Art History, Architectural History, Archaeology (ARTS1-CE)

ARTS1-CE 1005 New York: Art on View (0 Credits)

From paintings by 17 contemporary artists and the grand avian watercolors of James Audubon to the magnificent art of the Plains Indians and exquisite tools from all walks of life, immerse yourself in four major exhibitions opening this winter and spring: Forever Now at MoMA; Audubon’s Aviary at the New-York Historical Society; Plains Indians: Artists of Earth and Sky at the Met; and Tools: Extending Our Reach from the new Cooper Hewitt. Meet in class to explore the social, cultural, and historical contexts of the art and artists through photos and media clips. Then, we visit each exhibition to see the art in person.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8075 From Duccio to de Kooning at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1.5 Credits)

The galleries of The Metropolitan Museum of Art serve as a complete education in the history of Western art. Journey through the museum and explore the late medieval world with Duccio and Brueghel, religious controversy and commerce in baroque art with Caravaggio and Rubens, and the Dutch golden age with Rembrandt and Vermeer. The journey continues with romanticism and neoclassicism (David, Ingres, and Goya); impressionist discoveries and their aftermath (Manet, Degas, and Cézanne); and the modernists and postwar movements (Matisse, Picasso, and Pollock). Learn the language of painting and the visual language of these artists and their times.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8106 A History of the World Through Jewelry (0 Credits)

This course will use jewelry as evidence to understand eras of global world history. Beginning with shell and bone jewels of the Neolithic period and ending with digital jewelry of the twenty-first century, our journey will trace major world events through the lens of jewelry fashion and production. We will explore how world events, technological innovation, and trade networks informed the materials and appearance of jewelry from major empires across the globe. Visits to museums and galleries will complement the in-class lecture sessions.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8115 Art from the Age of Cathedrals: Medieval Art and Architecture (0 Credits)

Register for this Summer 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/art-from-the-age-of-cathedrals-medieval-art-and-architecture">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website</a>. The soaring spires, dazzling stained glass, and glimmering manuscript illuminations encapsulate the medieval world’s fascination with height, light, and divine beauty. This course will explore the art and architecture of Western Europe from c. 500-1400, looking at not only the objects and structures created during this period, but also the methods and skills that artisans used to produce them. Beginning with Anglo-Saxon trends, we will track the evolution of medieval art and architecture through the Romanesque and Gothic styles, analyzing and appreciating the sculptures on cathedral façades, the gold and silver reliquaries containing saints’ bones, the carefully penned Bibles, and the elegant tapestries that lined castle walls, in order to immerse ourselves in the medieval experience. This course includes five virtual lectures and one optional in-person, guided visit to the Met Cloisters in New York City specially curated for this course. Summer 2023 tuition is $499.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8121 21st Century Saudi Arabia: The Politics of Cultural Heritage Preservation (0 Credits)

<div> <div>Register for this Spring 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/21st-century-saudi-arabia-the-politics-of-cultural-heritage-preservation">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a> website.</div> </div> <div>Saudi Arabia has witnessed significant changes since the rise of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud in 2016: he introduced unprecedented economic, judicial, and social reforms that have significantly opened Saudi society. To further transform this conservative country’s global perception, particularly since the 2018 killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the government is heavily investing in tourism. Tourism still largely involves religious pilgrimages. However, a leisure tourism industry is being built from scratch that aims to attract 55 million international visitors annually. How will this ambitious plan be realized? To answer this question, we will discuss the different archaeological sites that have intrigued outsiders since antiquity, the controversial erasure of Mecca and Medina’s historical landscapes, and the goals of the Vision 2030 reform initiative. Spring 2023 tuition is $429.</div>

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8136 Contemporary Photography: From Richard Avedon to Ai Weiwei (0 Credits)

Photography is an increasingly popular medium in the world of fine art. This course will introduce the most prominent contemporary photographers and explore the concepts and stylistic approaches they use. This fall semester, we will look in depth at portraits, still life, street life, and landscape. We will strive to find answers to relevant and resonant questions: What makes a photograph a work of art? Are images composed or (seemingly) snapshots? Why black and white/why color? What are the recent trends? The course also will include a visit to a gallery or museum.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8139 It Couldn't Have Happened Without Them: Women Who Shaped the Course of Modern Art (0 Credits)

This course invites you to delve into the remarkable lives of exceptional women who have exerted an enormous influence on the course of modern art, including American art collectors Claribel Cone and Etta Cone; Katherine Dreier, artist and co-founder (with Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp) of Société Anonyme, the first modern art organization in the US (1920); Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie Bliss, and May Quinn Sullivan, co-founders of the Museum of Modern Art (1929); Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, sculptor and founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art (1931); Baroness Hilla von Rebay, co-founder and first director of the Guggenheim Museum (1939); self-proclaimed “art addict” and modern art propagandist Peggy Guggenheim; art historian and curator Marcia Tucker, founder of the New Museum of Contemporary Art (1977); and progressive patrons of the arts such as the writer Gertrude Stein, suffragette Louisine Havemeyer, arts benefactor and high society doyenne Jayne Wrightsman, and MoMA Life Trustee Agnes Gund. A section of this course will be devoted to women who are currently at the helm of major art museums, including Anne Pasternak (director, Brooklyn Museum), Thelma Golden (director, Studio Museum in Harlem), and Lisa Phillips (director, New Museum).

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8143 Art After 2/24/22: Ukraine, Russia, and the World (0 Credits)

Register for this Spring 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/art-after-22422-ukraine-russia-and-the-world">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning </a>website. The Ukrainian-Russian war triggered a massive flight of visual artists and cultural workers from Moscow and Saint Petersburg to nearby countries in northern European and former Soviet republics. The already small Ukrainian art community suffered equally from significant displacements. The course begins with an overview of Russian, Ukrainian, and Soviet visual culture, beginning with Constructivism and Futurism, before proceeding to Socialist Realism and the anything-goes 90s art market. It considers the repression that coincided with Putin’s ascent, and the evolving Ukrainian art community after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Freedom, disobedience, unrest, liberation, and the war are considered from Ukrainian, Russian, and international perspectives using lectures, readings, video, and live interviews with artists who lived abroad or fled Ukraine and Russia after 2/24/2022. <meta charset="utf-8" />Spring 2023 tuition is $549.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8507 Plein Air Painting From Turner to Marin (0 Credits)

Register for this Spring 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/plein-air-painting-from-turner-to-marin">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a> website. This virtual course will focus on works by artists such as J.M.W. Turner, Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent, Paul Cézanne, Winslow Homer and John Marin who, in turning to nature for inspiration, painted in the open air and created seascapes and landscapes endowed with a sense of expansion that extends beyond the specific time and place of their origin. By looking at both plein air sketches and more formal easel paintings students can gain an understanding of stylistic continuity and explore how images and innovations by those painters had an ongoing impact on modern artists such as Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler. The final class will be held in-person at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. <meta charset="utf-8" />Spring 2023 tuition is $399.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8510 Vermeer: The Beauty and Mystery of the Light Within (1 Credit)

When looking at a painting by Vermeer, why do so many of us feel as if a veil has been pulled from our eyes? Why does the world suddenly shine with jewel-like freshness, as we have never seen it before? Following the recent New York visit of Girl with a Pearl Earring, this course explores Vermeer’s oeuvre in its entirety: a total of 35 paintings, eight of which are permanently on view in New York. Light being integral to the beauty and mystery of Vermeer’s representations, we see how the Dutch master really saw human beings as creatures not merely drawn to light but possessing a light of their own. The course includes visits to the Metropolitan Museum and the Frick Collection.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8651 Masterpieces of Netherlandish Art at the Met (0 Credits)

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8656 The Spiritual in Modern and Contemporary Art (0 Credits)

Register for this Fall 2022 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/the-spiritual-in-modern-and-contemporary-art">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a> website. Conceived to explore the spiritual roots and dimensions of modern and contemporary art, from Theosophy and Buddhism to Judeo-Christian mysticism and Jungian theory, this course presents diverse works by artists ranging from early 20th-century visionaries such as Hilma af Klint, Wassily Kandinsky, and Piet Mondrian to leading postwar and contemporary artists including Barnett Newman, Agnes Martin, Andy Warhol, Zarina, Robert Irwin, and Danh Vo. Lectures and museum visits will provide insights into these artists' diverse views of spirituality and the ways in which they approached their work as a form of meditation or a spiritual quest. We will analyze the specific inherent qualities many of these works are characterized by, such as stillness, timelessness, and serenity. Furthermore, we will discuss how these works can spark in the viewer a spiritual awareness, or what Ellsworth Kelly called “the rapture of seeing.” Special attention will be given to artist-designed sanctuaries, including Henri Matisse’s Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence, France; Mark Rothko’s Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas; and Theaster Gates’ Sanctum in Bristol, United Kingdom. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289. Fall 2022 tuition is $719.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8765 Historic Gathering Places of the Avant-Garde (0 Credits)

Inspired by Into the Night: Cabarets & Clubs in Modern Art, an exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, this course explores the rich history of legendary salons, coffeehouses, cabarets, and clubs that played a significant role as breeding grounds for modern art. We will revisit, among others, Gertrude Stein’s salon in Paris; Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots, Parisian bistros where the likes of Picasso and Dora Maar mingled with Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir; Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich; Berlin’s most influential cabaret, Max Reinhardt’s Schall und Rauch; the pivotal meeting places for Vienna’s intelligentsia known as Literatencafés; and, in New York City, the Cedar Tavern, a favorite hangout of the Beat poets and abstract expressionists, and Max’s Kansas City, where most notably, Andy Warhol held court. These momentous gathering places were highly fragile, often-short-lived ecosystems. Unlike the social media platforms that have now largely replaced them, they facilitated a fruitful, liberal, and often-combative face-to-face exchange of radical ideas in a real time and place.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8767 European and American Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1.5 Credits)

Discover the highlights of Western art history by exploring The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection of European and American paintings, beginning with the sacred Byzantine icon and ending with the consumerist icons of pop art. Examine early Netherlandish and Sienese painting, humanism and the Renaissance, mannerism and baroque art, neoclassicism, and romanticism. Delve into impressionism, modernism’s uses of Oceanic and African art, and the fascinating images of Dadaism and surrealism. Each work is analyzed from a historical and biographical perspective, providing a sense of the material, intellectual, and spiritual basis of each artist’s unique power.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8768 The Final Years: Significant Late Works by Great Artists (0 Credits)

At the age of 87, Michelangelo observed, “Ancora imparo” (“I am still learning”). Willem de Kooning accomplished his last paintings while crippled by the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Picasso worked until 3 a.m. on Sunday, April 8, 1973, and passed away a few hours later, at age 91. Picasso’s former lover Françoise Gilot, also a painter, still paints every day while nearing 100. Jasper Johns, 89, and Alex Katz, 92, are both still painting and producing, one could argue, their best works. This course focuses on the final works of some of the greatest artists in Western history, including such old and modern masters as Rubens, Rembrandt, Cézanne, Monet, Mondrian, Matisse, Joan Mitchell, Agnes Martin, and Alice Neel, as well as some who are still among us, including David Hockney (82), Gerhard Richter (87), and Yayoi Kusama (90). Our goal is to observe in detail how aging artists, despite the obstacles that come with old age, never stop learning.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 8769 Painting Sound: The Intersection of Art and Music (0 Credits)

Register for this Fall 2022 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/painting-sound-the-intersection-of-art-and-music">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a> website. Registration for this course will end on Tuesday, September 27 at 11:59pm EDT to allow time for processing COVID-related requirements. If you want to register after this date, please contact the academic department at sps.all@nyu.edu to determine if an exception can be made. Many visual artists found significant inspiration in music. Art critic Walter Pater went as far as claiming that “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.” Examples abound. In 1911, Wassily Kandinsky struck a friendship with composer Arnold Schoenberg, and soon thereafter incorporated principles of Many visual artists found significant inspiration in music. Art critic Walter Pater went as far as claiming that “All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.” Examples abound. In 1911, Wassily Kandinsky struck a friendship with composer Arnold Schoenberg, and soon thereafter incorporated principles of atonal music into his abstract compositions, creating works described by one art critic as “pure visual music.” In the early 1950’s, Jackson Pollock-flowing improvisational technique was often likened to Bebop jazz, and Willem de Kooning, another Jazz aficionado, once wrote: “Miles Davis bends the notes. He doesn’t play them, he bends them. I bend the paint.” This course presents a multifaceted exploration of the creative dialogue between art and music. We will examine interconnected, well-known art works and musical compositions from the Romantic era to modern times to highlight the complex relationship between these prominent branches of creative expression. Among the paired artists and composers are Delacroix/Chopin; Monet/Debussy; Picasso/Stravinsky; Mondrian/Jazz; Rauschenberg/Cage; and Rothko/Feldman. Additional attention will be given to musical works created by visual artists, including Marcel Duchamp’s Musical Erratum, Yves Klein’s Monotone Silence Symphony, Yoko Ono’s Voice Piece for Soprano, and Jennie C. Jones’s Slowly in a Silent Way, Caged. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email <a href="mailto:sps.cala@nyu.edu" target="_blank">sps.cala@nyu.edu</a> or call 212-998-7289. Fall 2022 tuition is $719.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9001 Celebrating Pablo Picasso (0 Credits)

<div>Register for this Summer 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/celebrating-pablo-picasso">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website.</a></div> Pablo Picasso died 50 years ago in 1973. To commemorate his eight-decade career, museums around the world are planning special exhibitions in 2023. While the Metropolitan Museum of Art showcased his contribution to Cubism this past fall, the Guggenheim will focus on a young Picasso in Paris (May to August 2023) and the Brooklyn Museum will look at Picasso through feminist eyes (June to September 2023). From his Blue and Rose periods, through Cubism, Classicism, Surrealism, and his Mediterranean years, no other artist in the 20th century has expressed personal life changes with such stylistic innovations. Together, we will look at his greatest masterpieces from paintings, prints, and drawings to ceramics and sculpture. We will also explore the impact that the tumultuous events of the 20th century such as World War I and II, the Spanish War, and the Korean War had on his art as well as his influence on other artists. Summer 2023 tuition is $799.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9002 How to Be Modern: From Paris to New York and Beyond (0 Credits)

Register for this Spring 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/how-to-be-modern-from-paris-to-new-york-and-beyond">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a> website. The journey of modern art began with a sensual Parisian picnic (Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass” of 1862) and ended 100 years later with a bowl of canned soup, served cold at a Manhattan studio space (Warhol’s “Campbell Soup Cans” of 1962). But this century-long history cannot be told as a simplistic progression from one movable feast (or one -ism) to another. Nor can it be laid out like a square patchwork of various artistic expressions: painting, drawing, prints, sculpture, photography, design, or film. Instead, the development of modern art unfolded as a complex, dynamic and vast network of loosely associated artists working in the pursuit of the new and living and often moving across several continents. Believing that rules were made to be broken, these artists would come to challenge traditional definitions of art by blurring the line between high and low cultures as well as by experimenting with new aesthetics via multiple forms and innovative techniques. Seen as a forward-thinking, international art movement, modernism is perhaps best illustrated by a Jackson Pollock drip painting: a field of densely interlaced threads of paint of varying colors, some even expanding beyond the canvas, others ebbing halfway across it. The aim of this course is to follow some of those threads from start to finish and form a concise mental image of what modernism was––and has become. <meta charset="utf-8" />Spring 2023 tuition is $719.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9003 Developing Connoisseurship: Learning to Look (0 Credits)

Register for this Spring 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/developing-connoisseurship-learning-to-look">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a> website. What makes one painting better than another painting? One artist better than another artist? Why is Michelangelo’s David better than Bernini’s David? Why is a Picasso cubist painting better than a Braque cubist painting? Or are they better? This class will discuss how to develop basic connoisseurship by looking at the theories and aesthetics that separate the good from the great in Renaissance through contemporary art. Leave this class with a new approach to looking at art. Lectures will be supplemented by museum and gallery excursions. Spring 2023 tuition is $599.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9004 Art and Architecture of Islamic India (0 Credits)

This course traces the history of Islam in India through the art and architecture of the Delhi Sultanates (1206–1526), the Mughal dynasty (1526–1858), and the Deccan Sultanates (1500–1700). Explore the majestic tombs, mosques, madrasas, forts, and palaces, as well as the lavish jewelry, textiles, jades, metalwork, and miniature painting, from the Muslim dynasties. Special attention is given to the history of diamonds from Golkonda, the source of the world’s diamonds until the 18th century, which were celebrated locally and traded to international markets.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9005 Buddhism Illuminated: Illustrated Manuscripts from Southeast Asia (0 Credits)

Register for this Spring 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/buddhism-illuminated-illustrated-manuscripts-from-southeast-asia">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a> website. Discover the vibrant and beautiful art of Buddhist Southeast Asia through ancient manuscript illustrations. Covering Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar, we will contemplate Buddhism in all its forms by studying traditional palm leaf manuscripts and folding books. An encounter with poems, ordination texts, and philosophical treatises––and their illustrations––will open a door to major Buddhist narratives such as the life of the Buddha or the famous legend of the Buddhist monk Phra Malai. Through the examination of painted scenes, we will also cover Buddhist monastic life, its rules and key moments as well as the daily life of monks and nuns. By looking at these illustrations, we will examine how main Buddhist virtues are exemplified in a unique expression of Buddhist art. You will leave with a deep understanding of a specific form of Buddhist art that has a sacred scope, magnificent design language––and an enchanting taste for charming details. <meta charset="utf-8" />Spring 2023 tuition is $299.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9006 Art Styles Through the Ages: From Baroque to the 20th Century (0 Credits)

Develop an eye for, and an understanding of, painting, sculpture, and architecture from the baroque era through the 20th century—and build a foundation in the history of art. Study fantastic painting in 16th-century Northern Europe during the age of the Protestant Reformation, and learn of Bruegel and Bosch. Experience kingship, drama, and psychology in artwork by the baroque masters of the 17th century, and encounter Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. Next, study the art of two revolutions—the political and the industrial—embodied by 18th- and 19th-century neoclassicism and romanticism, and discover David and Goya. Then, learn of 19th-century impressionism and postimpressionism, and see Monet, van Gogh, Cézanne, and Munch. Finally, tackle crucial issues in the 20th century: skyscrapers, cubism, futurism, surrealism, African American art, feminist art, pop art, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Take note of Picasso, Jacob Lawrence, Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, and Maya Lin. A visit to the Museum of Modern Art is planned.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9007 Art Styles Through the Ages: From Cave Art to Renaissance Art (0 Credits)

Develop an eye for, and understanding of, painting, sculpture, and architecture through the Renaissance—and build a foundation in the history of art. This course celebrates prehistoric cave paintings, the Egyptians’ art of death and afterlife, China’s philosophical writing and painting, classical Greek art, and Roman art and architecture. Next, enhance your awareness of the divine in art of the world’s great religions: early Christian art, Jewish symbolic art, and the infinite in design and pattern in Islamic art; the creatures in Romanesque art; and the impassioned engineering and building of Gothic cathedrals. Then, focus on the illusion of reality and new artistic devices employed by Italian early and High Renaissance artists, and meet Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Titian. A visit to The Metropolitan Museum of Art is planned.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9008 Seeing Things Our Way: Art as Propaganda (0 Credits)

Visual art has been employed as propaganda since the days of the early Greeks, often in works that few people now would suspect were intended as such. Learn how one ruler’s desire to legitimize his position helped to kick-start the Renaissance, and what role American art possibly played in the Cold War of the 1950s. Special emphasis is placed on the cataclysmic events of the 20th century and their demand for art capable of mobilizing multitudes—to fight, to survive, to obey.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9009 Islamic Art History (0 Credits)

Join us for a visual journey into the riches of the arts of the Islamic world, a field that stretches from Andalusia in Spain across the Middle East and North Africa to Southeast Asia. We will explore sumptuous textiles, intricate wood and ivory carvings, painted ceramics in glossy glazes, metalwork inlaid with precious materials, enameled and gilded glass, and the painting and calligraphic traditions of the book arts. We will tour the sacred mosques, monumental palaces, and lush gardens where such objects were used and treasured. Finally, the course will examine the continuity of these artistic traditions by looking at the work of contemporary artists from Islamic regions and their responses to political and social events of the 20th and 21st centuries. No grades issued.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9010 The Color Blue in Art (0 Credits)

What would art be without color? Blue--the celestial, the nautical, the divine, the royal, the spiritual color, precious and rare--always had a special place in art. What is this color made of? Blue is difficult to find in nature--it mostly appears as the reflection of light. Blue pigments are rare: Egyptian Blue (used in ancient Egypt), Ultramarine (ground Lapis lazuli, a precious, expensive material used since the Middle Ages), Prussian Blue (1706), Cobalt (1802) and YInMn Blue, the newest discovery (2009). How have artists used this color? Giotto, Leonardo, Titian, Vermeer, Gainsborough, Caspar David Friedrich, Hokusai, van Gogh, Cézanne, Picasso in his blue period, the Blue Rider, Rene Magritte, Edvard Munch, Yves Klein, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, James Turrell--we will explore how these and other artists used blue masterfully.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9011 Tracing the History of Contemporary Architecture (0 Credits)

Contemporary architecture uses the latest materials and technologies to create unique new forms and state-of-the-art environmental efficiencies. However, today’s architectural styles owe much to earlier architectural periods. In this course, we first examine examples of new architecture and then trace the origins of these examples back to earlier 20th-century movements such as modernism and brutalism. Works and philosophies of architectural thought leaders such as by Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier will be studied, as well as pioneers of contemporary organic architecture such as Eero Saarinen and Frank Gehry. This course includes a walking tour in Manhattan to examine selected contemporary architectural projects.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9012 The Six-Hour Art Major (0 Credits)

This course gives you unique insight into visual art and its creative process by providing the opportunity to “attend” art school in a condensed format—thereby gaining an understanding of visual art from the artist’s point of view. The course consists of two three-hour sessions and touches on all the main subjects covered in the quintessential art school core curriculum. Hands-on exercises not only demonstrate the basic how-tos of drawing but also explain the different concepts and thought processes behind making representational, abstract, and nonrepresentational art. Explore where artists find their ideas and inspiration, how a work of art develops, and what being creative entails. The second part of the course is an overview of art history that focuses on the function of art through the ages and art appreciation—how to approach, analyze, and appreciate a work of art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9013 The Feminine in Art (0 Credits)

What is the feminine? What is feminism? How do societies perceive women, maternity, and motherhood? From ancient art in native societies around the globe to modern art, we will look at various cultural beliefs and practices around gender, maternity, motherhood, and education and assess how they impact our collective and individual consciousness. We will examine the work of famous artists, such as Pablo Picasso, Gustav Klimt, Gustave Courbet, Mary Cassatt, Louise Bourgeois, and Camille Claudel, and analyze masculine and feminine perspectives on these subjects.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9014 German Art: From Postwar to Now (0 Credits)

How did German artists find a new beginning and a forward-looking vision after World War II? In 1945, German artists made a radical break with tradition that was soon complicated by the postwar division of Germany (1949–1990). This course explores the movements in East and West Germany and then reunified Germany, movements such as Fluxus, Aktionskunst, Gruppe ZERO, and the Leipzig Schule, among others. We will look at the works of well- and lesser-known artists, including Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Anselm Kiefer, Georg Baselitz, Rosemarie Trockel, and Isa Genzken as well as photographers from the Düsseldorfer Schule, in illustrated lectures and gallery visits.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9016 American Architecture and Urbanism (0 Credits)

Register for this Fall 2023 course at the new NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website for <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/american-architecture-and-urbanism-section-one-in-person">American Architecture and Urbanism Section 1 In-Person</a> and <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/american-architecture-and-urbanism-section-two-online">American Architecture and Urbanism Section 2 online</a>. We will survey 400-plus years of the stunningly diverse architecture of the United States, with particular attention on the nation’s cities and towns. We will look at the colonial town plans of New Haven, Williamsburg, and Savannah, as well as the Greek Revival that swept the country, the French influence in New Orleans, and the style of the national capitol. We will examine the growth of giant cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago, the growth of suburbia (including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park), the great World’s Fairs, the development of West Coast vernaculars, and much more, in a course that will enrich your travels across the country. Fall 2023 tuition is $649. Registration at least three weeks prior to the course start date is highly recommended

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9019 Museums and Islamic Art (0 Credits)

Register for this Fall 2022 course on the new <a href="http://Register for this Fall 2022 course on the new NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning (>>>hyperlink Gather link per course) website.">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a> website. This course will introduce the field of Islamic art, and examine how collections of this material came to be exhibited in museums worldwide. How did colonial activity in the Middle East, India, and North Africa build the collections of the British Museum, the Louvre, the Victoria & Albert, the Rijksmuseum, and other major institutions? In addition to an introduction to calligraphy, textiles, ceramics, and works on paper from the Islamic world, we will discuss the historical collecting practices of such museums, as well as changes to these practices in the 21st century. Finally, we will look closely at the newly constructed museums in the Islamic world, designed by internationally renowned architects, including the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Museum of Islamic Art Doha, the Islamic Art Museum Malaysia, and new projects in Saudi Arabia, among others. This course includes two online lectures and one in-person guided visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289. Fall 2022 tuition is $219.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9021 The Russian Century: Art from 1917 to 2017 (0 Credits)

This course reviews major developments in post-czarist Russian art, beginning with early avant-garde artists Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Vladimir Tatlin, who all played critical roles in the development of 20th-century abstraction. The historical origins and evolution of socialist realism—a “Marxist” perspective on proletariat cultures—are explained and reevaluated, clarifying the complexity and appeal of an overly generalized genre. The course magnifies the “nonconformist” (sometimes heretical) art of the later Soviet era, before addressing current art, media, and subjects. The course will take a close look at the Dodge Collection of Soviet nonconformist art at the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick, New Jersey. No grades issued.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9023 The Fine Art of Writing About Art: Through the Eyes of Famous Authors (0 Credits)

How can the written word facilitate meaningful dialogue with great works of art? What does it mean to write about art in the age of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, when a constant flow of pixilated images hijacks our attention span and instant messaging weakens our capacity for deeper critical reflection and analysis? How can we articulate new ways of seeing art on our own terms? We will pursue answers to these questions by exploring the fertile, centuries-old creative intersection of writing and the visual arts. We will study artists through the critical lens of notable authors, including Marcel Proust on Johannes Vermeer, Gertrude Stein on Pablo Picasso, Antonin Artaud on Vincent van Gogh, and Jean Genet on Alberto Giacometti. We will read and discuss miscellaneous writings about art by famous poets such as Charles Baudelaire, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Frank O’Hara, as well as influential essayists such as Susan Sontag, John Berger, Jeanette Winterson, and Teju Cole. We will investigate different approaches to writing about art, visit art exhibits, and analyze reviews thereof by renowned New York City art critics, including Peter Schjeldahl, Roberta Smith, and Jed Perl.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9041 The Contemporary Art World (0 Credits)

New York City’s art season ushers in the most exciting paintings, sculpture, photography, and installation work in the contemporary art world. Visit the most important exhibits and develop an understanding of the aesthetics of modern art. Exhibitions are selected by the instructor from those announced by museums and galleries. Meetings are devoted to major exhibitions in leading art museums and to shows in the more prominent as well as lesser-known art galleries in Chelsea and SoHo and on 57th Street.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9042 Greeks and Romans Abroad: Art and Archaeology of the Greek Colonies and Roman Provinces (0 Credits)

Register for this Fall 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/greeks-and-romans-abroad-art-and-archaeology-of-the-greek-colonies-and-roman-provinces">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website</a>. Come explore the unique magic of the Greek colonies and Roman provinces. Beginning in the 8th century BCE and lasting through the Roman imperial period, cultural and political expansion brought Greeks and Romans into contact with their neighbors around the Mediterranean. This course explores the art and archaeology of these wonderfully rich territories, where Greco-Roman artistic sensibilities joined with native practices and traditions. Spanning the British Isles to western Asia, we’ll examine key cities and settlements alongside masterpieces of architecture, portraiture, ceramics, and more. Consideration will also be given to the history of archaeological discoveries in these regions, as well as current developments in the preservation of important sites and monuments. Students can expect to walk away with an enhanced, diverse knowledge of Greek and Roman art. Fall 2023 tuition is $429. Registering at least three weeks prior to the course start date is highly recommended.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9052 KaBoom: Discombobulation in the Art Market (0 Credits)

BOOM: Mad Money, Mega Dealers, and the Rise of Contemporary Art, Michael Shneerson's 2019 bestselling book, characterized the contemporary art market as unstoppable. No one anticipated a global pandemic, let alone its effects. In an already oversaturated and competitive art market, COVID-19 disrupted everything from art exhibitions to fairs and auctions. The market’s primary constituents were already lumbering. At the same time, global issues and politics served up a new set of issues that the art market fumbled: #China #metoo, #BLM, #NFTs, #online, to name a few. Taught by the primary consulting scholar for BOOM, this course not only clarifies the art market’s discombobulation, but also clearly explains the post-2018 #hashtag era. Key topics include: NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens) as art or cryptocurrency; disgraced art dealer Inigo Philbrick as an example of contemporary fraud; the artist KAWS––high art or low-brow collectible?; David Zwirner––art dealer or online retailer?; China--myth and money; collectors in the internet era; and private museums today. Armed with this knowledge, art enthusiasts can better discriminate between the good, the bad, and the mediocre. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9062 The New York Art Scene (0 Credits)

<h4 style="margin-bottom: 11px;">Fall 2024: Both sections are full! To be added to the waitlists please email us at sps.all@nyu.edu</h4> New York is one of the most artistically vibrant cities in the world and a magnet for contemporary artists from around the globe. This course invites students on a journey into the art scene by exploring some of the best art exhibits offered throughout the city. We will visit leading galleries and museums; reflect on current trends in the arts; and read a range of insightful essays and interviews with key figures in the field. Whether you are familiar with contemporary art or just curious about it, this course will give you the tools to acquire a broader, more coherent understanding and appreciation of the role of art in our contemporary society. This in-person course meets at different galleries and museums, not on the NYU campus.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9065 Contemporary Photography: From Andreas Gursky to Annie Leibovitz (0 Credits)

Photography is an increasingly popular medium in the world of fine art. This course will introduce prominent contemporary photographers and explore the concepts and stylistic approaches they use. This semester, we will look in depth at the topics of fashion, nudes, mise-en-scène, architecture, reportage, beauty, and street style, as they relate to photography. We will strive to find answers to relevant and resonant questions: What makes a photograph a work of art? Are images composed or (seemingly) snapshots? Why black and white? Why color? What are the recent trends? The course also will include a visit to a gallery or museum.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9066 The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Then and Now (0 Credits)

Register for this Summer 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/the-metropolitan-museum-of-art-then-and-now">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website</a>. Since its inception over 150 years ago, the Metropolitan Museum has grown into an extraordinary collection of more than 1.5 million objects from all over the world, each one a unique manifestation of human creativity across time, from antiquity to the present. Seen individually, each object can reflect a whole life, a culture, a worldview. Seen within the broader context of an ever-growing encyclopedic institution, each object points towards a remarkable diversity of artistic expressions, perspectives, viewpoints, and narratives. Embracing The Met’s commitment to telling the fascinating and interconnected stories of the cultures of the world, this course will explore creative new ways to experience the museum’s many galleries first-hand. Each session will include an exclusive guided visit of the museum specially curated for this in-person course. We will not meet on the NYU campus. The tuition includes all museum fees. Summer 2023 tuition is $899.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9068 The Met Revisited: Exploring the Untold Stories of New York's Greatest Museum (0 Credits)

Museums play a vital role in interpreting the world through their displays and narrative practices; however, they often are partial, contentious, and constantly up for debate. Through tours of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, explore vast artistic works and historical perspectives that are overlooked within “mainstream” museums and in the Western art historical canon. These guided experiences through the American Art, European Art, and other wings will focus on the material history of people of color, to provide a larger contextual view and understanding of their artistic and cultural contribution. The tours offer the opportunity to visit or revisit the world’s fifth most-visited museum with a new perspective and an expanded grasp of art history beyond “Art History 101” or traditional museum tours. The course also will highlight how museums’ historical, societal, and political forces have perpetuated social injustice and racial discrimination that continue today. In class, reflect upon museums’ practices and civic responsibilities, and learn about growing initiatives and new scholarship that combine art and social issues.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9069 The World of Henri Matisse (1 Credit)

Henri Matisse, a master colorist and one of the most important French Modernists, created amazing worlds in different styles. He was an incredibly gifted painter, sculptor, printmaker, draughtsman and collagist, equally adept at mixing complicated patterns or complex perspectives with simplified flattened forms. Having been trained by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in the academic manner, Matisse radically changed his style after he encountered works by van Gogh and Cézanne and spent time in Saint Tropez and Collioure. Initially a leader of the Fauves with bursting bright colors, then part of the Montparnasse artists that frequented Gertrude Stein’s salon circle, and then in the South of France, each period brought new influences and style changes. The early masterwork Le Bonheur de Vivre is like a motto for his life. His other works such as his Dance and  Odalisque paintings; his colorful interiors and  southern landscapes; and the late paper cut-outs -- all speak of a joyful life.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9071 Art Styles Through the Ages (0 Credits)

Develop your eye for and your understanding of painting, sculpture, and architecture by building a foundation in the history of art. This course celebrates prehistoric cave paintings, Egypt’s Pharaohs’ art of death and the afterlife, philosophical China in writing and painting, classical Greek art, and Roman art and architecture. Next, develop a greater awareness of the divine in the art of the world’s religions: early Christian art, Jewish symbolic art, and the infinite in design and pattern in Islamic art; creatures in Romanesque art; and the impassioned engineering and building in Gothic cathedrals. Then focus on the illusion of reality and new artistic devices found in Italian early and High Renaissance through the work of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Titian. Study fantastic art in Northern Europe in the age of the Protestant Reformation and learn of Brueghel and Bosch. Experience the drama, psychology, and kinship in artwork by baroque masters of the 17th century and encounter Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. Next, study the art of two revolutions: 18th- and 19th-century neoclassicism and Romanticism and discover David and Goya. Then visit 19th-century Impressionism and Postimpressionism via Monet, van Gogh, and Munch. Finally, tackle crucial issues in the 20th century: skyscrapers, cubism, futurism, surrealism, African-American art, feminist art, pop art, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, taking note of Picasso, Jacob Lawrence, Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, and Maya Lin. No grades issued.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9072 Photography: The "New" Fine Art (0 Credits)

Unlike other art media, photography has the rare ability to stop time, allowing the viewer literally to look into the past. If not for the photograph, all of the important moments from recent history would have been lost to time. While photography has taken on greater importance in our daily lives thanks to social media like Snapchat and Instagram, it also has entered the realm of fine art because of its ability to affect our senses and to evoke passion. Major exhibits at the Met, MoMA, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney testify to the legitimacy of this art form and its ability to convey this passion. This course is designed for anyone who has the desire to know more about this important art form, including its history and the “masters” of photography and their iconic images. Learn how to “read” a photograph for greater enjoyment in viewing. Beginning collectors also are given advice and insight on how to create a great collection on a budget. Class lectures and visits to one or more major photography exhibits help you to understand more about this important art form and to further develop your passion for the medium.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9073 New Acquisitions at the Met (0 Credits)

This course surveys notable recent additions to The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, and it acknowledges the individuals whose generous support makes it possible for the museum to uphold its mission to collect, study, conserve, and present significant works of art across all times and cultures. We will investigate how key acquisitions and gifts continue to enrich what is widely recognized as one of the United States’ most important cultural institutions. Highlights include one of the earliest-known Egyptian statues to combine animal features with the human body, an outstanding trio of silver vessels from classical Greece, Charles Le Brun’s monumental portrait Everhard Jabach and His Family, a Cartier brooch set with a large emerald from Mughal India, and works by renowned American photographer Irving Penn.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9074 Masterpieces of Nepal: Buddhist and Hindu Art in the Himalayas (0 Credits)

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9075 Islamic Art History: A Focus on Cairo (0 Credits)

Within sight of the ever-growing megalopolis of Cairo rises the world famous Great Pyramid of Giza. Yet, Cairo is so much more than that. Since its founding by the Fatimid Dynasty in 969 AD, it has been the center of the Islamic world and seat of several important medieval dynasties, reaching its apogee in the 14th century under the Mamluks. These empires left behind a staggering plethora of impressive buildings that are representative of this complex and expansive history, lending Cairo the nickname of the “City of 1,000 Minarets.” Today, more than 400 extant historic Islamic monuments survive, tucked away amid the modern urban sprawl. A trail of richly decorated artifacts from this time are found in situ and in museums around the world. They, unfortunately, remain largely overshadowed by their more ancient counterparts. Cairo has served as the cultural, political, and social capital of the Middle East and North Africa; as the seat of a significant 19th-century British colonial enclave; and as a hotbed for revolutionary activity. All of this has influenced the architectural character of this quintessential Islamic city, one that returned to our imagination in the wake of the 2011 uprising that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9076 Inside "Outsider Art": New Collectors, New Exhibits (0 Credits)

New York’s Outsider Art Fair is more than a quarter-century old, but definitions of its subject are still controversial. What is “outsider art”? Find out as you visit new collectors, gallerists, and experts in this course. Learn from the expertise of the instructors as critics, art historians, and appraisers of this collectible and anti-establishment mixed-media phenomenon. Get to know the work of emergent artists and well-known outsider stars—folk, vernacular, mad, self-taught, or all four—from Adolf Wölfli, Bill Traylor, Martín Ramírez, and Henry Darger to Thornton Dial and his vibrant African-American family. Introduced by updated commentary, the course goes behind the scenes at the American Folk Art Museum, the private trove of pop photographica (amusing blends of camerawork and crafts) of Antiques Roadshow’s Daile Kaplan, and the homes of outsider art collectors not visited before in this course.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9077 Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism (0 Credits)

After the Second World War, the center of the art world shifted from Paris to New York, where the work of abstract expressionist artists Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, and Lee Krasner teemed with intense energy and emotion. By the mid-1950s, however, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg mounted a challenge to the prevailing aesthetic, turning away from abstraction to depict or incorporate objects from everyday life. In the 1960s, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and others expanded this practice to include images from so-called “popular culture”—comic books, advertisements, supermarket items—rendered in a deadpan style that quickly became known as pop art. Around the same time, a new generation of artists—Frank Stella, Agnes Martin, Carl Andre, and Donald Judd, among others—rejected pop’s representational style in favor of a spare, abstract aesthetic that became known as minimalism. In addition to slide lectures, classes will include visits to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9078 Islamic Jewelry Designs: From Cordoba to Cartier (0 Credits)

To begin, we will look closely at the history of jewelry in the Islamic world, from the 7th to the 19th century, and examine how jewels and gemstones serve as talismans, symbols of power, as well as adornment. Then, we will look at how Islamic art and jewels served as inspiration for many of the most well-known jewelry houses of the 20th century, including Cartier, Boucheron, David Webb, Van Cleef & Arpels, and others.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9082 Contemporary Architecture, 1990 to Present (0 Credits)

Architecture is increasingly seen as a crucial element in the cultural identity of cities—as new and old global centers make their mark with iconic buildings from some of the world’s great architects. Explore the most important developments in architecture since the 1990s—ideas, ideologies, projects, buildings, and cities. Examine some of the most influential contemporary architects, trace the evolution of their work and their responses to current challenges in architecture and society, and learn to better understand the built environment. Architects presented will include Renzo Piano, Rafael Moneo, Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Bjarke Ingels, and Santiago Calatrava. The course also will include optional onsite walking tours to increase your interaction with New York City architecture.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9089 American Women Artists: The Rise to Professionalism, 1845-1945 (0 Credits)

The American experiment has allowed for many forms of societal rule-breaking, but historically, women artists often found themselves bound by old-world conventions. In this course, we take a deep look at the artworks of extraordinary American women artists, some familiar and most less so. You’ll get a better understanding of the strategies these artists employed to become professionals, a reflection of the challenges urban women faced overall. Most of these artists have fallen into obscurity upon death, regardless of the successes they achieved while living. Together, we will resuscitate and celebrate the art careers of notable women, including Lilly Martin Spencer; the Gilded Age breakthrough sculptors and painters; the Red Rose Girls; Elizabeth Okie Paxton and the Boston School; Theresa Bernstein and urban realism; and Peggy Bacon, Isabel Bishop, and social realism. Join us!

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9096 Art Deco New York: Architects in Their Own Words (0 Credits)

Learn about and discuss modernist architecture in New York City from the 1920s to the 1930s. This online course will start with the evolution of art deco from a style exclusively for skyscrapers to one used for all types of buildings. Our overview will include the city’s great art deco monuments, such as the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building, as well as examples in every borough, including apartment buildings, hotels, air terminals, department stores, and subway stations. The course will then focus on the work of three architects—Louis Allen Abramson, Israel Crausman, and Marvin Fine of Horace Ginsbern & Associates—who were responsible for designing the first art deco-style apartment houses in the Bronx, the notable Horn & Hardart automats, and other masterpieces. Get a special behind-the-scenes look at these architects’ work by listening to excerpts from taped interviews conducted by the instructor 40 years ago. Together, we will see how these three architects had very different ideas about what they were designing, and how each contributed to the creation of art deco New York in his own way.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9101 What Is American in American Art: 1775-1875 (0 Credits)

A practical and historical survey of American art from 1775 to 1875 will be discussed in this course. Sessions will be held in the classroom, galleries, and a museum, where the class will be given “hands-on” experience in examining paintings, drawings, and sculpture. The uniqueness of the American market and the ways that values are established will be addressed. Among the movements to be discussed include 18th- and 19th-century portraiture, 19th-century romanticism, and the Hudson River School.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9102 What Is American in American Art: 1775-1925 (0 Credits)

Register for this Fall 2022 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/what-is-american-in-american-art-1775-1925">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a> website. <meta charset="utf-8" />This course provides students with a practical and historical survey of American Art from 1775 to 1925. The uniqueness of the American market and the ways that values are established will be addressed. We will explore art movements from 18th and 19th century portraiture, 19th century Romanticism and the Hudson River School to American Impressionism, Americans in Paris (Whistler, Sargent, Cassatt), The Ten, the Ashcan School, and the Armory Show. This course includes illustrated online lectures and one in-person guided visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Fall 2022 tuition is $579.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9103 Asian Fine and Decorative Art: An Introduction (0 Credits)

This course provides a background in the history of Asian art, highlighting periods and styles necessary for identifying works found in museum collections and in the marketplace. The class begins with an overview of art historical periods, and it then shifts focus to exploring materials and examining techniques for specific media, such as ceramics, lacquer, metalwork, paintings, and prints. The class is object-based and features formal classroom instruction, as well as hands-on sessions with experts in the field. There will be at least one visit to a New York City auction house, gallery, museum, or private collection.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9104 Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy, and the Avant-Garde (0 Credits)

This course explores how artist partnerships can serve as a hotbed for creativity and innovation. We examine the complex lives of famous artist couples—including Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin, Dora Maar and Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Lee Miller and Man Ray, Josef and Anni Albers, Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, and Merce Cunningham and John Cage—and analyze how the unique and often turbulent relationships between these artists influenced their creative processes and artistic output. In addition, we delve into creative friendships that inspired collaborations among such artistic duos as Cézanne and Pissarro, Matisse and Derain, and Picasso and Braque. The bond, and sometimes clash, between these artists not only shaped their personal lives but also had a profound impact on the artistic movements of their time. Museum visits and gallery excursions, as well as Sebastian Smee’s “The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art,” will complement this course.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9105 Dishing More Dirt on Artists (1.5 Credits)

Revisit and learn about famous artists and their masterpieces through engaging and sometimes scandalous stories. Building on the popular course “Dishing the Dirt on Artists,” this illustrated online art history course focuses on the gossip (based on facts) and anecdotes relating to mostly 19th and 20th century artists—famous and infamous—including sexuality, suicides, wars, weird hobbies, rivalries, pitfalls, and commissions. You will learn about Gilbert Stuart’s sexual prowess, the truth about van Gogh’s ear, the Impressionists’ battles with French society, feuds between Matisse and Picasso, Duchamp’s playfulness, Pollock’s drinking episodes, and their ability to create masterpieces through it all.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9106 Artists of the Woodstock Artists Association (0 Credits)

Beginning as a getaway for artists, many superstars on the art scene summered in this Catskill paradise. Some came for a few seasons; others remained year round; some taught classes and trained many of the masters of the 20th century. Slide-illustrated lectures will discuss the history of this artistic colony founded in 1919 as well as related controversies and artistic innovations. Discussions will include the more famous artists such as Alexander Archipenko, Milton Avery, George Bellows, Richard Diebenkorn, John Flannagan, Mary Frank, Milton Glaser, Philip Guston, Robert Henri, Eva Hesse, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Doris Lee, Bradley Walker Tomlin, as well as lesser-known artists whose works are now receiving increasing attention.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9107 Signs and Symbols: Reading Art (0 Credits)

Explore the content and use of signs and symbols in art, and understand how they can open up entirely new levels of meaning and interpretation. Examine Greek mythology in ancient and later art; the Jewish bible in medieval art and Renaissance art; commedia dell’arte theatre in Watteau and Picasso; and politics in Goya and Guston. Other artists discussed include Michelangelo, Rembrandt, van Gogh, and Dalí.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9108 Surrealism: The Women Artists of Mexico and Latin America (0 Credits)

The catalytic roles and relationships between female surrealist artists in Latin America galvanized 20th-century art. As the surrealist movement spread globally from France, artists and artworks traveled to Mexico and onward making Latin America a significant destination. Those who journeyed to Latin America tended to remain there for the rest of their lives. Frida Kahlo is the most prominent, but Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, and Kati Horna, among several others, actively worked in proximity to each other, developing friendships and artist dialogues that are only rarely explored and discussed. Learn about these artists and their impact on 20th-century art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9109 Words in Place: Architecture and Typography (0 Credits)

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9110 Introduction to the Contemporary Art Scene (0.5 Credits)

Get an overview of what's happening in all aspects of the contemporary art scene, from conceptual and performance art to digital and video work.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9111 History of Art in New York City from Colonial Times to the Present Day (0 Credits)

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9112 German Art: From Impressionism to the Bauhaus (0 Credits)

This course will offer an overview of German art from Impressionism to the Bauhaus. The 65-year period from 1880 to 1945 saw two world wars, revolutions, hyperinflation and art defamation, but also the Roaring Twenties, Berlin as an international metropolis, cabaret, and satire. Symbolism, Art Nouveau, Expressionism, Dada, New Objectivity, the Bauhaus and the Degenerate Art exhibitions, as well as the most important artists (including Max Liebermann, Franz von Stuck, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Ernst-Ludwig Kirchner, Gabriele Münter, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Käthe Kollwitz, Jeanne Mammen, Anni & Josef Albers) and photographers (August Sander, Lotte Jacobi, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy) of these movements, will be discussed in illustrated lectures. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9113 Madame de Pompadour at the Court of Versailles (0 Credits)

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, was the official mistress of Louis XV and lived in the Château de Versailles from 1745 to 1764. Despite her humble background, Madame de Pompadour managed to hold one of the most influential court positions for close to two decades. In this course, examine her different strategies to counter court intrigues, including using a suite of prints and portraits to spin her image, developing her patronage of the arts and architecture, maintaining clever political alliances, and keeping the king entertained. Illustrated lectures will explore her style and artistic sophistication. This course will include a guided tour of the coinciding exhibition, Visitors to Versailles 1682–1789, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9114 Art of the American Black Experience: From Reconstruction to the Harlem Renaissance (0 Credits)

Trace the history of African American experience in the United States, from Reconstruction through the Harlem Renaissance, by studying the powerful, sometimes searing art produced during these eras. To ensure lively, informed discussions, the course will be grounded in readings for each era—literature and speeches, court decisions and newspaper accounts—as we spend class time looking at the paintings and sculpture created by black and white artists alike. For instance, we’ll look at the Jim Crow South pictures of Winslow Homer after reading Richard Wright’s biography, Black Boy. We will view Jacob Lawrence’s Migration art series after reading sections of Isabel Wilkerson’s award-winning book, The Warmth of Other Suns. We will discuss the Harlem Renaissance works of Archibald Motley, Lois Mailou Jones, and Aaron Douglas after reading excerpts from Alain Locke’s The New Negro. This course is intended as the first of a series; the second course will focus on art from the civil rights era.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9115 Next Generation: What to Do with Your Family's Treasures When Your Kids Aren't Interested (0 Credits)

As millennials and their successors settle into adulthood, long-held family antiques and valuables are being rejected in favor of disposable options or minimalism. This practical course will address some of the key concerns of people who currently own pieces that hold great historical, sentimental, or material value. Can the pieces be sold? Should they? How and when? How does one donate a piece to a museum? What should be kept in the family? Join us to learn about the various options available to families holding prized possessions.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9124 Silver Lining: Fashion and Film (1 Credit)

Film and fashion have a true love story between them: from Marilyn Monroe’s white dress to Milla Jovovich’s Fifth Element bandage suit, Dorothy’s ruby slippers to Scarlett O’Hara’s curtain dress, Diane Keaton’s Annie Hall outfits to Julia Roberts’s Vivian in Pretty Woman, and Marie Antoinette’s gigantic pannier dresses to Katniss Everdeen’s flaming Hunger Games dress. Iconic costumes become etched in our collective memories—silent, everlasting reminders of the stars that once enlivened them. Unforgettable sartorial moments seen on the screen walk with us from childhood to adulthood, and they evoke fantasies, build identities, and reshape realities. Presented chronologically, this course invites you to contemplate the powerful role of fashion and costumes in films. Learn about fashion history, costume design, identity construction, ideals of beauty, orientalism, and feminism—all through the lens of dress in films. Examine these intriguing subjects across film history, from silents to enduring classics and then to contemporary masterpieces.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9183 Frozen Time: The Art of Still Life (0 Credits)

We’re sorry but Section 1 is now full/closed. If you wish to be added to a wait list, please send an email to us at <a href="mailto:sps.cala@nyu.edu">sps.cala@nyu.edu</a>. We will contact you if a place opens up. Édouard Manet once called still life “the touchstone of painting.” This genre—the portrayal of familiar, inanimate objects—got its name in 17th-century Holland, but still life paintings already could be found on the walls of tombs of ancient Egyptian nobles, who no doubt, wanted to enjoy what’s depicted in them in the next world. This course explores the genre’s rich history, tracing how still life painting has evolved over time and examining its enduring qualities. We will study spectacular examples from the Golden Age of Dutch painting that depict elaborate buffets with startling veracity, Cézanne’s dazzling nature morte works, the near-abstract still lifes of Picasso’s and Braque’s cubist period, Georgia O’Keeffe’s large-scale studies of flowers, Andy Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s Soup Cans, Robert Mapplethorpe’s aestheticized photographs of flowers and skulls, and much more. The reading of excerpts from Marc Doty’s remarkable book, Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy, will complement our exploration of this remarkable genre that imbues the inanimate object with meaning and makes it come alive.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9184 The Glittering Art Deco Metropolis (0 Credits)

Take five walks through Manhattan to explore New York’s major monuments of art deco architecture—buildings that transformed the City into the world’s modern metropolis. Downtown, we examine the work of Ralph Walker, the architect who shaped New York’s skyline during the Roaring Twenties. Two walks cover East and West Midtown, including the miraculously urbane wonderland of Rockefeller Center and the Garment District, both of which illustrate the work of Ely Jacques Kahn. We finish on Central Park West, with its great twin-towered apartment buildings and other Jazz Age fantasies of upscale living overlooking the park.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9185 Understanding Modern Architecture: A Historical and Practical Survey (0 Credits)

More than painting or sculpture, architecture is an art that affects us daily and personally. It not only defines our environment but also influences how we experience the buildings around us. Learn about the advent of modern architecture, as well as the concepts and vocabulary crucial to understanding its architects and buildings. Through lectures and two New York City walking tours, focus on the origins of modern architecture. Starting with the revolutionary changes of the Victorian era, explore how architecture has evolved over time, incorporating new materials and reflecting cultural changes.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9188 Connoisseurship: Behind the Scenes (0 Credits)

Whether you are looking to invest in art or just want to enhance your understanding of it, this course will deepen your knowledge of and open your eyes to the art world beyond basic art history. Hear about the most notorious scams in the history of the art world, and learn how to avoid becoming prey to these fraudsters. Apart from understanding what makes a “great” work of art, this course discusses the underlying qualities of works, such as the medium (and bait-and-switch scams), condition/restoration hoaxes, framing enhancements (good and bad), unscrupulous dealers, and cases of fraud. The course includes a special insider’s look at the work of art dealers, conservators, frame shops, artists, auction houses, and museums.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9189 New York in the Jazz Age: Art Deco Architecture from Tribeca to the Upper West Side (0 Credits)

This course traces the brash new style of art deco, which transformed New York into a modern metropolis. Follow the style’s impact on five Manhattan neighborhoods, mixing commercial with residential buildings. One walk covers the downtown neighborhoods of Tribeca and the Civic Center. Two more cover south Midtown: Murray Hill and Gramercy Park on the east and the Garment District on the west. A fourth looks at the upper edge of Midtown, from Bloomingdale’s on the east to 20th Century Fox on the west. And a fifth follows the transformation of residential architecture on the Upper West Side along Broadway and Riverside Drive. The course instructor is Anthony W. Robins, award-winning guide and author of the newly published book, New York Art Deco: A Guide to Gotham’s Jazz-Age Architecture (SUNY Press).

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9190 Women Artists at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (0 Credits)

Following the success of the Met’s recent exhibition Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France, this course considers the important contributions of women artists in Western art from the baroque to the present. Survey the work of women artists across a rich 400-year continuum, analyze the conditions in which they lived and worked, and discuss how they had to defy convention to become artists. The primary focus is on the Met’s collection of artwork by Artemisia Gentileschi, Rosa Bonheur, Mary Cassatt, Camille Claudel, Georgia O’Keeffe, Lee Krasner, Agnes Martin, Yayoi Kusama, Cindy Sherman, and Carrie Mae Weems. Linda Nochlin’s seminal article, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” (1971), accompanies our study.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9191 The History of Art: Drawings From Da Vinci to Degas (0 Credits)

<div> Drawing is a powerful process that merges observation, imagination, and expression. Historically, painters and sculptors have used drawing as a crucial part of their artistic practice. Looking closely at sketches, studies, preparatory works, and finished drawings offers tantalizing chances to discover how artists create. The more we know about the concepts, techniques and materials of drawing, the more we can see beneath the surface of a painting or a sculpture to recognize the artist's intentions. This knowledge will help you expand your art appreciation skills and experience your next visit to the museum in a new way. We will examine the fundamental components of drawing (line, shape, form, value, color, perspective, and composition) as exemplified by works by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci , Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt van Rijn, Dürer, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Vincent Van Gogh, Mary Cassat, George Seurat, Edgar Degas, Alice Neel, Frida Kahlo, and Yayoi Kusama. This course includes museum visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Morgan Library and Museum.  Summer 2024 tuition is $479. </div> <div> </div>

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9192 Imagining the East: From Architecture to the Decorative Arts (0 Credits)

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an increasing number of collectors and museums began acquiring objects from the Middle East. What was being collected was largely influenced by the connoisseurship of a well-connected network of dealers whose activities coincided with the age of discovery, travel, and the World’s Fair, which led to competition among museums for “Orientalia.” In Europe, the practice of collecting artifacts from the Middle East was a by-product of colonial enterprises, which was mirrored in the United States by wealthy industrialist patrons, scholars, and museum curators who helped to establish encyclopedic collections in public and private institutions. As the alluring exoticism of the Middle East became more fashionable among the elite, it eventually spread into furniture, textiles, painting, the decorative arts, and architecture.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9193 Fashion in Museums (0 Credits)

Is fashion art? While fashion exhibitions prove to generate the highest turnover and PR for museums, an ongoing debate has persisted over the past decade among critics, scholars, and museologists: does fashion belong in museums? To answer this intricate question, this course examines the most groundbreaking fashion exhibitions in history—from Alexander McQueen to David Bowie—and travels to leading museums in the City. We will discover the treasures of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, the Museum at FIT, the Brooklyn Museum, The New York Historical Society, and more. Antique high-heeled shoes, feathered dresses, fashion inspired by religion, and 19th-century corsets are among the fascinating subjects that await us this semester.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9194 Art in the Public Domain (0 Credits)

Art in the public domain—accessible to all—involves responding to specific sites, administering artist selection processes, advocating for artists, fostering community engagement, collaborating with architects, and working with fabricators. In this course, receive an overview of the history of public art in New York City. Explore the range of public art currently being produced and best practices for creating, funding, and managing these commissions. Follow a project from its conception to the ribbon-cutting. This course is a great choice for New Yorkers who want to learn more about the art in their own backyard, as well for aspiring artists, arts administrators, and community activists.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9210 The Pioneers of Archaeological Discovery: Tales, Treasures, and Exploration (0 Credits)

From the late 18th century until the present day, the work of archaeologists has fascinated us. Their discoveries and glimpses into our past constitute a deeply important cultural process. This course explores the pioneers--the men and women responsible for the most important discoveries in archaeology that have shaped our ideas about the past. Follow tales of exotic adventures, intrigue, and dedicated scholarship among figures, such as Heinrich Schliemann, who went in search of the walls of Homeric Troy, and Sir Arthur Evans, who sought the mythological labyrinth of King Minos, and delve into the worlds they discovered.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9211 From Blake to Ernst: Symbols in 19th- and 20th-Century Art (1.5 Credits)

Explore the content and use of symbols in modern art, and learn how they can open up new levels of appreciation and understanding. Examine ancient mythology in neoclassicism and surrealism, religion in romanticism and postimpressionism, and politics in modern art. In this course, analyze subjects ranging from traditional symbolic figures, such as Venus or Harlequin, to dream imagery, such as melting watches and roaring lions. Artists to be discussed include Blake, Cole, Gauguin, Ernst, and Guston. This course includes two sessions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9212 From the Buddha to Mandalas: How to Understand Buddhist Art (0 Credits)

Register for this Summer 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/from-the-buddha-to-mandalas-how-to-understand-buddhist-art">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website.</a> Buddhist art spans a wealth of images from sublime stone sculptures of the Buddha seated in deep meditation to colorful scroll paintings depicting ferocious protector deities. Whether you are familiar with Buddhist art or simply curious about it, this course will give you the tools to acquire a coherent understanding of Buddhist imagery from its origins in India to its tantric developments in the Himalayas. The course will first delve into the core of Buddhist imagery by unfolding the life story of its founder, the Buddha. Moving on to address the developments of Buddhist art as the religion spread from India across Asia, the course will focus on the artistic tradition of Tibet. We will explore this complex, sometimes frightening imagery by examining paintings of bodhisattvas, deities, monks, and mandalas. Summer 2023 tuition is $449.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9213 In Praise of Painting: Dutch Masterpieces at The Met (0 Credits)

Coinciding with The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition of the same title, this course will focus on 75 Dutch paintings of the 17th century that have been a highlight of The Met collection since the museum’s founding. We will study some of the finest paintings produced during the Dutch Golden Age, including Rembrandt’s Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer, Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, Hals’s Portrait of a Man, and Margareta Haverman’s A Vase of Flowers—the only painting by a 17th-century female artist currently in The Met collection. We will examine works of intense realism and exquisite detail that stretched the technical and artistic boundaries of their time and inspire awe to this day. Other Dutch masters to be featured include Jan Steen, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch, and Jacob van Ruisdael.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9221 The Bauhaus: Modernism in Art, Architecture, and Design (0 Credits)

Though active for a scant two decades, the Bauhaus has had a continuing influence on modern society so fundamental and pervasive that we almost fail to notice it. The School’s importance in modern architecture and design is well known but not limited to those fields. Bauhaus teachers and students—Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, and Marianne Brandt, among others—made significant innovations in their fields, including painting, weaving, typography, metalwork, book design, and ceramics. This course explores the historical, aesthetic, and ideological background of the Bauhaus. We then focus on the variety of media in which Bauhaus artists worked—architecture, design, painting, weaving, and typography—and also on the role of women in the Bauhaus, an area of increasing academic interest.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9223 The Female Gaze: The Story of Women in Art (0 Credits)

Register for this Spring 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/the-female-gaze-the-story-of-women-in-art">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning </a>website. For centuries, women artists have had to overcome sexist prejudice that held them back in their long and hard climb to recognition and success. The story of their trials is often brutal: women, it would appear, had to suffer in order to be able to make great art, with their personal trauma serving as the alchemical ingredient that would either plunge them into oblivion (Camille Claudel) or reward them with fame (Frida Kahlo). This course is dedicated to exceptional women who diligently pursued an artistic life, sometimes by evoking the styles of the famous male artists of their own time, sometimes by blazing out with a new style that revealed a completely original and different awareness of the world. Art critic Jenny Higgie’s book, The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution, and Resilience: Five Hundred Years of Women’s Self-Portraits, will accompany our study of the female gaze in art, from the Renaissance through the present. Among the artists considered are Artemisia Gentileschi, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Rosa Bonheur, Mary Cassatt, Hilma af Klint, Lenora Carrington, Niki de Saint Phalle, Alice Neel, and Jennifer Packer. Spring 2023 tuition is $719.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9226 The Roots of Modern Art: Impressionism and Postimpressionism (0 Credits)

The impressionists were the first artists in the history of art to be violently rejected by the public and, often, their peers. Yet artists such as Manet and Monet were the forerunners of today’s avant-garde. Explore 19th-century impressionism and postimpressionism and their revolutionary techniques of using light, color, and brushstrokes to create some of the most beautiful artwork of all time. Learn about the important social, technological, and political events that helped form this pivotal moment in art history. During this course, analyze and discuss the art, and take three visits to museums and galleries to examine firsthand some important works.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9249 What is Jewish Art? (0 Credits)

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9250 Celtic Art: From the Iron Age to the 20th Century (0 Credits)

This course examines the art of the Celtic world, from its shadowy origins in central Europe’s Iron Age until its reimagination in the 19th and 20th centuries under Ireland’s Celtic Revival. In between, we’ll explore the spread of the Celtic style across Europe to Asia Minor, witness its conversion to Christianity, and explore its influential legacy in early medieval Irish and British art. Come discover the rich artistic traditions of the Celts through breathtaking examples of metalwork, jewelry, enamel, sculpture, and illuminated manuscripts. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9255 Dishing the Dirt on Artists: From Renaissance to Modern Art (0 Credits)

Register for this Fall 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/dishing-the-dirt-on-artists">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website</a>.  This illustrated online course focuses on the gossip (based on facts) and anecdotes relating to artists—famous and infamous—including sexuality, suicides, wars, weird hobbies, rivalries, pitfalls, and commissions. Topics include Michelangelo’s fight with the Vatican, Bernini’s rivalry over buildings in Rome, the truth about van Gogh’s ear, feuds between Matisse and Picasso, Pollock’s drinking episodes, and their ability to create masterpieces through it all. Fall 2023 tuition is $649. Registering at least three weeks prior to the course start date is highly recommended

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9259 Women Artists from the Renaissance to the Pre-Raphaelites (0 Credits)

Art history often focuses on the celebrity genius—exceptional men who mark an era. Too often, extraordinary women artists have been overlooked despite their inventiveness, popularity, and resounding triumphs in their era. Why are works by women artists often overshadowed and even forgotten? This course considers how women had to navigate societal expectations with their drive to be recognized as professionals. Often, they faced difficult choices, sacrificing in their personal lives or career options. Others battled societal and professional restrictions, with mixed results. Even the most admired and accomplished fell into obscurity upon their death, no matter the successes they achieved while living. Together, we will resuscitate and celebrate the art careers of historical women, including breakthrough Renaissance artists Sofonisba Anguissola, Properzia de’ Rossi, Lavinia Fontana, and Elisabetta Sirani; baroque powerhouse Artemisia Gentileschi; Dutch masters Clara Peeters and Judith Leyster; 18th-century British and French academicians; realist Rosa Bonheur; and early modernists Eva Gonzalès and Marie Spartali Stillman.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9300 Art and Archaeology of Ancient Greece (0 Credits)

Join us on a whirlwind tour of ancient Greece. Spanning almost three thousand years, this course offers an overview of key moments in Greek art and culture. Beginning with the beguiling Minoans and ending with the dynamic Hellenistic kingdoms, we’ll explore everything from Bronze Age palaces to Archaic temples; from painting, sculpture, and metalwork to jewelry, furniture, and so much more. This course will provide a foundation in many important Greek archaeological sites, monuments, and artistic achievements. Further consideration will also be given to the history of archaeological discoveries in Greece.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9310 Navigating the Border of Art and Fashion (0 Credits)

Since the advent of the Machine Age around the turn of the 20th century, cultural movements have chipped away at the boundaries between high and low culture, paving the way for vanguard collaborations, like that between designer Elsa Schiaparelli and artist Salvador Dalí. This course explores this increasingly porous border, from the historical to present-day liaisons like Cindy Sherman and Rei Kawakubo, and the street wear collaborations that have given rise to Damien Hirst 501 Jeans and Uniqlo’s reversible Warhol down vest. This one-day workshop also covers the rise of the fashion editor as cultural kingmaker. Discuss why art museums consider fashion so bankable; why art foundations love Seventh Avenue; and how fashion/art appropriations can spin out of control, like the social media skirmishes between Marc Jacobs and graffiti artist Kidult.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9317 Art Deco and Beyond: Architecture 1920-1950 (0 Credits)

After World War I (and the pandemic of 1918–20), architects sought a way to be modern, though no one could agree on what “modern” meant. Architecture for the next 30 years was a joy ride through competing visions of what the 20th century should look like. We will look at Art Deco (impossible to define but you know it when you see it), Art Moderne, Modern Classicism, International Style Modernism, and more, and at architecture in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Scandinavia, Japan, and the U.S.—not least New York—in lavishly illustrated lectures. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9334 The Fashion Designer as an Artist (0 Credits)

Fashion and art, two apparently very different worlds, have been crossing over and merging for the past century, right up to the present day, as contemporary art and fashion collaborations have become the norm, from the runway to the high street. Design labels such as Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, and Comme des Garçons have expressed vision so forward and revolutionary that it deems to be called art. This has been the theme for record-breaking museum exhibits, such as Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the Met, which presented the work of the fashion designer as an artist, and David Bowie Is at the V&A, which explored the relationship between the artist and fashion designers. Upon closing her store in January 2016, Patricia Field boldly created Art/Fashion, an online platform for artists who make bespoke clothing. This course explores the exciting relationship between fashion and art with visits to current major New York exhibitions and to artists’ and designers’ studios for firsthand experience of the designer as an artist and vice versa. Classes are underpinned by a foundation of vibrant and informative talks and discussions. Whether you are working in the fashion world or are simply a fan of art and fashion, this course is for you.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9335 Art and Architecture of Morocco and Muslim Spain (0 Credits)

Explore the art and architecture of Morocco, a land of desert and sea that has been formed by a fusion of Berber, Arab, Portuguese, French, Roman, and Spanish culture. Examine the architecture, ceramics, woodwork, textiles, jewelry, ivories, and manuscripts of the place Edith Wharton referred to as a “land of mists and mysteries.” We will trace the history of Morocco chronologically from the native Berber culture through Phoenician, Roman, and Byzantine control, and look most closely at the Islamic period. Given the proximity to southern Spain, this course will also examine the art and architecture of the Islamic dynasties in neighboring Andalusia.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9398 Seeing Red: A History of the Color Red in Art (0 Credits)

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9399 Interiors and Architecture: From Classical to Contemporary (0 Credits)

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9401 Friendly Rivals: Matisse and Picasso (1.5 Credits)

Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso were keenly aware of each other’s strong presence in the budding Parisian avant-garde of the early twentieth century. Struck by the other’s genius since their initial meeting circa 1906, each of the two recognized the other to be his only true rival and indirect measure of his own success. Picasso once said, "If I were not making the paintings I make, I would paint like Matisse," and Matisse returned the compliment by stating: “Only one person has the right to criticize me. It’s Picasso.” This course aims to demonstrate that their notorious but friendly rivalry may well have been the genesis of the best work each of them has produced, giving birth to some of the most pathbreaking and lasting works of modernist art. We will compare their immortal paintings; analyze how one’s artistic development influenced and inspired the other; trace how their paths continuously crossed over nearly half a century; and examine how they secretly shared a grand ambition: to singularly revolutionize artistic expression. Françoise Gilot’s captivating memoir, Matisse and Picasso: A Friendship in Art, a first-hand account of the complex lifelong rapport between these two larger-than-life figures, will guide our quest for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of their famous friendship and artistic rivalry. This course is scheduled to coincide with MoMA’s exhibition, “Henri Matisse: The Red Studio” (May 1 – Sept. 11, 2022). It includes in-person lectures and two guided visits to the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9402 An Introduction to African Art (2 Credits)

The term African art encompasses a multitude of regional traditions and a range of stylistic diversity. Explore this complexity by learning some fundamental ways of examining signature art objects of select African traditions. Employ the style-area method to identify their geographic origins, and study these objects in context to discern cultural markers that relate the art to religion and society. In this course, you have the opportunity to handle actual art objects in order to understand their formal qualities, regional identity, and function. The course includes museum visits and readings.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9417 Realizing Their Dreams: Surrealism and Its Women Artists (0 Credits)

This course offers fresh perspectives on Surrealism as it spotlights the significant role women artists played in the Surrealist movement from its earliest days onward. Rejecting the confining roles that their male counterparts often ascribed to them, such as muse, lover, or student, these remarkable yet all too often overlooked female artists lived every aspect of their lives creatively, producing singular bodies of work in which women often feature as subjects with their own desires, as opposed to mere objects of desire. Dorothea Tanning, one of the leading figures among them, may have spoken on behalf of many of her female peers when she said, “I didn’t have time to be anyone’s muse, I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist.” We will study the history of women’s participation in Surrealism’s past; consider their contributions as integral to the movement’s continuing appeal and success; and tap into “Surrealism Beyond Borders,” a landmark exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that features works by Dorothea Tanning, Frida Kahlo, Leonor Fini, Méret Oppenheim, Dora Maar, Leonora Carrington, and others. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9500 Antique Skyscrapers and the Tycoons Who Built Them (0 Credits)

Register for this Fall 2022 course on the new<a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/antique-skyscrapers-and-the-tycoons-who-built-them"> NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a><a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/antique-skyscrapers-and-the-tycoons-who-built-them"> </a>website. <meta charset="utf-8" />More than a century ago, towering marvels like the Flatiron Building thrilled the public and transformed cities across America. Take a tour of the best of these elegant landmarks still standing today. Starting with the first skyscrapers in New York and Chicago, we will see how they sparked a radical and permanent transformation of skylines everywhere, from Boston to Miami, San Francisco to Pittsburgh, and Vancouver to Liverpool. The discussion includes surprising details about the architects and millionaires behind these first skyscrapers. Illustrated throughout with vintage postcards, historic images, and colorful photography showing these buildings up close. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289. Fall 2022 tuition is $299.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9501 Old Masters and Mistresses of the Renaissance and the Baroque (0 Credits)

Register for this Fall 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/old-masters-and-mistresses-of-the-renaissance-and-the-baroque">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website</a>. This course presents a unique comparative study of extraordinary artists, both men and women, of the Renaissance and the Baroque era. To rectify a long history of prejudice and gender disparity in the art world, we will pair groundbreaking works by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael with works by hidden, silenced or forgotten women artists, including sculptor Properzia de’ Rossi (1490-1530), self-taught nun-artist Suor Plautilla Nelli (1524-1588), King Philip II of Spain’s court painter Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625), and mannerist painter Lavina Fontana (1552–1614), who is believed to be the first woman in Western art history to paint nudes from life. We will compare artists from the Baroque era such as Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1653), Frans Hals and Judith Leyster (1609–1660), and many more. Topics will include: the gendered barriers women artists faced and their exclusion from written histories; the long-held myth of the (male) artistic genius; the current push for restoration, reattribution, and rediscovery of works by women artists; and the ongoing gender disparities in the art market. Visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art will accompany our study. Fall 2023 tuition is $849. Registering at least three weeks prior to the course start date is highly recommended.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9502 Face to Face: The Art of the Portrait (0 Credits)

Explore the Met’s superb collection of European and American paintings to study the evolution of portraiture from a literal representation of a living person to the more abstract modernist portrait. Beginning with traditional Renaissance portraiture and culminating with Picasso’s famous proto-cubist portrait of Gertrude Stein, we retrace the history of portraiture across a 500-year continuum, from van Eyck to van Gogh and beyond. Artists discussed include Petrus Christus, van Dyck, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Goya, Cézanne, Sargent, Rosa Bonheur, and Cassatt.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9503 Egyptian Art Transformed (0 Credits)

Discover anew the civilization of Ancient Egypt, one of the most fascinating of antiquity, as we trace the fundamental forms, function, and symbolism of ancient Egyptian art. Explore the culture’s historically transformative aspects, including the invention of the alphabet, construction of the pyramids, Akhenaten’s religious revolution, female pharaohs, and the influence of Egyptian art on contemporary cultures. Examine the new exhibition Between the Old and the New: Middle Kingdom Egypt at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sessions include museum visits.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9504 Art and the Edible: Food in Modern and Contemporary Art (1.5 Credits)

Food, drink, and culinary themes have been central elements in the history of modern and contemporary art—as reflected in numerous works, including Andy Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s Soup Cans and Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party. Learn about some of the most significant artistic developments of the past 150 years through the unique lens of food and eating. By using a subject (and often medium) with such history and familiarity as food, artists have been able to stretch artistic boundaries to new limits and to comment on various aspects of society. Key artistic movements explored include impressionism, cubism, futurism, surrealism, pop art, eat art, fluxus, feminist art, and various examples of contemporary installation and performance.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9505 Monet's Cities: Paris, London, Venice, and Giverny (0 Credits)

Claude Monet, a master of color and brushstroke, has influenced generations of painters. What is the magic of Monet’s work that inspires artists as well as viewers? By capturing light effects on architecture and water in his al fresco paintings, Monet changed how we see the world. In this course, we will look at the ways Monet depicted the cities he lived in and visited during his long life: Paris, London (1870–71, 1899, 1900, and 1901) and Venice (1908). After retiring from travel, Monet painted his beloved gardens in Giverny. The course will take a close look at Monet’s paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9511 A Journey Through Ottoman Splendor: History, Art, Legacy (0 Credits)

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9602 Watercolors in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1 Credit)

In the late 19th century, watercolor became prevalent as a medium that artists employed to create luminous plein-air sketches, preparatory studies, and intimately sized finished works. By virtue of its transparency and its use to enhance drawings, watercolor paintings reveal the hand of the artist. Looking closely at watercolors can give us insights into the intentions and methods of the artists who painted them. We will examine watercolors by artists such as Turner, Whistler, Daumier, Delacroix, Cézanne, Hopper, Chagall, Sargent, Homer, O'Keeffe, Prendergast, Marin, and others whose more celebrated works were painted in oil.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9603 Splendid Legacies: Private Art Collections at the Met (0 Credits)

This course is a study of some of the great private art collections that have been bequeathed to the Met Museum over the years and that form the core of its holdings of Western art. Examine the factors and motivations that inspired these extraordinary gifts, and study the lives, personalities, and tastes of major collector-donors whose legacies continue to enrich the lives of millions of museum visitors. Analyze the considerable power that top benefactors can wield within the museum structure and the privileges that accompany it. Particular attention is given to the Lehman Collection, the Linsky Collection, the Havemeyer Collection, and the Leonard A. Lauder Collection.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9616 Forever Young: Great Artists Who Left Us Early (0 Credits)

This course is dedicated to famous artists whose lives were cut short, be it by illness, accident, war, or suicide. Among them, we find such legends as Masaccio, Raphael, Parmigianino, Caravaggio, Watteau, Géricault, Seurat, Van Gogh, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Egon Schiele, Modigliani, Juan Gris, Eva Hesse, Yves Klein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Noah Davis. These artists had fervent ambitions and immense talent, but unfortunately, their lives were tragically shortened before they could fully realize their potential. While their premature deaths may have played a part in festooning their iconic status, it is impossible to ignore the groundbreaking work they produced during their short lives. Despite their untimely ends, their artistic legacies live on, reminding us of the fleeting nature of life and the power of artistic expression. As Longfellow famously stated, “Art is long, and Time is fleeting.”

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9624 Art of the Afro-Atlantic: From Eeckhout to the Present (1.5 Credits)

Visualize the Atlantic Ocean as an aqueous continent whose shores join Africa, the Americas, and Europe. The distinct art of this “cultural region” was long in the making prior to Paul Gilroy’s celebrated framing of the modernity of a Black Atlantic consciousness in 1993. This course begins with Gebrandt van Eeckhout’s 1641 portraits of African subjects in Dutch Brazil and considers the making of an Afro-Atlantic art/ethos by examining the content of specific works of art, including the art of selected emissaries of a Black Atlantic consciousness: Emanoel Araújo (Brazil), Romare Bearden (US), José Bedia (Cuba/US), Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (UK), Mel Edwards (US), El Anatsui (Ghana), Ana Mendieta (Cuba/US), Rosana Paulino (Brazil), Kara Walker (US), and Dominique Zinkpè (Benin). The diverse art styles and practices of these artists are unified through a common art/ethos that is informed by the historical interface of Amerindian, classical African, and European arts and customs. Our discourse frames the Atlantic world within issues and topics such as post-black art, fashion modes, cultural imperialism, diffusion, and deconstruction.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9701 Futuristic Fashion: Exploring the Intersection of Fashion and Technology (0 Credits)

Step into the world of tomorrow in which fashion and technology merge seamlessly. This course will highlight the pioneers of avant-garde fashion, such as Hussein Chalayan, Alexander McQueen, and Rei Kawakubo, and explore the forefront of the latest wearable technology to date—from 3D printing to nanotextiles to virtual reality. We will screen the most futuristic fashions ever caught on film and unearth memorable trend forecasts for the future. The class will include guest lectures from world-renowned fashion innovators, museum field trips, and hands-on workshop sessions designed to stimulate your creativity. By sketching and collaging, you will design and present a five-piece collection that pushes fashion forward. Each week, get an insider’s view into the fashion world from Heidi Lee, a recent recipient of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Award.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9702 The Surreal Universe of René Magritte (0 Credits)

René Magritte (1898–1967), a Belgian surrealist painter, used visual poetry and humor to reveal the mysterious nature of cognition and perception. His ambition was to disturb the art world by shattering the way we usually see things. “All that we see hides something else,” he said. His imaginative works purposefully challenge logic through strange object pairings, dream-like scenes, and obscure titles like “The False Mirror” and “Time Transfixed.” The complex relationship between language and meaning, word and image, as well as the rules of pictorial representation, is most prominently explored in "The Treachery of Images,” his best-known painting. This course gives students a comprehensive background for understanding Magritte's surreal universe through in-class lectures and field trips to museums. Students will investigate Magritte’s word paintings, his thought process, and his philosophical investigations in comparison to those of other surrealists like Salvador Dali, Juan Miró, Leonora Carrington, and Max Ernst. Suzi Gablik's monograph on Magritte will complement our study.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9711 20th Century American Art from Rauschenberg to Asawa: Black Mountain College (0 Credits)

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9713 Americans in Paris (0 Credits)

This course celebrates a distinguished group of 20th-century Americans who elected the City of Lights as their adoptive home. We will research how life in Paris impacted the creative output of American fine artists, including Mary Cassatt, Alexander Calder, and Man Ray; we will read essays, books, and letters by the likes of Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, and Susan Sontag; and we will discuss the legacies of American musicians and performers indelibly linked to Paris, such as Josephine Baker, Blossom Dearie, and Miles Davis. The goal is to examine how these great American expatriates absorbed French culture; espoused its values of liberté, égalité, and fraternité; and contributed significantly to the lively cultural, intellectual, and political dialogue between France and the United States.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9715 The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright (1 Credit)

In his lifetime, Frank Lloyd Wright produced an astonishing range of buildings that are considered icons of modern American architecture. Explore the changing nature of his styles, starting from his 1889 debut in Chicago and his development of the Prairie School and continuing through the 1950s and the period of his last works. Learn about the wide-ranging sources of Wright’s inspiration, as well as his design philosophy, use of building materials, and construction techniques. Situate Wright’s work in the context of his contemporaries. The last session of this course will be held at the Museum of Modern Art to see the major exhibition, Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9716 Art and Spirituality: From Cave Paintings to Picasso (0 Credits)

The relationship between art and spirituality is very rich and complex. The arts always have been part of religion, and they are a natural vehicle for connecting with the transcendent. Sacred pictures, symbols, dances, chants, and hymns have been used in rituals and religious ceremonies since prehistory. Even in modern art this connection, if less obvious and often forgotten in textbooks, is nevertheless central. In this course, we will explore the arts as a link to spiritual paths from a historical perspective. Then, we will focus on modern art and examine how most of the giants of early and mid-20th-century painting shared common spiritual roots. We will see how artists approach their work as a form of meditation. We will attach importance to Kandinsky’s works and his conception of art and spirituality, and we will explore various other modern masterpieces such as Matisse’s work in la Chapelle du Rosaire, Braque’s Atelier series, and Picasso’s Crucifixion and Mother and Child.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9718 Islamic Cultural History: Music, Literature, and Dance (0 Credits)

Explore the cultural history of the Islamic world by examining its literature, music, dance, and art. Each week will focus on a different topic, delving deeper into what makes it uniquely Islamic, including its history, its evolution, and the differences between the terms Islamic and Islamicate in the study of the culture of the Islamic world. Learn about various genres, such as ghazal poetry, qawwali music, and kathak dance, through examples from Rumi, Hafez, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and other artists, both historic and contemporary. Gain a clearer understanding of the place of the arts within the Islamic world and its meaning to the people who inhabit it. If scheduling allows, there will be an opportunity to attend a live performance of one of the cultural arts discussed in class.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9722 Figurative Expressionists of the New York School (1 Credit)

Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, and Jackson Pollock were signature artists who helped to define the canons of abstract expressionism. By habit, we have underexamined their contemporaneous figurative expressionists. The former eschewed the figure in favor of the “gesture,” while the latter put abstract expressionist “process as subject” at the service of humanism. This course examines both paths as symbiotic lanes of the same highway, frequently sharing formalist devices, humble or discarded materials, media as subject matter, art as critique of its precedents, dialogue with non-Western and classical Western traditions, and the influence of Hans Hofmann. Painters and sculptors who will be discussed include Emma Amos, Gandy Brodie, Robert De Niro Sr., Jackie Ferrara, Mary Frank, Irving Kriesberg, Marcia Marcus, Jay Milder, Jan and Dody Muller, Larry Rivers, Anne Tabachnick, and Bob Thompson. Get an inside look at the development of the New York School of the 1950s and ’60s under the guidance of Dr. George Nelson Preston, charter member of the Phoenix Gallery, poet, art critic, professor, and founder of the Artist’s Studio at 48 East Third Street, where he “orchestrated the most important poetry readings ever held in New York” (Fred W. McDarrah, in Kerouac and Friends).

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9802 Art Deco New York Architecture: Exploring the Jazz-Age Metropolis (0 Credits)

Register for this Spring 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/art-deco-new-york-architecture-exploring-the-jazz-age-metropolis">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning </a>website. This class explores the brash style of Art Deco New York architecture through two Zoom lectures and two guided walks. The first lecture traces the style’s development and its post-1950s rediscovery and acceptance in New York City, including Landmarks designations. The first walk visits the great midtown skyscrapers of 42nd Street, while the second covers the residential skyline of Central Park West. The final talk, on the Bronx’s Grand Concourse, includes audio clips from architect interviews the instructor conducted. The class schedule brackets the dates of the World Congress on Art Deco, in Miami Beach, which the instructor will be attending and will be referenced in the course. Spring 2023 tuition is $399.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9803 New York City Through the Lens of Iconic Photographers (0 Credits)

This course will examine the work of noted photographers whose work from the earliest days of photographic image-making to the beginnings of the digital revolution have captured and defined the New York City urban experience. From the early beginnings with Alfred Stieglitz to more contemporary photographers such as Roy DeCarava and Nan Goldin, New York City-based photographers transcend both technologies and styles to portray the life of New York City throughout the media’s history. We will look at the images by prominent New York City photographers, discuss the how, when, and where they photographed as well as their contribution to the canons of photographic history. We will visit the Metropolitan Museum for a tour of their photography exhibition.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9807 Venice Through the Eyes of Artists (0 Credits)

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9813 Modern and Contemporary Design: 1950-2015 (1 Credit)

Learn about the roots, styles, and idioms of modern, postmodern, and contemporary design and decorative arts during the second half of the 20th century. Lectures explore the various media that define design, including furniture, furnishings, interiors, metalwork, textiles, ceramics, glass, and other decorative features. The course begins in the period following World War II and proceeds through the postmodern revolution, minimalism, and the idioms that characterized design during the last two decades of the century, concluding with the 21st century. Sessions include American mid-century design; French and Italian postwar design; the American studio glass movement; postmodernism; post-postmodernism, 1985–2000; and contemporary design.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9843 Art Shaping the American Identity (0 Credits)

Come explore the sweep of American art from the colonial era to the 20th century, placing various artists and styles in the complex narrative of what it means to be an American. During this election season, reflect on our political, social, and cultural roots through the historical lens of paintings, sculpture, photography, and more. Topics include colonial portraiture, landscapes as political visions, everyday life and the emergence of American archetypes, the Civil War and its aftermath, the rise of the city and immigration, urban women’s experiences from 1850 to 1950, and the rise of African American artist voices.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9844 Masterpieces of African Art (0 Credits)

Using historical and contemporary African photographs and films, explore nine highly celebrated works of African art from major international collections and compare them with other works of their genre in African ceremonial contexts. We examine The Great Bieri and the Queen Mother's mask (Metropolitan Museum of Art); Zlan's Mother and Child, and Nkisi Nkondi by the Master of the Chiloango River (Musee de Quai Branly); the Mwana Pwo (the Smithsonian); the Kuba Ndop Portrait and the Akan Memorial Head (Brooklyn Museum); the Luba Cupbearer by the Master of the Buli (Tervuren/Musee Royale); and the Bena Lulua Helmet Mask (Muensterberger Collection).

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9845 From Rembrandt to Richter: A Million-Dollar Odyssey (0 Credits)

Journey behind the scenes of one of the world’s leading auction houses to discover compelling art history anecdotes and fascinating traders’ secrets as we revisit Sotheby’s 2020 Rembrandt to Richter presale exhibition in London. We will watch footage of the subsequent livestream auction of 71 masterpieces, which included works by Rembrandt, Joan Miró, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Bridget Riley, Jenny Saville, Rubens, J. M. W. Turner, Kehinde Wiley, and Gerhard Richter, among many others. This sensational, cross-category live online auction was watched by more than 150,000 people worldwide and achieved an unprecedented commingling of old masters and modern icons on the auction block, condensing time and space and creating nail-biting suspense as the auctioneers’ competing bids skyrocketed, amounting to a new record of over $200 million in sales. This historic auction serves as an exciting case study to dissect the inner workings of today’s art market while shining a spotlight on the various threads that run through 500 years of Western art history.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9846 Manhattan's Gold Coasts (0 Credits)

New York City's upper classes are not insulated within gated communities, which means that anyone can view all manners of residential architecture, from extravagant neo-Renaissance structures to the less-is-more philosophy of the Bauhaus. Join us for an illustrated lecture that explores the history of upper-class living in Manhattan and seven walking tours that cover the architectural style of New York City's Gold Coasts, a term that includes Fifth and Park Avenues, Central Park West, Gracie Square, and Sutton Place.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9848 The Fashion Empire of Bernard Arnault and LVMH (0 Credits)

Bernard Arnault, founder and CEO of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH), the conglomerate consisting of over 50 luxury brands, is arguably the most influential tastemaker in the world of luxury goods. Examine the history of this iconic business and fashion leader, and the history of the companies under his control. Trace the importance of LVMH to the traditional European and American luxury markets and explore their future growth into regions such as China, India, and Russia, where owning branded products is a newly acquired means of expressing status and achievement.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9849 The 'Nobel Prize' of Architecture: Pritzker Winners (0 Credits)

The Pritzker Architecture Prize has honored 31 architects since 1979 for their work demonstrating "significant contributions to humanity and the built environment." Explore the talent, vision, and commitment of some of these winners, including Philip Johnson, I.M. Pei, Zaha Hadid, Oscar Niemeyer, Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, and Renzo Piano. Learn about the criteria of award choices, the breadth of the work of individual architects, and the influence of national and cultural elements on their work. View examples of the Pritzker Prize architects' New York City buildings.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9851 Romanticism and Realism: Great 19th Century Painters (0 Credits)

Throughout the 19th century, major changes in visual expression occurred as European artists responded to contemporary life in increasingly original ways. Artists associated with Romanticism favored rich colors, dramatic compositions and a free handling of paint in subjects that explored realms of the imagination, the exotic, and emotional extremes, while Realism¿s artists depicted everyday subject matter with methods of working that challenged artistic traditions. This course will examine major artworks by Ingres, Delacroix, Gericault, Turner, Goya, Courbet, Manet, and others through slide illustrated class lectures in order to thoroughly examine these exciting and ground-breaking styles within their cultural, historical and artistic context. One Friday evening tour of the 19th Century painting collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be included with the weekly course sessions.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9906 Velázquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer: The Golden Age of Painting (0 Credits)

Catholic Spain and the Protestant Low Countries were politically at odds in the late 16th and early 17th centuries yet both experienced their own independent golden age of painting then. Inspired by the Prado exhibition Velázquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer: Parallel Visions, this course presents an opportunity to discover unexpected affinities between masterpieces by Rembrandt, Velázquez, Vermeer, El Greco, and many others. While the annals of art history have considered the traditions of painting in Spain and the Netherlands to be essentially different, this course juxtaposes the two countries’ artistic achievements in order to establish points of comparison between them and to reflect on their numerous shared traits. No grades issued.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9907 Art and Architecture of the Ancient Roman City (0 Credits)

One of the chief cultural exports of the ancient capital of Rome to the provinces of its vast empire was a systematic model of urban design that embedded a sense of Roman identity in far-flung military outposts and multicultural trading centers. This course explores the extensive surviving architecture of ancient Roman towns and cities, as well as the artworks (both minuscule and monumental) that reflect moments from the daily life of city inhabitants. Sessions address the art of the city of Rome itself and case studies of art from Roman towns such as Ostia, Pompeii, Leptis Magna, Merida, Dura-Europus, and Constantinople. Special emphasis will be placed on ephemeral civic events and the significance of communal public space. The course encompasses Roman communities from Britain to Syria circa 100 BCE–400 CE. One class meeting will be held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9908 Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: Innovation and Modern Life (0 Credits)

Examine the artists associated with impressionism and postimpressionism--including Monet, Renoir, Degas, van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and Cezanne--who pioneered new methods of painting, forming the basis of modern art. While the impressionists sought to capture the optical and transitory effects of light, color, and composition in images inspired directly from modern life, postimpressionists invented new techniques in abstracted form and colors to express individual reactions to modernity. Through illustrated class lectures, explore two of the most popular periods in art history and analyze the dynamic and legendary personal relationships among this close-knit artistic community. One class takes place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9909 Unrecognized: Early Abstract Art by Women (0 Credits)

The history of women who played major roles in the development of abstract art is finally, slowly given its due. The Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), a long-overlooked innovator of abstract art whose historic 2018-2019 exhibition at the Guggenheim caused a sensation, is our point of departure for a re-examined historical perspective that highlights the role of female abstract artists since the genre’s origins. We will learn about a number of women artists who took a lead in championing abstraction, including Georgiana Houghton, Emma Kunz, Sonia Delaunay, Georgia O’Keeffe, Natalia Goncharovna, and Anni Albers, and whose legacies, their contributions notwithstanding, have largely been overshadowed by those of their male peers––until now. Informed by Women in Abstraction, a recent exhibition at Paris’s Centre Pompidou, we will observe how at long last these exceptional artists are given their rightful place in the canon of art history. Furthermore, we will observe how their example spawned subsequent generations of women artists, among them Carmen Herrera, Bridget Riley, Agnes Martin, Alma Thomas, Lygia Clark, Gego, Julie Mehretu, and Torkwase Dyson. Mary Gabriel’s book, Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art, will complement our study.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9910 The Guggenheim at 60 (0 Credits)

This course celebrates the Guggenheim Museum’s legacy as an architectural masterpiece, a “temple of spirit,” and a world-class collection of modern and contemporary art. Coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building, the course offers a study of the history of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; a look behind the scenes of the landmark building; and an in-depth exploration of Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection, a museum exhibit jointly curated by six contemporary artists (Paul Chan, Cai Guo-Qiang, Jenny Holzer, Julie Mehretu, Richard Prince, and Carrie Mae Weems), all of whom have shaped the museum’s history with their own respective solo shows. Other notable exhibitions at the Guggenheim coinciding with the course include Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now and Basquiat’s “Defacement”: The Untold Story.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9911 Splendid Spaces: Artist-Created Environments (2 Credits)

Discover some of the most innovative gardens, sculpture parks, outdoor installations, monuments, and land artworks created in recent history. Conceived by artists eager to transcend the limits of the traditional museum or gallery setting, these unique environments offer fully immersive, mind-altering experiences that break down the historical dichotomy between life and art. We will explore prime examples, many of which have become cult destinations, such as Le Facteur Cheval’s Ideal Palace; Nicky de Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden; Jean Dubuffet’s Villa Falbala; Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels; Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Valley Curtain; James Turrell’s Roden Crater; Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Little Sparta; and Tomás Saraceno's Cloud Cities. We will also discuss a wide range of contemporary artists who operate across multiple disciplines in order to address political, socioeconomic, or ecological issues in imaginative ways, including Theaster Gates, Thomas Hirschhorn, Maya Lin, Mel Chin, Ai Weiwei, and Krzysztof Wodiczko. French philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s seminal text, The Poetics of Space (1958), will serve as an insightful guide as we view these highly original creations, recognizing them not merely as interesting environments, but more importantly as fully realized visions with sensual and spiritual dimensions.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9912 Turning Points: Epiphanies That Transformed Art (0 Credits)

?In 1907, Picasso went to the Trocadéro Museum in Paris. There, he saw a display of Congolese masks and experienced a revelation that would reset the course of modern art. It was then and there, he later recalled, that “I understood why I was a painter. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon must have come to me that very day––yes absolutely!” Four years later, in Munich, Wassily Kandinsky experienced an epiphany of his own when he went to a concert of music by a young composer named Arnold Schoenberg that inspired him to apply principles of atonal music to art. These are all but two examples of a vibrant history of life-changing personal events in the lives of extraordinary artists who radically changed modern art. In this course, we will seek to understand the major role epiphanies have played in shaping the artistic sensibilities of some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. For some, it was a dramatic event, for others a sudden insight. Quite often it was precipitated by traveling (Paul Klee in Tunisia; Anni Albers in Mexico). In other cases, it happened through intense study (Marcel Duchamp and chess; John Cage and Zen), and some experienced epiphanies through contact with spirits (Hilma af Klint; Emma Kunz) and hallucinations (Salvador Dali; Yayoi Kusama). In every case the artist was set onto a new path of what Duchamp called “complete liberation.”

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9913 Visions of New York: Art from the Colonial Era to Today (0 Credits)

Come take a deep look at New York City as depicted by its artists. Their works reveal the Big Apple’s people and places and collectively tell the visual story of the city’s social and cultural history. From Dutch and English colonial beginnings to the American Revolution to forming the metropolis, topics include immigration from the 1850s to the 1930s, the Gilded Age and its underbelly, 20th-century urban realism and social realism, women and their salons, and modern visions.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9944 The Dutch Tradition: From Rembrandt to de Kooning (0 Credits)

The Dutch tradition offers a rich and diverse artistic legacy that spans centuries, featuring the works of renowned painters such as Vermeer, Van Gogh, and Mondrian, all of whom have made significant contributions to the development of Western art. From the mastery of chiaroscuro in Rembrandt's portraits to the bold experimentation of de Kooning's abstract expressionism, the 350-year Dutch tradition continues to inspire painters today (i.e., Jenny Selville, Cecily Brown, Frank Auerbach, and more). This survey of Dutch art, from the Baroque to modernism, begins with Vermeer in Delft, followed by Rembrandt in Amsterdam, then Van Gogh and Mondrian in Paris, and finally de Kooning in New York. Students will explore the diverse range of artistic styles and techniques employed by these painters, including Vermeer's mastery of light and texture, Van Gogh's bold use of color, and Mondrian's geometric abstractions. Furthermore, students will be able to understand the important contributions made by these exceptional artists by looking at their actual paintings, which are prominently displayed in New York museums. Four in-class lectures and four excursions to museums make up this course.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9968 Painting the Cote d'Azur (0 Credits)

Register for this Fall 2022 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/painting-the-cte-dazur">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a> website. Artists have been drawn to the magical landscape and the flamboyant lifestyle of the Côte d’Azur since the 19th century. The colors of the Mediterranean sea and the varied coastal landscape along with the region’s mix of elegance and simplicity inspired many artists from different backgrounds. Through illustrated virtual lectures, we will travel along the coast from Menton to Collioure and look at how painters captured the Riviera on canvas in very different styles. We will also visit the small museums that attest to the creative inspiration artists gained during their short or long sojourns: Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence; Matisse Chapel in Vence; Picasso Museum in Antibes; Matisse Museum, Chagall Museum, and Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice; Fernand Leger Museum in Biot; Bonnard Museum in Le Cannet; Museum Jean Cocteau in Menton; Museum Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer; and the Collioure Modern Art Museum. Apart from Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, and Chagall, we also look at work by Monet, Signac, Braque, Derain, Modigliani, Soutine, Gris, Cocteau, Picabia, Motherwell, Nicholas de Staël, Yves Klein, Françoise Gilot, Niki de Saint-Phalle, and others who stayed in Saint Tropez, Le Ciotat, Cassis, Cannes, Juan-les-Pins, Golfe-Juan, Mougins, and Cagnes-sur-Mer, among other places. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289. Fall 2022 tuition is $699.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9971 Art Here, Art There: Detroit, Chicago, and Mexico City (0 Credits)

The great migration: travelling virtually to Detroit, Chicago, and Mexico City, students will learn about their unique, cosmopolitan visual arts cultures. Detroit and Chicago were both significantly shaped by the Great Migration of African Americans from the American South. Later, Mexicans immigrated in waves to both cities. Mexico City has received artists and artisans from Europe and Latin America for decades, creating a robust art scene. This online course is part of the series Art Here, Art There about modern and contemporary art in major creative centers and markets outside of New York City. While domestic and international travel is restricted due to the pandemic and visits to galleries, museums, and fairs, remain either restricted or non-existent, this series allows art lovers to explore art all over the world from the comfort of their homes. Art Here, Art There goes live inside artist studios, galleries and, when possible, museum exhibitions to give students a first-hand look at art-making in a variety of contexts and interaction with today’s leaders and innovators. The cultural context of each city will be visited to enrich the understanding of art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9972 Art Here, Art There: Los Angeles, Capetown, Dubai (1 Credit)

Becoming contemporary: Los Angeles, Capetown, and Dubai have all been shaped by economic growth and globalization, which in turn has shaped their art scenes.  Los Angeles is best known as an education and production center, Capetown has become known for its museums, and Dubai (and the UAE) is a major art fair destination showcasing art from the region and globally. This online course is part of the series Art Here, Art There  about modern and contemporary art in major creative centers and markets outside of New York City. While domestic and international travel is restricted due to the pandemic and visits to galleries, museums, and fairs, remain either restricted or non-existent, this series allows art lovers to explore art all over the world from the comfort of their homes. Art Here, Art There goes live inside artist studios, galleries and, when possible, museum exhibitions to give students a first-hand look at art-making in a variety of contexts and interaction with today’s leaders and innovators. The cultural context of each city will be visited to enrich the understanding of art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9973 Art Here, Art There: Zurich, Berlin, St. Petersburg (1 Credit)

Building on traditions: Zurich, Berlin, and St. Petersburg represent exceptional cultural heritage—art, music and literature especially, from the late 19th century onwards. This triad of cities are linked by immigration, radicalization in numerous ways, shaping significant artistic movements historically and in the present. This online course is part of the series Art Here, Art There  about modern and contemporary art in major creative centers and markets outside of New York City. While domestic and international travel is restricted due to the pandemic and visits to galleries, museums, and fairs, remain either restricted or non-existent, this series allows art lovers to explore art all over the world from the comfort of their homes. Art Here, Art There goes live inside artist studios, galleries and, when possible, museum exhibitions to give students a first-hand look at art-making in a variety of contexts and interaction with today’s leaders and innovators. The cultural context of each city will be visited to enrich the understanding of art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9974 Art Here, Art There: London, Brussels, Berlin (1 Credit)

Treasures in contemporary art culture: the galleries and museums of London, Brussels, and Berlin are among the finest in Europe. London may seem obvious, but there are hidden venues. Brussels is an often overlooked destination but is unbelievably rich as a cultural capital.  Berlin is a refuge for artists and musicians. This online course is part of the series Art Here, Art There  about modern and contemporary art in major creative centers and markets outside of New York City. While domestic and international travel is restricted due to the pandemic and visits to galleries, museums, and fairs, remain either restricted or non-existent, this series allows art lovers to explore art all over the world from the comfort of their homes. Art Here, Art There goes live inside artist studios, galleries and, when possible, museum exhibitions to give students a first-hand look at art-making in a variety of contexts and interaction with today’s leaders and innovators. The cultural context of each city will be visited to enrich the understanding of art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9975 Art and Archaeology of Pompeii and its Environs (0 Credits)

Register for this Spring 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/art-and-archaeology-of-pompeii-and-its-environs">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning</a> website. Buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, Pompeii and neighboring sites around the Bay of Naples have captured the modern imagination with their astonishing state of preservation. These cities, towns, and estates have yielded remarkable finds, painting a vivid picture of Roman life in the first centuries BCE and CE. This course will explore the material, artistic, and architectural remains of these sites: from frescoes, mosaics, and sculpture to dining sets, jewelry, and furniture; from private villas and gardens to public bathhouses, brothels, and snack bars—even the graffiti scrawled on the walls. This course will also consider the history of exploration in the Vesuvian region and will examine some of the exciting new discoveries to emerge from recent archaeological investigations.  <style type="text/css"> </style> Spring 2023 tuition is $369.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9976 A New World: Art and Literature in the Hudson Valley (0 Credits)

From its early Dutch origins, the Hudson Valley has given rise to and inspired beautiful works of art and literature that reflect on and explore the dreams and anxieties of settling in a new and unknown world. This course pairs the literary work of the American Romantics with the ethereal landscapes of the Hudson River school in an exploration of an America on the edge of greatness, looking back on the darkness of its past. In the works of artists like Thomas Cole, we see the whisperings of Washington Irving and Henry David Thoreau. Through the works of these artists, writers, and more, we can examine more closely the formation of an American awareness that is simultaneously probing and hopeful.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9977 Friendships and Rivalries in Modern Art (0 Credits)

Rivalries among artists can be dangerous and sometimes tragic, but they also can fuel great art. This course is dedicated to the friendships and rivalries among some of modern history’s most celebrated artists, whose often fraught and competitive relationships spurred them on to new creative heights. For example, van Gogh managed to impress his fellow artist Gauguin with his dazzling sunflowers, but their temperamental clashes ultimately led to the infamous incident when the former cut off his ear in a manic fit. Picasso might not have invented cubism had he not felt compelled to upstage Matisse’s fauvism. Willem de Kooning’s breakthrough Woman series owes much to the influence of his younger rival, Jackson Pollock. Our purpose is to illuminate these famous friendships—some obsessive and short-lived, some lasting a lifetime—as significant catalysts for innovation in modern art.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9978 Radical Visionaries: Cézanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh (0 Credits)

<div class="Ar Au Ao" id=":5mu"> <div aria-controls=":84t" aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" aria-owns=":84t" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" contenteditable="true" g_editable="true" id=":5my" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" tabindex="1"> <div class="gmail_default"> <style type="text/css"> </style> Section one has closed.  Please email us at sps.pala.ce@nyu.edu if you would like to be added to the waitlist.  </div> <div class="gmail_default"> </div> <div class="gmail_default">Register for this Spring 2024 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/radical-visionaries-czanne-gauguin-and-van-gogh-spring-2024-in-person">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website</a>.</div> <div class="gmail_default">Explore a period of great artistic upheaval of the later 19th century, when three post-Impressionist painters broke with tradition and thus laid the foundations for modern art. This course celebrates the achievements of Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin, and follows the influences they had on a younger generation of artists in France and across Europe. Inspired by the highly successful 2023 Met exhibition of Van Gogh’s Cypresses and the ongoing Cézanne exhibition at Tate Modern in London, we explore the relationships and artistic parallels between these three pioneering artists. While evidence of an encounter between Cézanne and Van Gogh remains sketchy, literature abounds about the tense friendship between Van Gogh and Gauguin, as well as the equally tense friendship between Gauguin and Cézanne. Although neither of the trio’s artistic visions and personalities matched to form true friendships, they all found common ground in their aim to break up the old traditions of the academy, paving the way for what became known as modernism. Three museum visits are scheduled as part of regular classroom meetings. Spring 2024 tuition is $899.</div> </div> </div> <style type="text/css"> </style>

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9980 A Glorious Century of Women Photographers: 1920s to Now (0 Credits)

Following up on “The New Woman Behind the Camera,” a groundbreaking exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Art in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, this course celebrates the many ways women helped shape modern photography from the 1920’s to the present day. We will explore how women emerged as a driving force in modern photography, bringing their own perspectives to photojournalism, studio portraiture, fashion and advertising work, scenes of urban life, ethnography, and artistic experimentation; and how women photographers continue to be creative forces in our contemporary culture, pushing the boundaries of the medium into fine art territory. Against the odds, these women transformed the extraordinary social and political transformations of the last 100 years into powerful visual testimony. Photographers include Berenice Abbott, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Dorothea Lange, Lee Miller, Claude Cahun, Dora Maar, Diane Arbus, Tsuneko Sasamoto, Sally Mann, Catherine Opie, Carrie Mae Weems, Annie Leibovitz, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, and Deana Lawson. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9981 Sculpture Through the Ages: Depictions of the Human Body (0 Credits)

What do Michelangelo’s Pieta and Huma Bhabha's groundbreaking "characters" have in common? They are separated by 500 years, but both depict the human form. The representation of a person in three dimensions has fascinated artists from the earliest times to today. This survey class will explore how artists from the Renaissance to the 21st century produced sculpture and how their ideas regarding resemblance, movement and expression changed. The boundless desire to create our bodily likeness in space and to tell stories is evident in the works by Donatello, Michelangelo, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Antonio Canova, Auguste Rodin, Camille Claudel, Edgar Degas, Louise Bourgeois, Isa Genzken, Yinka Shonibare, Antony Gormley, Kiki Smith, Simone Leigh and many others. Spring 2024 tuition is $849.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9982 Women Designers of the 20th and 21st Centuries (1 Credit)

In this course we will explore the work of women designers of the 20th and 21st centuries.  Our focus will be in the areas of furniture, lighting, objects, textiles and jewelry design. This course will be a survey of female designers in all countries with a strong design program (even if they were part of a design couple such as Charles and Ray Eames).  The major names from the 20th century include Charlotte Perriand, Eileen Gray, Maria Pergay, Greta Grossman, Florence Knoll, Claude Lalanne, among others.  We will look at their accomplishments and their challenges in a male-dominated world of design.   For the 21st century, we will focus on the enduring appeal of designers such as Zaha Hadid, Pia Maria Raeder, Joana Vasconcelos, among others.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9983 Pivotal Early Works by Great Artists (0 Credits)

This course will chronicle and explore many revolutionary artistic breakthroughs that changed the course of art history forever. In 1499, at the age of 24, Michelangelo dazzled all of Rome with his first Pietà, the only work he would ever sign with his name and a theme he would revisit creatively throughout his life. Picasso’s breakthrough moment occurred in the summer of 1907 when, after six months of intense labor, he completed Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a painting he felt was so radical that he kept it hidden from the public eye for years. Jackson Pollock’s Mural, an 8- by 20-foot painting, completed in 1943, put him on the map and paved the way for his legendary later drip paintings. Our goal is to closely examine the circumstances and dramatic events that led these and other major artists to reach the tipping points of their careers, catapulting them to stardom.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9984 The New American Sublime: The Art of Light and Space (0 Credits)

This course provides an overview of The Light and Space movement of the 1960s, a minimalist art form expressing a uniquely Californian sensibility—with a keen attention to the interaction of light and space and a desire to push the boundaries of perception and experience. Ethereal and atmospheric, the experiences of the Light and Space movement present a striking contrast to a world filled with noise, distractions and chaos. The genesis of the movement occurred in the late 1950s and lasted through the 1970s, with a wide array of Los-Angeles-based artists following similar conceptual philosophies. Chief among them are Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Larry Bell, Mary Corse, and Helen Pashgian––all of whom are still producing their best work. For each of them, the sublimity of the Light and Space experience does not reside in the physical object or even the space where the work is situated, but in the ethereal phenomenon of light itself. Such careful attention to transparency, reflection, light and space evokes the definition offered by German philosopher Emmanuel Kant who describes the sublime as "found in a formless object insofar as limitlessness is represented in it." Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9985 Vienna 1900: Artistic Modernism and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (0 Credits)

Vienna, considered one of the birthplaces of modernism during the turn of the 20th century, is home to the world-renowned paintings of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele—as well as the innovative design and architecture of Adolf Loos, Otto Wagner, and Josef Hoffmann. But Vienna’s artistic revolutions did not occur in isolation. Throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, similar experiments were taking place in the arts, often infused with nationalist yearnings. Explore the history of modernism’s fascinating artistic ferment and experimentation in Vienna and in other Austro-Hungarian cities and regions, including Budapest, Prague, Zagreb, and Lviv.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9986 Before the Selfie: Six Hundred Years of Self-Portraits (0 Credits)

This course is full! To be added to waitlist please email us at sps.all@nyu.edu Register for this Fall 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/before-the-selfie-six-hundred-years-of-self-portraits">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website</a>. In 1433, the Flemish master Jan van Eyck painted what has long been considered the earliest self-portrait in the Western tradition. Four centuries later, in 1839, Robert Cornelius, an early photography enthusiast from Philadelphia, took the world’s first photographic self-portrait on record. Today, the internet is inundated with “selfies” by virtually everyone. This course is dedicated to the history and evolution of self-portraiture and will highlight some of its most extraordinary examples, including Albrecht Dürer’s “Self-Portrait at Age 13” (1484); Catharina van Hemessen’s “Self-Portrait” (1548), the first self-portrait of an artist at work at an easel; Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting” (1638); Alice Neel’s first nude self-portrait at age 80 (1980); and Robert Mapplethorpe’s last self-portrait before his untimely death at age 42 (1988). We will examine how, despite their apparent differences, both the painted and photographic self-portrait present the viewer with a glimpse into the rich universe everybody carries within them. Art critic Laura Cumming’s engaging book, A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits, will accompany our study. Fall 2023 tuition is $849. Registering at least three weeks prior to the course start date is highly recommended.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9987 The Radical Strangeness of Philip Guston (0 Credits)

Born Phillip Goldstein in Montreal, Philip Guston (1913–1980) grew up in California as the seventh child of Russian immigrants. An ambitious artist, he enacted almost every role available in the playbook of the American avant-garde: high-school dropout (along with his buddy Jackson Pollock), satirical cartoonist, political activist, New Deal muralist, core member of the New York School of abstract expressionism, and chain-smoking Zen-existentialist. Then, in the early 1970s, a decade before his untimely death by heart attack, Guston made a remarkable volte-face that shocked even his peers by returning to figurative painting, producing a whole new body of work that addressed racism, violence, and political corruption in 20th-century America. In response to a flood of criticism, the artist explained: “I got tired of all that purity. I wanted to tell stories.” Inspired by the controversial postponement of Philip Guston Now, a major retrospective planned for 2020, this course aims to exonerate the artist now deemed “problematic” by examining in great detail how Guston responded to the political horrors of his time, as he traded the transcendentalism of abstract art for a more personal, confessional, allegorical, even apocalyptic series of dark and uncompromising works that spared no one, including the artist himself.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9988 Contemporary Figurative Painting: From Lynette Yiadom-Boakye to Luc Tuymans and Kerry James Marshall (0 Credits)

Figurative painting is going through a burst of innovation right now. Examine its resurgence as a response to times of social change, and explore how a time-honored art form is being reinvisioned to address contemporary issues. We will look at painters who push the envelope of figuration: Michaël Borremans, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Marlene Dumas, Nicole Eisenman, Adrian Ghenie, Kerry James Marshall, Jenny Saville, Tschabalala Self, Amy Sherald, Luc Tuymans, Kehinde Wiley, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, among others.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9989 We'll Always Have Paris: 20th Century French Art as Seen by Great Americans (0 Credits)

The Spring 2022 Course is full but we can add you to a waitlist and inform you if a spot opens or if we run a second section. Please let us know if you wish to be added by emailing us at sps.cala@nyu.edu This course is an American love letter to The City of Lights, viewed through the eyes of a whole coterie of American artists, poets, writers, collectors and composers, who found freedom and stimulation in Paris on a scale not to be found elsewhere. Their story is greatly enriched by their French contemporaries, seminal figures of French twentieth-century art––Matisse, Picasso, Derain, Léger, Braque, Bonnard, Giacometti, Balthus––and the vital art world in which they all coexisted and thrived. Among the most famous American expatriates were Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemmingway, Djuna Barnes, Josephine Baker, Cole Porter, Alexander Calder, Man Ray, Peggy Guggenheim, James Baldwin, Joan Mitchell, and Ellsworth Kelly. These luminaries will serve as our expert guides through the streets of Paris and its art studios, museums, galleries, and hidden treasures. A series of Hollywood classics, from “An American in Paris” to “Funny Face,” as well as American art-historian Jed Perl’s remarkable ode to Paris, “Paris Without End: On French Art Since World War I,” will accompany our study of the French avant-garde and its subsequent impact on American culture. Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9990 Touched by Fire: Van Gogh's Passion (0 Credits)

Register for this Summer 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/touched-by-fire-van-goghs-passion">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website.</a> Van Gogh’s paintings have less to do with possession than with passion—an involvement with the world expressed through a handful of modest yet remarkable images: a woman with her infant, a field overshot with sunlight, a bedroom, and the texture and weight of a sunflower. Through a selection of letters to his brother Theo, we chronicle van Gogh’s life journey, from Amsterdam to the south of France, and discover the work of a self-taught artist who reached toward a world he could not hold but loved nonetheless. Visits to The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim Museum are planned. Summer 2023 tuition is $749.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9991 The Art of Presentation: Portraits of (Famous) Women (0 Credits)

Creating the likeness of women has intrigued artists and fascinated art lovers for centuries. How to depict a woman? In this course, we will look at the wide range of possibilities, from the most famous portrait—Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa—to ultra-contemporary photography, including self-portraits, mythological portraits, portraits in disguise, heroic and state portraits, famous sitters, mistresses, queens, and notorious ladies. Which concepts were important: beauty and grace, eroticism and motherhood, intellect and fame, tragedy and notoriety, nonchalance and sprezzatura, fashion, or simply the je ne sais quoi? This course will examine works by Raphael, Dürer, Boucher, Ingres, Singer Sargent, Picasso, Lempicka, Warhol, Hockney, Sherman, and Leibovitz, among others.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9992 Women in Abstract Expressionism: Joan Mitchell (1.5 Credits)

Joan Mitchell, the important abstract painter, is celebrated in a retrospective at the Baltimore Museum of Art from March 6 to August 14, 2022. In this virtual course, we will explore her interesting life and artistic practice. Mitchell found influences in poetry (by her friend Frank O’Hara and Jacques Dupin), in creations by 19th century artists (Claude Monet) and in music. After her studies in Chicago and exciting years in New York City as a member of the New York School, she permanently settled in France (Paris and Vétheuil) and traveled. Her strength, athleticism, and energy shows in her physically demanding large canvases, but she also worked on a small scale. In her abstract paintings, landscapes transcend into color rhythms, becoming dramatic and poetic dialogues of marks and color: “I paint from remembered landscapes that I carry with me – and remembered feelings of them, which of course become transformed…” Questions? Contact us at The Center for Applied Liberal Arts (CALA). Email sps.cala@nyu.edu or call 212-998-7289.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9995 Theory: The Trajectory of Contemporary Figurative Art (0 Credits)

Taught primarily through discussions, slide lectures, and readings, this course addresses the late Modernist and Post-Modern underpinnings of the emerging contemporary milieu. Students explore the ways in which contemporary artistic practice and critical theory interrelate. This course introduces methods of art criticism, provides an academic and theoretical basis upon which to discuss current artistic practice, and teaches students to gauge personal reactions against established scholarly approaches.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes

ARTS1-CE 9997 The Shock of Abstraction: Changing the Future of Art (0 Credits)

Register for this Fall 2023 course on the new <a href="https://nyusps.gatherlearning.com/events/the-shock-of-abstraction-changing-the-future-of-art">NYU SPS Academy of Lifelong Learning website</a>. More than 100 years ago, avant-garde artists revolutionized art by moving away from figurative art and depicting the visible world which was until then the only known form of artistic creation in the western hemisphere. The idea of an abstract picture without subject matter was radical around 1910 and brought a watershed moment in art. What initially motivated Hilma af Klint, Wassily Kandinsky, Theo van Doesburg, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich, Frantisek Kupka, Sonia Delaunay, artists in different countries, to walk the extraordinary path into abstraction? Fin de siècle concepts found their way into Wassily Kandinsky’s treatise On the Spiritual in Art, which was translated into different languages. This new creative paradigm quickly spread in Europe and the USA as more and more artists became interested in absolute or pure art. Movements in abstraction included Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe and Marsden Hartley in the USA; Futurism in Italy; Constructivism in Russia; and many more. After the horrors of World War II, abstract art seemed to be the only possible way forward. We will also look at some of the postwar movements like Abstract Expressionism and more contemporary expressions of abstraction in painting and sculpture. Fall 2023 tuition is $849. Registering at least three weeks prior to the course start date is highly recommended.

Grading: SPS Non-Credit Graded

Repeatable for additional credit: Yes