Programs & Events

Illustration Symposium

Delve into the world of American Illustration at this daylong symposium, sponsored by Heritage Auctions. This event will feature curators, catalogue authors, and scholars as they explore the legacy of Jazz Age illustration and beyond. Experts will cover a range of topics, from advertising and children’s books to Egyptomania, fashion, the Harlem Renaissance, and sheet music. Highlighted illustrators include Jay Jackson, Loïs Mailou Jones, J.C. Leyendecker, May Wilson Preston, Albert Alexander Smith, and Laura Wheeler Waring.

Your ticket includes general Museum admission as well as access to the Jazz Age illustration exhibition. Pre-ordered lunches will be available for purchase to registrants (lunch is not included in the ticket price).

Speakers include:

• Chris Dingwall (Washington Univ., St. Louis)
• Brigitte Fielder (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison)
• Colette Gaiter (Univ. of Delaware)
• Jennifer Greenhill (Univ. of Arkansas)
• Carolyn Goeser (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)
• Valerie Harris (independent scholar)
• Theresa Leininger-Miller (Univ. of Cincinnati)
• Jennifer Nolan (North Carolina State Univ.)
• Victoria Pass (Maryland Institute College of Art)
• Ronan Shaw (University of Florida)

Schedule:

9:00 am Registration and coffee

9:30 am Welcome and Introductions

9:45 am Jennifer Greenhill, “A Newsstand Perspective on Commercial Illustration”

10:30 am Break

10:45 am Session 1:

• Caroline Goeser, “Harlem Renaissance Illustration and Modern Black Identity”
• Brigitte Fielder, “Lois Mailou Jones’ Illustrations of Black Childhood”
• Valerie Harris, “Laura Wheeler Waring: Illustrating The Crisis”
• Emerging Scholar Spotlight: Ronan Shaw, “Thinking with Paper: Intersecting Modernisms in the Work of Laura Wheeler Waring”

12:15 pm Q&A

12:30 pm Lunch break and time to see show

2:00 pm Session 2:

• Jennifer Nolan, “‘The Eyes of America:’ Illustration, Literature, and Jazz Age Popular Magazines”
• Victoria Pass, “Fashion in Jazz Age Illustration”

3:00 pm Break

3:15 pm Session 2 (continued):

• Theresa Leininger-Miller, “‘If You Don’t Get It, Tain’t No Fault of Mine:’
• Illustrated Sheet Music by Albert Alexander Smith in the U.S. and Paris, 1919–1925”
• Chris Dingwall, “Modernism in Black Chicago, 1940”
• Colette Gaiter, “Got to Be Real: Authenticity/Assimilation/Appropriation”

4:30 pm Q&A

Image: Cover for The Saturday Evening Post (detail), October 2, 1920. C. Coles Phillips (1880–1927). Watercolor, gouache, and graphite on illustration board, 20 × 16 inches. Delaware Art Museum, Acquisition Fund, 1988.

Organizers & Sponsors

This event is sponsored by Heritage Auctions. The symposium is also supported by the Henry Luce Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, and PNC Arts Alive. This organization is supported, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes Delaware arts events on www.DelawareScene.com.