Modern Art at the Gates of Hell: September 1, 1939

August 31 • 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. on WAAM • Ann Arbor

Eighty years ago tomorrow at 4:45 a.m. German army, navy, and air forces invaded Poland from the west. Two days later, in fulfillment of its treaty with Poland, Great Britain declared war on Germany. Overnight the world changed. World War II had begun. But, what of the art? Ed highlights five artists whose work defined the 1930s: Pablo Picasso, Chaime Soutine, Edward Hopper, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry. Special attention will be given to Picasso’s “Guernica” of 1937, his impassioned response to the combined German-Italian bombing of the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Actress Gabrielle Stone and Kelsey Museum Associate Director Dawn Johnson

August 24 • 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. on WAAM • Ann Arbor

Ed welcomes back acclaimed actress Gabrielle Stone, whose memoir Eat, Pray, # FML has just been published. A witty chronicle of her solo trip through Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Greece, Gabrielle’s journey of self-discovery became a transformative encounter with European cultures, people, and new loves.

Dawn Johnson returns to describe the opening of a new exhibition, Graffiti as Devotion along the Nile: El-Kurru, Sudan. The informal scrapings on temples, pyramids, and other monuments provide a startling portal into the lives of ancient Kushites, whose kingdom bordered Roman Egypt.

More at: lsa.umich.edu/kelsey

Dee Wallace & Donelle Dadognan

August 17 • 3:00 – 3:30 p.m. on WAAM • Ann Arbor

Award-winning actress Dee Wallace returns to speak with Ed about her record-breaking film career – 249 roles to date, including E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Cujo, Critters, The Howling — more than any other actor in cinematic history. Also, Dee will share her philosophy of self-enlightenment from her 30 years as an actor-educator, with helpful precepts from her five books.

August 17 • 3:30 – 4:00 p.m. on WAAM • Ann Arbor

Ed welcomes legendary Hollywood business leader and philanthropist, Donelle Dadogan. founder of The Hollywood Museum, “the official museum of Hollywood,” and co-creator of The Jose Iturbi Foundation, a national presenter of new classical music talent. Donelle will highlight the Museum’s collection (now over 10,000 pieces of film art, couture, and memorabilia) and its location in the historic Art Deco Max Factor Building.

More at: thehollywoodmuseum.comand joseiturbifoundation.org

4 Painters: A Celebration of Black History

February 16 • 3:00 – 3:30 p.m. on WAAM • Ann Arbor

Join Ed as he traverses the centuries to spotlight the work of Joshua Johnson (1763-1824), Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), Horace Pippin (1888-1946), and Helen La France (1919-present). Johnson, considered America’s first acclaimed African American artist, leads the way with his boldly schematic portraits of Federal period Marylanders. Next, Henry O. Tanner imbues his landscapes and genre scenes with luscious skies and tranquil waters enhanced by his European sojourns. Horace Pippin looks inward, his quiet interior scenes offering a record of self-sufficiency and dignity. And living legend, Kentucky-born Helen La France, paints the daily lives of people going to church, walking to a funeral, or attending a nighttime revival, all amid the undulating hills of Graves County.

Goya and the Birth of Modern Misery

February 2 • 3:00 – 3:30 p.m. on WAAM • Ann Arbor

Francesco Goya (1746-1828) was Spain’s foremost portrait painter, printmaker, and
satirist from the late 18th to the early 19th centuries; a time of massive upheaval for his country. Using the backdrop of Napoleon’s invasion in late 1807, which sparked eight years of famine, atrocities against civilians, and grinding guerilla war, Ed highlights Goya’s most influential works, including his two etching series Los caprichos (1799) and The Disasters of War (1810-20). Find out how this artist, called ‘the last Old Master and first Modern,’ combined virtuosic technique and a journalist’s eye with a profound humanitarian sense.

The Lincolns in Vermont

January 19 • 3:00 – 3:30 p.m. on WAAM • Ann Arbor

It all started in Manchester during the summer of 1863. To escape Washington’s heat, First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, accompanied by her sons Robert and Tad, takes rooms in the historic Equinox Inn. The elegance of the town, with houses in the Federal and Greek Revival styles, the sidewalks of marble, exerts an enduring spell on the family. Mary will return after the President’s assassination, and stay in a clapboard farmhouse outside Dorset; Robert will build a monument, his country seat, Hildene, in 1905. Join Ed as he describes his recent tour of the area by highlighting Robert’s Georgian masterpiece. In addition to the house, still ensconced within its original 400 acres, the farm serves students and the public as a prime example of today’s sustainable agriculture.

Currier and Ives: Creators of American Nostalgia

December 15 • 3:00 – 3:30 p.m. on WAAM • Ann Arbor

Climb into Ed’s on-air sleigh as he takes us on a snowy tour of ‘Old America’ as depicted in the iconic prints of Currier and Ives. Founded in 1835 by Nathaniel Currier and reaching its apogee after 1857 when James Ives became partner, the firm’s hand-colored lithographs became the visual testament to America’s growth in the 19th century. Among the 7,500 prints created, it would be the winter scenes that would prove most popular. A clever blending of Hudson River School idealism and Transcendentalist introspection, the prints simultaneously celebrated America’s past and present, and would influence the arts – and Hollywood – up to our own day.

A Bicentennial of Fear: Celebrating Mary Shelley and Frankenstein

December 8 • 3:00 – 3:30 p.m. on WAAM • Ann Arbor

On January 1, 1818, a book was published by the London firm of Lackington & Hughes. Only 500 copies were printed of the three-volume work, and its author’s name was omitted. Its chronicle of a young scientist’s pursuit to create life – a life he would cruelly disown – would ignite the imagination (and moral wrath) of Regency England and beyond. Join Ed as he describes the fateful “summer without sun” of 1816, when Mary first conceived the story, during a contest initiated by Lord Byron to outdo German ghost stories. Later, joined by her husband, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, the two would craft a tale reflecting the era’s fascination with science and its perceived ethical boundaries.

Louis Bayard: Dickens’ Carol and it’s Legacy

December 1 • 3:00 – 3:30 p.m. on WAAM • Ann Arbor

Enjoy a reprise of Ed’s interview with award-winning author Louis Bayard (Roosevelt’s Beast, The School of Night, etc.), who describes how Charles Dickens reminded his fellow Victorians in 1843 to ‘open their shuttered hearts’ in a tale as relevant to us today. He also explains how A Christmas Carol inspired his own novel, Mr. Timothy (2003), about the struggles of a mature Tiny Tim.

More at: louisbayard.com