All upcoming Art & Architecture programs

Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist Essdras M Suarez leads a visual tour of two of Cuba's most captivating cities: Havana and Trinidad. Suarez's street photos document Havana's rich history and resilient spirit, while his shots of Trinidad evoke its charm through cobblestone lanes and pastel adobes. In photographs that reveal the cultural tapestry of Havana and the timeless allure of Trinidad, Suarez captures the deep connection between their inhabitants and their environments.

Discover how visual art can inspire creative writing and how writing can offer a powerful way to experience art. Join Mary Hall Surface, the founding instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s popular Writing Salon, for three online workshops that spotlight a diverse range of visual art chosen to inspire writers of all experience levels to deepen their process and practice. This writing session is inspired by 20th-century African American artist Romare Bearden’s Tomorrow I May Be Far Away.

Our modern world echoes and even replicates the creative vestiges of the past—and the key to understanding our surroundings is through an overview of ancient material culture. Focusing on the Mediterranean region, art historian Renee Gondek offers a survey of the earliest traces of artistic production from the Paleolithic period through the late Bronze Age. (World Art History Certificate core course, 1 credit)

Lecturer Paul Glenshaw looks at great works of art in their historical context by delving into the time of the artist, exploring the present they inhabited, and what shaped their vision and creations. Together with Revolutionary War scholar Iris de Rode he examines The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumbull, covering the story of the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781 and the fascinating process of the creation of the epic work by Trumbull. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Monet. The name alone conjures up vivid images: water lilies in Giverny, haystacks in the French countryside, trains pulling into Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris, the façade of the Rouen cathedral. A pioneer of the Impressionist movement, Claude Monet created paintings capturing nature’s fleeting moments—and rendered the scenes unforgettable. Art historian Joseph P. Cassar leads an in-depth look at one of the most influential and best-loved Impressionist painters. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)

A picture is not only worth a thousand words: It can sometimes inspire a whole invented world. Art historian Heidi Applegate explores the art, artists, and factual backgrounds behind three works of historical fiction­—Rules of Civility by Amor Towles; The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt; and The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It’s a “novel” way to explore the arts. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)

The term “Art Deco” did not exist until the 1960s. Prior to that, the geometric, bold, machine-focused style now collectively packaged within that genre was known by many names, representing a variety of regional versions of Modernism. Drawing from the recent exhibition “Art Deco: Commercializing the Avant-Garde,” Angelina Lippert, chief curator at Poster House in New York City, offers a lively chronicle of the rise and fall of what would come to be known as Art Deco. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Travel to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond with historian Justin M. Jacobs for an awe-inspiring look at Japan’s exquisitely crafted samurai armor from one of the largest collections in the world. More than 140 works from the collection of Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller offer a glimpse of samurai history with a focus on the flourishing culture of the Edo period. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

As the threat of World War I loomed over them in the opening decades of the 20th century, German artists turned to raw and uncompromising art that reflected their interpretations of a tumultuous world. David Gariff of the National Gallery of Art explores the vital role that German and Austrian Expressionism played in a period of volatile contradictions—providing a fertile ground for the emergence of the new visual language of artists including Max Beckmann, Gustav Klimt, Wassily Kandinsky, and Egon Schiele. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Discover how visual art can inspire creative writing and how writing can offer a powerful way to experience art. Join Mary Hall Surface, the founding instructor of the National Gallery of Art’s popular Writing Salon, for three online workshops that spotlight a diverse range of visual art chosen to inspire writers of all experience levels to deepen their process and practice. This writing session is inspired by 20th-century American artist Georgia O’Keeffe’s shell paintings.