Adult Lectures
Check out the list below for upcoming lectures at the CMA. Interested in viewing past lectures? Visit the YouTube playlist here.
See also our annual lecture series.
- Wed., June 21, 2023, 12:00 pm
Have you ever wondered how artworks in the CMA’s collection are cared for? Join CMA conservators and technicians for guided tours of the galleries. Investigate artists' materials and processes and learn about how the museum preserves artworks for the future. Join us for this behind-the-scenes talk with staff experts in the conservation of Chinese paintings. Learn about common damages and issues that Chinese paintings face, understand different mounting materials and styles, and find out how conservators preserve Chinese scrolls and album leaves.
- Sat., July 15, 2023, 12:00 pm
Take a closer look at the exhibitions A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur and Raja Deen Dayal: The King of Indian Photographers with curators Sonya Rhie Mace and Barbara Tannenbaum during special gallery talks at 12:00 and 2:00 p.m. Tickets are required.
- Wed., July 19, 2023, 12:00 pm
Have you ever wondered how artworks in the CMA’s collection are cared for? Join CMA conservators and technicians for guided tours of the galleries. Investigate artists’ materials and processes and learn about how the museum preserves artworks for the future.
- Tue., August 1, 2023, 12:00 pm
The CMA’s remarkable education art collection (EAC), comprising about 10,000 cultural heritage objects from around the globe, spans 5,000 years of art making. Originally founded in 1914 to spread awareness of the visual arts and the newly opened Cleveland Museum of Art, it is now used for a suite of innovative educational programming. In this lecture, Sabine Kretzschmar, manager of the education art collection, will give an overview of the EAC and its history. Explore highlights of the collection that were designed to capture the imagination, teach artistic practices, connect with global cultures, and spark wonder.
- Sun., August 20, 2023, 2:00 pm
Across four generations of makers from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, the Kyoto-based studio of Seifū Yohei created distinctive porcelain for both Japanese elites and global audiences. In this lecture, scholar Shinya Maezaki focuses on the life and work of artist Seifū Yohei III as a lens through which to analyze aspects of the modernization of Japan and to consider the history of international trade.
- Sat., August 26, 2023, 2:00 pm
Dr. Debra Diamond, co-curator of A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur (on view at the CMA from June 11 to September 10, 2023), discusses why and how the court painters of Udaipur created a new and spectacular genre of painting in 1700. Her wide-ranging talk addresses the politics of pleasure, while looking closely at how artists combined multiple perspectives, visual puns, and observations from life to evoke moods and memories.
- Tue., September 5, 2023, 12:00 pm
Have you ever wanted to know the meanings behind the many flowers and animals that appear in European art? Curator Emily J. Peters will discuss the abundant symbolism surrounding botanical and zoological imagery in Renaissance prints, coinciding with the exhibition Love Gardens / Forbidden Fruit.
- Sun., September 24, 2023, 2:00 pm
In this lecture, Charles Barber investigates how El Greco’s Greek identity has shaped both the conception and reception of his work. First trained in the tradition of Byzantine icon painting found on Crete, El Greco developed an understanding of his own art as a form of early modern Greek painting in the course of his life. This individual manner, which is so attractive to our own era, was set aside from the story of Spanish painting written in the 17th and 18th centuries as an eccentric and alien path that was not to be followed.
- Sun., November 5, 2023, 2:00 pm
Although the Jiangnan region of China, meaning “south of the Yangtze,” was the site of the first Ming dynasty capital, the court relocated to the north of China half a century after the dynasty’s founding. From this time emperors and their immediate families were largely absent from the culture of this prosperous and vibrant heartland. But many ties still linked the culture of Jiangnan’s “Southern Paradise” and that of the Ming court. This lecture will focus on what artworks, as well as literature, can tell us about the often-fraught relationship between Jiangnan, its people, and their distant rulers in the north.
All education programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Education. Major annual support is provided by the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Generous annual support is provided by Brenda and Marshall Brown, Florence Kahane Goodman, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, and the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation. Additional annual support is provided by Gail Bowen in memory of Richard L. Bowen, the M. E. and F. J. Callahan Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Char and Chuck Fowler, the Giant Eagle Foundation, the Logsdon Family Fund for Education, Roy Smith, and the Trilling Family Foundation.