Saturday, October 18, 2019
9:00am-6:30pm
New Beford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, MA, United States
An upcoming symposium at the New Bedford Whaling Museum will explore themes and artworks featured in the Museum’s exhibition De Wind is Op! Climate, Culture and Innovation in Dutch Maritime Painting. The exhibition looks at the Whaling Museum’s extraordinary collections of Golden Age Dutch and Flemish paintings through a fresh lens. These treasures are interpreted around the themes of wind, climate, innovation, and the sea as drivers behind a uniquely Dutch national identity of this period. During the De Wind is Op Symposium on Saturday, October 18, 2019 scholars and experts representing a variety of disciplines will discuss these themes in greater depth. Whaling Museum partners for the De Wind is Op Symposium are the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Harvard Art Museums, and the Dutch Culture USA Program of the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The symposium is open to the public and runs from 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Cost to attend is $50 for Whaling Museum members, $65 for non-members, and $25 for students with a college ID. The Whaling Museum is located at 18 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford. Registration information and the symposium schedule are at www.whalingmuseum.org.
Registration is from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on October 18. The symposium will open with remarks by Christina Connett Brophy PhD, The Douglas and Cynthia Crocker Endowed Chair for the Chief Curator at the Whaling Museum, and Roger Mandle, PhD Co-Founder of Design Art Technology Massachusetts (DATMA), Former Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the National Gallery of Art, and former President of the Rhode Island School of Design. Dr. Connett Brophy and Dr. Mandle co-curated the exhibition and will provide an overview of the De Wind is Op artworks and themes.
Dr. Connett said, “The Whaling Museum stewards one of the most important collections of maritime Dutch and Flemish paintings and prints outside of the Netherlands. These artworks will inspire wide-ranging discussions during the symposium on topics such as innovative ship design, the portrayal of atmospheric effects in artworks of this period, Dutch trade and global expansion, personifications of the wind, and much more.”
Symposium presenters include Arthur Wheelock, Jr., Senior Advisor to The Leiden Collection; Lawrence Otto Goedde, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Art, University of Virginia; Chet Van Duzer, Researcher in Residence, John Carter Brown Library, Providence; Joanna Sheers Seidenstein, Stanley H. Durwood Curatorial Fellow, Harvard Art Museums; Antien Knaap, Curatorial Research Fellow at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Benjamin Weiss, Director of Collections and Leonard A. Lauder Curator of Visual Culture, at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The De Wind is Op Symposium is supported by Deborah and William R. Elfers. De Wind is Op! Climate, Culture and Innovation in Dutch Maritime Painting is on view at the New Bedford Whaling Museum until summer 2020.
About the New Bedford Whaling Museum
The New Bedford Whaling Museum is the world’s most comprehensive museum devoted to the global story of human interaction with whales through time, and the history and culture of the South Coast region. The cornerstone of New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park, the Museum is located at 18 Johnny Cake Hill in the heart of the city’s historic downtown. Museum hours: January through March, Tuesday – Saturday, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.; April through December, daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Museum is open until 8 p.m. every second Thursday of the month. Closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Admission is free for Museum members and children aged three and under; adults $17, seniors (65+) $15, students (19+) $10, child and youth $7. For more information, visit www.whalingmuseum.org.
Text from the museum’s press release.
[Image caption: Johannes de Blaauw (1712-1778). Whaleship D’Vergulde Walvis (“The Golden Whale”) passing the tollhouse at Buiksloot on the IJ River, north of Amsterdam, 1759. New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, MA]