Palmer Museum of Art Hosts Lecture on American Visual Culture

February 25, 2005

The Palmer Museum of Art will host a lecture by Michael Leja, professor of American art history at the University of Delaware, on the abundance of mass-produced images in late-nineteenth-century America. The lecture, entitled "Mass Culture's Happy Family: Social Relations and the Flood of Pictures in the Late-Nineteenth-Century United States," will be held in the Palmer Lipcon auditorium at the Palmer Museum of Art at 6:00 p.mon Tuesday, March 1, 2005.

A mass visual culture formed in the second half of the nineteenth century when large numbers of individuals were able to see the same images and artifacts in popular museums, expositions, public spaces, newspapers, and magazines, as well as identical mass-produced prints and table sculptures in their own homes. Leja's lecture explores these roots of our image-saturated culture and some of its attendant problems and possibilities.

"Mass Culture's Happy Family" is part of the American Art Lecture Series at the Palmer Museum of Art. In its third year, the series seeks to explore themes in American art in the Palmer's permanent collection and special exhibitions through lectures by renowned art historians.

The Palmer Museum of Art is located on Curtin Road near the University Creamery. Museum hours are 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is free.

For more information, please contact Robin Seymour, coordinator of membership and public relations, at (814) 865-7672 or qzq1@psu.edu.