This two-day symposium of leading and emerging scholars from several disciplines will explore the art and architecture of Thomas Jefferson, Andrea Palladio and the development of architecture at the University of Virginia including the work of McKim, Mead & White. The topics to be considered include architecture, decorative arts, landscape, and art. It will take place at the University of Virginia on Friday, November 20 through Saturday, November 21, 2009. The symposium will serve as the key program for two major exhibitions: Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village: the Creation of an Architectural Masterpiece, to be held at the University Art Museum, (September 12, 2009-January 4, 2010), and From Village to Grounds: Architecture after Jefferson at the University of Virginia, (September 15, 2009-May 31, 2010) on display in the main gallery of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, and Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature, and Culture.
Scholars will explore the impact of Andrea Palladio in celebration of the 500th anniversary of his birth as well as Thomas Jefferson's involvement in architecture and the other arts, and the development of the University of Virginia in its architecture and art since 1825. Jefferson owned multiple copies of Palladio's Four Books of Architecture and as he told a friend: "Palladio was the Bible, stick close to it." Jefferson's profound influence on the arts in America extends to architecture, art collecting, furniture, gardens, music, and literature. The first day of the symposium, scholars will address Palladio and Jefferson and Jefferson's interest in the fine arts. This discussion will continue through the second day along with investigations of the development of architecture at the University of Virginia after Jefferson including the designs of McKim, Mead & White, whose Carr's Hill celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.
The symposium is sponsored by the University of Virginia's departments of Art and Architectural History, the University of Virginia Art Museum, the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, the Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature, and Culture and the Page-Barbour and Richard Lectures Committee Endowment. The symposium intends to showcase current scholarship, while at the same time promoting opportunities for new conversations between scholars, architects, museum curators, librarians, archivists, preservationists, and conservationists, who together will identify new research directions.
