Prof's talk on Warhol, Wyeth, Basquiat exhibit Oct. 15

4:59 p.m., Oct. 11, 2006--Joyce Hill Stoner, UD professor of art conservation and director of the Preservation Studies Doctoral Program, and guest curator of Factory Work: Warhol, Wyeth and Basquiat currently on exhibition at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pa., will give a public lecture on the exhibit at 2 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 15, at the museum.

In a review of the exhibition, F. Lennox Campello, a Washington, D.C.-based art critic, artist and curator, wrote, “every art student in the country should see...the eye-opening exhibition,” which he calls an “an important documentation of two significant artistic crossroads.” For the complete review, which also will be published in The Crier newspaper, visit [http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/10/05/065343.php]

Wyeth and Basquiat were worlds apart in their backgrounds and their approach to art, according to Stoner. Wyeth, son of Andrew Wyeth and grandson of illustrator N.C. Wyeth, is a representational artist, while Basquiat, son of New York Puerto Rican and Haitian parents, was a graffiti and counter culture artist who died in his late 20s of a drug overdose. Warhol invited them both--Wyeth in the '70s and Basquiat in the '80s to work with him at the Factory, his famed New York studio.

Joyce Hill Stoner, UD professor of art conservation and director of the Preservation Studies Doctoral Program

Stoner said she interviewed Wyeth about his collaborations with Warhol in 1998 for an article in American Art magazine, and from this interview the idea of an exhibition grew. The two artists were friends for more than a decade, with Warhol visiting the Wyeths in Chadds Ford, and each had an impact on the other's work, Stoner said.

Wyeth himself suggested adding Jean-Michel Basquiat “to the mix,” Stoner said, as another instance of Warhol's role of mentor to young artists. The result is the current exhibition, which includes paintings, drawings, photographs, interviews, clippings and audiotapes related to the Wyeth's and Basquiat's years with Warhol.

An art historian and well-known painting conservator, Stoner has been active in her field, serving on the Wyeth Foundation for American Art and the U.S. Senate Art Advisory Committee and authored more than 60 book chapters and articles. A graduate of William & Mary, Stoner received her master's degree from the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, a diploma in conservation from its Conservation Center and her doctorate from UD. She received the American Institute for Conservation Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by University Products, in 2003.

Factory Work: Warhol, Wyeth and Basquiat, which has an accompanying catalog for sale, will be on exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum, located on U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pa., through Sunday, Nov. 19, and will then travel to the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, from Jan. 16-April 8 and the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine, from May 6-Aug. 26.

Article by Sue Moncure

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