The fourth annual Geist-Yancey Lecture on the arts will take place on November 6 on the campus of Central Methodist University, as organizers welcome professor and author Henry Adams to speak on Thomas Hart Benton. Adams’s lecture, titled “Hillbilly Rube or Renaissance Man? Conflicting Views of Thomas Hart Benton,” will be held at 7 p.m. in the Inman Lecture Hall (Stedman 200).
Adams is a graduate of Harvard College and received his M.A. and PhD. from Yale, where he received the Frances Blanshard Prize for the best doctoral dissertation in art history. He is the author of more than 450 publications exploring American art from the 17th century to the present day, including four books about Thomas Hart Benton. The painter Andrew Wyeth described his book Eakins Revealed as “without doubt, the most extraordinary biography I have ever read on an artist.” His most recent book, published by Monacelli/Phaidon is a study of Lino Tagliapietra, the world’s greatest living glassblower.
Adams has served as curator of Fine Arts at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, as curator of American Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, and as Curator of American Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. He has also taught at the University of Illinois, the University of Pittsburgh, Colorado College, the University of Kansas, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
In 1989, in partnership with filmmaker Ken Burns, Adams produced a documentary on Thomas Hart Benton which was broadcast nationally on PBS to an audience of 20 million. He currently serves as Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History at Case Western Reserve University.
About the lecture series
Dr. Joe Geist was a faculty member at Central Methodist College from 1972 to 1998 and was named Professor Emeritus upon his retirement from teaching. He served as curator of the Ashby-Hodge Gallery of American Art from 1998 to 2014 and now serves as its registrar. His professional life has been dedicated to the furthering of the liberal arts, culture, literature, and learning.
Mr. Tom Yancey, a 1954 alumnus of Central, joined the faculty in the Swinney Conservatory in 1958. In 1972, he served as the Conservatory's dean, and in 1995 he accepted Professor Emeritus status. In addition to being an accomplished musician, Yancey was a well-known artist. He, along with Geist, was a co-founder of the Ashby-Hodge Gallery of American Art and was curator of the Gallery from 1993 until 1998.
The purpose of the Geist-Yancey lectureship is to provide a lasting legacy of the founders’ endless pursuit of the furthering of these pillars of higher education. The lectures will have a theme of cultural affairs, and the speaker shall be a noted/national individual from outside the CMU community.
For those unable to attend in person, the lecture will be livestreamed at the following link: https://centralmethodist.zoom.us/j/93841989883.