Individual Lectures (Nov. 8, Dec. 13, Jan. 10): $125 per lecture per person. Excursion (Feb. 14): $175 per person.  All four programs: $450 per person ($100 savings!) See individual and package links, below. 

Art & Architecture Study Series I

Thomas Jefferson, Art Enthusiast

Wednesday, November 8, 2023 at 10:00 am
HCF Headquarters, 40 East Bay Street, Community Room
Dr. Emilie Johnson, Curator of Arts and History at Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello

Thomas Jefferson by John Trumbull (American painter, 1756-1843), ca. 1788

Thomas Jefferson had a lifelong enthusiasm for the fine arts, shaped by Enlightenment thinkers and refined through his travels in the American colonies and Europe. As a diplomat, Jefferson found knowledge of the fine arts, particularly painting and sculpture, crucial diplomatic tools as he negotiated American interests with European powers. This session will explore Jefferson’s personal collections, how his tastes formed, and his efforts to bring fine arts to American citizens.

Dr. Emilie Johnson is a curator at Monticello whose exhibitions and installations have featured Thomas Jefferson’s carriages, the material culture of enslavement, classical sculpture, and the Declaration of Independence. She holds a Ph. D in Art and Architectural History from the University of Virginia, and her scholarship focuses on American art, architecture, and material culture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.