Looking at art with Malcolm Baker is always an adventure. This conference celebrates Distinguished Professor Emeritus Baker’s scholarship and his time at UCR, from 2007 to 2019. Baker is an eminent authority in the history of sculpture, especially in 18th-century Britain, France, and Germany. Within that field, he developed a keen interest in portraiture and the history of collecting and display. Professor Baker had an important career as a curator in the UK, first as Assistant Keeper of the Department of Art & Archaeology at the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, then as Keeper, Deputy Head of Research, and Head of the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries Project in the Victoria & and Albert Museum in London. He taught at the Universities of York, Sussex, and at USC before joining UCR’s Department of the History of Art as a Distinguished Professor. As chair of the Art History department at UCR he was a key figure in developing and consolidating its ties with the Huntington Library and Gardens and the Getty Museum and Research Institute. Professor Baker’s joy in front of works of art colors and informs his research as much as his teaching, and students love his classes. During the conference, we will look with friends and colleagues at some engaging objects to honor his career and his unique approach to art and its display.

Program

10:00 AM:
Welcome by Jeanette Kohl (Acting Director, Center for Ideas and Society) and Jason Weems (Chair, Department of the History of Art)

10:15 AM:
Faya Causey (National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.):
Ancient Amber Miniature Masterpieces

10:45 AM:
Thomas E. Cogswell (UCR, History):
Van Dyck’s Venus and Adonis: Sex, Power and the Duke of Buckingham

11:15 AM:
Steve Hindle (Huntington Library):
The Tools in the Shop: The Material Culture of the Village Blacksmith in Seventeenth Century England

11:45 PM: Lunch break

01:00 PM:
Daniela Bleichmar (University of Southern California, Art History):
The Museum, the World

01:30 PM:
Anne-Lise Desmas (J. Paul Getty Museum):
Variations on the Theme of the Portrait Bust, Drawn from the French Sculpture Collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum

02:00 PM: Coffee break

02:30 PM:
Jeanette Kohl and Kristoffer Neville (UCR, Art History):
Fire Within. Four Eyes on Two Objects

03:00 PM:
John Brewer (Professor Emeritus Caltech):
Sir William Hamilton's Sublime Creation: Vesuvius as Dynamic Sculpture

03:30 PM: Coffee break

04:00 PM:
Keynote by Malcolm Baker:
Crossing Faultlines: Doing Art History in the Museum and the Academy

05:00 PM:
Reception at the Center for Ideas and Society, College Building South, UCR

The conference is free and open to the public.
The conference is organized by Jeanette Kohl, Kristoffer Neville, and Jason Weems