990 | Gold, Silver, and Bronze: Metal Sculpture of the Roman Baroque | |||
| 1991 | Changing Faces: Art and Physiognomy through the Ages | |||
| 1992 | The Laws of the Poetic Art | |||
| 1993 | University of Oxford | The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity | ||
| 1994 | New York University | Kings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe | ||
| 1995 | Columbia University | Contemporary Art and the Pale of History | ||
| 1996 | From Drawing to Painting: Poussin, Watteau, Fragonard, David, Ingres | |||
| 1997 | Artist | Paths to the Absolute | ||
| 1998 | Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art | |||
| 1999 | Carlo Bertelli | Transitions | ||
| 2000 | Collège de France | The Quarrel Between the Ancients and the Moderns in the Arts, 1600–1715 | ||
| 2001 | Giorgione and Caravaggio: Art as Revolution | |||
| 2002 | The Moment of Caravaggio | |||
| 2003 | Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art Since Pollock | |||
| 2004 | Princeton University | More Than Meets the Eye | ||
| 2005 | Harvard University | “Great Work”: Terms of Aesthetic Experience in Ancient Mesopotamia | ||
| 2006 | Columbia University | Really Old Masters: Age, Infirmity, and Reinvention | ||
| 2007 | Harvard University | Last Looks, Last Books: The Binocular Poetry of Death | ||
| 2008 | Harvard University | Bosch and Bruegel: Parallel Worlds? | ||
| 2009 | Picasso and Truth | |||
| 2010 | Yale University | Art and Representation in the Ancient New World | ||
| 2011 | The Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from Ancient Rome to Salvador Dalí | |||
| 2012 | University of Oxford | Chinese Painting and Its Audiences | ||
| 2013 | Columbia University | Out of Site in Plain View: A History of Exhibiting Architecture Since 1750 | ||
| 2014 | Princeton University | Past Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe | ||
| 2015 | New York University | Restoration as Event and Idea: Art in Europe, 1814‒1820 | ||
| 2016 | Columbia University | The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855‒1280 | ||
| 2017 | The Forest: America in the 1830s | |||
| 2018 | Princeton University | Positive Barbarism: Brutal Aesthetics in the Postwar Period | ||
| 2019 | End as Beginning: Chinese Art and Dynastic Time | |||
| 2020 | Princeton University | Transparence and Ambiguity: The Modern Space of Axonometry | ||
| 2021 | Harvard University | Contact: Art and the Pull of Print | ||
| 2022 | Richard J. Powell | Colorstruck! Painting, Pigment, Affect | ||
| 2023 | Vital Signs: The Visual Cultures of Maya Writing | |||
| 2024 | Anna Deveare Smith | New York University | Chasing That Which Is Not Me / Chasing That Which Is Me |