Art & Art History   

How does an artist interpret and creatively express the essence of a theme? Participants will hear directly from artists contributing to the 2025 Juneteenth Art Exhibition as part of the broader State College Juneteenth celebrations. The artists will share their unique vision and process in creating powerful art that embodies the enduring spirit of this significant moment in American history and captures the Exhibition’s themes of unity, resilience, and generational strength. Participants will also tour the Exhibition, which features compelling artistic expressions created by individuals of all ages in honor of the legacy of liberation and hope that Juneteenth represents.

Special notes: The nearest parking garages (pay for parking) are on Pugh and Fraser Streets. 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the most successful sculptor of the American Renaissance, and his works have helped to shape the perceptions of our past. If you have watched the movie Glory, you have seen his relief of the Shaw Memorial. He also created the iconic bronze statue of Diana that once topped Madison Square Garden and the majestic Adams Memorial in Washington, D.C. This course will serve as an introduction to his works as well as to the role of public monuments in the second half of the 19th-century in America.

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the most successful sculptor of the American Renaissance, and his works have helped to shape the perceptions of our past. If you have watched the movie Glory, you have seen his relief of the Shaw Memorial. He also created the iconic bronze statue of Diana that once topped Madison Square Garden and the majestic Adams Memorial in Washington, D.C. This course will serve as an introduction to his works as well as to the role of public monuments in the second half of the 19th-century in America.

 

Frank Furness (1839–1912) is arguably one of the most creative and idiosyncratic architects of the Victorian era in America. Furness created bold, unique buildings with a profusion of eclectic forms, materials, and ornamentation. This course will explore two of his most important surviving buildings in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1871–76) and Fisher Fine Arts Library (built 1888–91) at the University of Pennsylvania. Examine Furness’s bank buildings and railroad stations, as well as his influence on such architects as Louis Sullivan, Louis Kahn, and Robert Venturi.  

Since its construction in 1901–02, the Flatiron Building of New York City has commanded the attention of the public because of the unusual shape of its site: a skyscraper springing from a long, thin triangular piece of property. The Chicago firm of D. H. Burnham & Co. created a steel-framed Beaux-Arts skyscraper whose unorthodox footprint generated an unexpected icon of modernity. This course will explore the Flatiron from a variety of different perspectives, including the history of architecture, urbanism, business, popular culture, photography, and Daniel H. Burnham.
 

 

To honor significant and enduring contributions to American society, history, culture or environment" on stamps, the United States Postal Service has featured American art in various contexts. In 1940, five 19th-century artists were included in the Great Americans series, while the 1998 panel, Four Centuries of American Art, highlighted twenty paintings. In between, statehood commemoratives featured artists such as Grant Wood and Edward Hopper. More recently, the USPS has issued panels celebrating Mary Cassatt, Andrew Wyeth, Isamu Noguchi, and Romare Bearden to reflect our national identity.