Leidena Siayear

Recently, Lynne Lawner, author and lecturer, has been traveling and taking photographs in Central Europe. In early spring she will offer an all-day seminar for the Smithsonian Associates in Washington, D.C., about castles, palaces, villas, and gardens in the Czech Republic, former East Germany, Austria, and Hungary. She will be drawing on her own many slides of celebrated and lesser known sites, buildings, and interiors. Dr. Lawner can present these slides, in a variety of formats for other museums, institutions, and clubs, emphasizing travel or art, or both of these in equal measure, depending on the particular audience. Clubs and institutions might be interested in holding dinners with an ethnic slant either before or after the lectures, which could be done as a series or individually. A more detailed outline of this proposal is available upon request, tailored to specific desires.

Lynne Lawner is a poet, art historian, and travel writer. A specialist in Renaissance culture who lived half her life in Italy, she is the author of Lives of the Courtesans: Portraits of the Renaissance (Rizzoli Int’l.) and “I Modi”, The Sixteen Pleasures: an Erotic Album of the Italian Renaissance (Northwestern UP), as well as several other books including the recent Harlequin on the Moon: Commedia dell’Arte and the Visual Arts (Harry N. Abrams). Her book reviews and travel pieces appear in many magazines (“New York Times”, “L. A.Times”, “Food and Wine”, “Sophisticated Traveler”). She has lectured at Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum; Smithsonian Associates; the Bard Graduate Center for the Decorative Arts; the Chicago Art Institute; the Italian Cultural Institutes in New York, Chicago, and Washington; the New York Harvard Club; the National Arts Club; and many universities including Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and Vassar. She has also been a Visiting Professor at UCLA and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Lawner resided in Italy for many years and now lives in Manhattan.

Originally commissioned by the Dayton Art Institute in connection with a major exhibition of Caravaggio and his Dutch followers, this lecture has expanded to include women artists from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century in Europe. Author Lynne Lawner draws on her books about Italian Renaissance courtesans and life in the courts of Europe in the early modern period, to view women in art and women artists from an unusual perspective. She examines “heroic” poses, as for example in paintings by the celebrated, tumultuous seventeenth century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi, who identifies with the warrior spirit of the Biblical Judith, but she also uncovers the sensual vision and aspirations in painting and sculpture by women, from the decorous Lavinia Fontana and Properzia dei Rossi to the bold, worldly Elisabeth Vigée le Brun and Angelika Kauffmann in the eighteenth century, unafraid to live their lives openly and even to depict famous courtesans of their era. The slides are sumptuous and varied. Connections to male painters such as Joshua Reynolds and to socialite critics such as the German Winckelmann are explored.
Lynne Lawner is a poet, art historian, and travel writer. A specialist in Renaissance culture who lived half her life in Italy, she is the author of Lives of the Courtesans: Portraits of the Renaissance (Rizzoli Int’l.) and “I Modi”, The Sixteen Pleasures: an Erotic Album of the Italian Renaissance (Northwestern UP), as well as several other books including the recent Harlequin on the Moon: Commedia dell’Arte and the Visual Arts (Harry N. Abrams). Her book reviews and travel pieces appear in many magazines (“New York Times”, “L. A.Times”, “Food and Wine”, “Sophisticated Traveler”). She has lectured at Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum; Smithsonian Associates; the Bard Graduate Center for the Decorative Arts; the Chicago Art Institute; the Italian Cultural Institutes in New York, Chicago, and Washington; the New York xnxx Harvard Club; the National Arts Club; and many universities including Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and Vassar. She has also been a Visiting Professor at UCLA and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Lawner resided in Rome and Venice for many years and now lives in Manhattan.