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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.

E.g., 06/10/2023
E.g., 06/10/2023
Wednesday, June 21, 2023 - 12:00pm
conservator cleans a piece of art
  • Wed., June 21, 2023, 12:00 pm
Material Matters Gallery Talk
Ames Family Atrium

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.

Saturday, July 15, 2023 - 12:00pm
detail of sunrise in udaipur painting
  • Sat., July 15, 2023, 12:00 pm
Artist in the Atrium

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.

Wednesday, July 19, 2023 - 12:00pm
conservator cleans a piece of art
  • Wed., July 19, 2023, 12:00 pm
Material Matters Gallery Talk
Ames Family Atrium

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.

Tuesday, August 1, 2023 - 12:00pm
small figural ivory carving
  • Tue., August 1, 2023, 12:00 pm
Lunchtime Lecture
Gartner Auditorium

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.

Sunday, August 20, 2023 - 2:00pm
white and blue ceramic vase with phoenix
  • Sun., August 20, 2023, 2:00 pm
Gartner Auditorium

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.

Saturday, August 26, 2023 - 2:00pm
detail of sunrise in udaipur painting
  • Sat., August 26, 2023, 2:00 pm
The Dr. Ranajit K. Datta Distinguished Lecture in Indian Art
Gartner Auditorium

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.

Tuesday, September 5, 2023 - 12:00pm
detail of an engraving
  • Tue., September 5, 2023, 12:00 pm
Lunchtime Lecture
Gartner Auditorium

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.

Sunday, September 24, 2023 - 2:00pm
detail of an el greco painting of the holy family
  • Sun., September 24, 2023, 2:00 pm
The Dr. John and Helen Collis Lecture
Gartner Auditorium

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.

Sunday, November 5, 2023 - 2:00pm
detail of a Chinese handscroll painting
  • Sun., November 5, 2023, 2:00 pm
The Pauline and Joseph Degenfelder Distinguished Lecture in Chinese Art
Gartner Auditorium

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.