# A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts

The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts is an annual public lecture series, hosted by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., based on topics in the fine arts. Established in 1949 from an endowed gift from Ailsa Mellon Bruce and her brother, Paul Mellon, the series held its first lecture in 1952. While the series has featured mainly art historians, artists, composers, journalists, musicologists, poets, and scientists have also been invited to speak on art-related topics.

## History

Established in 1949, the Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts were created as part of an endowed gift to the National Gallery of Art from the Avalon Foundation and the Old Dominion Foundation, ran respectively by Ailsa Mellon Bruce and her brother, Paul Mellon, of the wealthy Mellon family. The series was created in order "to bring to the people of the United States the results of the best contemporary thought and scholarship bearing upon the subject of the Fine Arts," and speakers must be of "exceptional ability, achievement, and reputation." The production of a book based on the talks has been funded by the Bollingen Foundation, run by Paul and his wife, Mary Conover.
The Mellon Lectures began in 1952. Its first speaker was the French philosopher Jacques Maritain of Princeton University, who gave a talk titled "Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry."
Since 1967, the Princeton University Press has published the book based on each talk. In 1969, the foundations merged to form the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
In 1987, the Mellon Lecture did not take place for the first time since its inception. It restarted a year later, with 2020 being the only other stoppage. In that year, the French art historian Yve-Alain Bois was named as the annual speaker, but the event was postponed for a later date. Again, the series would restart in the following year.

## Speakers

A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts :
| Year | Speaker | Affiliation | Lecture Title |
| 1952 | Jacques Maritain | Princeton University | Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry |
| 1953 | Kenneth Clark | Arts Council of Great Britain | The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art |
| 1954 | Herbert Read | Harvard University | The Art of Sculpture |
| 1955 | Étienne Gilson | Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies | Art and Reality |
| 1956 | Ernst Gombrich | University College London | The Visible World and the Language of Art |
| 1957 | Sigfried Giedion | University of Zurich | Constancy and Change in Art and Architecture |
| 1958 | Anthony Blunt | University of London | Nicolas Poussin and French Classicism |
| 1959 | Naum Gabo | Artist | A Sculptor's View of the Fine Arts |
| 1960 | Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis | Yale University | Horace Walpole |
| 1961 | André Grabar | Collège de France | Christian Iconography and the Christian Religion in Antiquity |
| 1962 | Kathleen Raine | Poet | William Blake and Traditional Mythology |
| 1963 | John Pope-Hennessy | Victoria and Albert Museum | Artist and Individual: Some Aspects of the Renaissance Portrait |
| 1964 | Jakob Rosenberg | Harvard University | On Quality in Art: Criteria of Excellence, Past and Present |
| 1965 | Isaiah Berlin | University of Oxford | Sources of Romantic Thought |
| 1966 | David Cecil | University of Oxford | Dreamer or Visionary: A Study of English Romantic Painting |
| 1967 | Mario Praz | Sapienza University of Rome | On the Parallel of Literature and the Visual Arts |
| 1968 | Stephen Spender | Poet | Imaginative Literature and Painting |
| 1969 | Jacob Bronowski | Scientist | Art as a Mode of Knowledge |
| 1970 | Nikolaus Pevsner | University of London | Some Aspects of Nineteenth‑Century Architecture |
| 1971 | T. S. R. Boase | University of Oxford | Vasari: The Man and the Book |
| 1972 | Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich | Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität | Leonardo da Vinci |
| 1973 | Jacques Barzun | Columbia University | The Use and Abuse of Art |
| 1974 | H.W. Janson | New York University | Nineteenth‑Century Sculpture Reconsidered |
| 1975 | H. C. Robbins Landon | Musicologist | Music in Europe in the Year 1776 |
| 1976 | Peter von Blanckenhagen | New York University | Aspects of Classical Art |
| 1977 | André Chastel | Collège de France | The Sack of Rome: 1527 |
| 1978 | Joseph Alsop | Journalist | The History of Art Collecting |
| 1979 | John Rewald | City University of New York | Paul Cézanne and America |
| 1980 | Peter Kidson | University of London | Principles of Design in Ancient and Medieval Architecture |
| 1981 | John Harris | Royal Institute of British Architects | Palladian Architecture in England, 1615–1760 |
| 1982 | Leo Steinberg | University of Pennsylvania | The Burden of Michelangelo's Painting |
| 1983 | Vincent Scully | Yale University | The Shape of France |
| 1984 | Richard Wollheim | Columbia University | Painting as an Art |
| 1985 | James S. Ackerman | Harvard University | The Villa in History |
| 1986 | Lukas Foss | Brooklyn Philharmonic | Confessions of a Twentieth‑Century Composer |
| 1988 | John Shearman | Princeton University | Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance |
| 1989 | Oleg Grabar | Harvard University | Intermediary Demons: Toward a Theory of Ornament |
| 1990 | Jennifer Montagu | Warburg Institute | Gold, Silver, and Bronze: Metal Sculpture of the Roman Baroque |
| 1991 | Willibald Sauerländer | Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte | Changing Faces: Art and Physiognomy through the Ages |
| 1992 | Anthony Hecht | Georgetown University | The Laws of the Poetic Art |
| 1993 | John Boardman | University of Oxford | The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity |
| 1994 | Jonathan Brown | New York University | Kings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe |
| 1995 | Arthur Danto | Columbia University | Contemporary Art and the Pale of History |
| 1996 | Pierre Rosenberg | Musée du Louvre | From Drawing to Painting: Poussin, Watteau, Fragonard, David, Ingres |
| 1997 | John Golding | Artist | Paths to the Absolute |
| 1998 | Lothar Ledderose | Heidelberg University | Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art |
| 1999 | Carlo Bertelli | Università della Svizzera Italiana | Transitions |
| 2000 | Marc Fumaroli | Collège de France | The Quarrel Between the Ancients and the Moderns in the Arts, 1600–1715 |
| 2001 | Salvatore Settis | Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa | Giorgione and Caravaggio: Art as Revolution |
| 2002 | Michael Fried | Johns Hopkins University | The Moment of Caravaggio |
| 2003 | Kirk Varnedoe | Institute for Advanced Study | Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art Since Pollock |
| 2004 | Irving Lavin | Princeton University | More Than Meets the Eye |
| 2005 | Irene J. Winter | Harvard University | “Great Work”: Terms of Aesthetic Experience in Ancient Mesopotamia |
| 2006 | Simon Schama | Columbia University | Really Old Masters: Age, Infirmity, and Reinvention |
| 2007 | Helen Vendler | Harvard University | Last Looks, Last Books: The Binocular Poetry of Death |
| 2008 | Joseph Koerner | Harvard University | Bosch and Bruegel: Parallel Worlds? |
| 2009 | T. J. Clark | University of California, Berkeley | Picasso and Truth |
| 2010 | Mary Miller | Yale University | Art and Representation in the Ancient New World |
| 2011 | Mary Beard | University of Cambridge | The Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from Ancient Rome to Salvador Dalí |
| 2012 | Craig Clunas | University of Oxford | Chinese Painting and Its Audiences |
| 2013 | Barry Bergdoll | Columbia University | Out of Site in Plain View: A History of Exhibiting Architecture Since 1750 |
| 2014 | Anthony Grafton | Princeton University | Past Belief: Visions of Early Christianity in Renaissance and Reformation Europe |
| 2015 | Thomas Crow | New York University | Restoration as Event and Idea: Art in Europe, 1814‒1820 |
| 2016 | Vidya Dehejia | Columbia University | The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Chola Bronzes from South India, c. 855‒1280 |
| 2017 | Alexander Nemerov | Stanford University | The Forest: America in the 1830s |
| 2018 | Hal Foster | Princeton University | Positive Barbarism: Brutal Aesthetics in the Postwar Period |
| 2019 | Wu Hung | University of Chicago | End as Beginning: Chinese Art and Dynastic Time |
| 2020 | Yve-Alain Bois | Princeton University | Transparence and Ambiguity: The Modern Space of Axonometry |
| 2021 | Jennifer Roberts | Harvard University | Contact: Art and the Pull of Print |
| 2022 | Richard J. Powell | Duke University | Colorstruck! Painting, Pigment, Affect |
| 2023 | Stephen D. Houston | Brown University | Vital Signs: The Visual Cultures of Maya Writing |
| 2024 | Anna Deveare Smith | New York University | Chasing That Which Is Not Me / Chasing That Which Is Me |