Alyce Mahon to Deliver Annual Pamela H. Simpson Lecture Mahon will discuss the lived and created landscapes of American Surrealist Dorothea Tanning in her Nov. 4 lecture.

By Lily Caldwell
October 24, 2025

Alyce Mahon, professor of modern and contemporary art at the University of Cambridge (U.K.), will deliver this year’s Pamela H. Simpson Lecture in Art History at Washington and Lee University at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 4, in Northen Auditorium in Leyburn Library.

The lecture, titled “Dorothea Tanning and the Search for A Surrealist World,” is free and open to the public.

Mahon’s research specializes in the dynamic between the body and the body politic in Dada, Surrealism, counterculture and feminist art. She has been involved in many international exhibitions as an adviser, catalogue contributor and guest curator including “SADE: Freedom or Evil” for the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona in Barcelona, Spain, in 2023 and “Dorothea Tanning: Behind the Door, Another Invisible Door” for the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid and the Tate Modern in London in 2018, the first major retrospective of American Surrealist Dorothea Tanning.

“Professor Alyce Mahon is one of the world’s leading scholars of Surrealism, the avant-garde and feminist art,” said Elliott King, professor of art history at W&L. “We’re thrilled to welcome a scholar of professor Mahon’s international stature to campus. It is an honor and a fantastic opportunity for students and the wider community.”

“Dorothea Tanning and the Search for A Surrealist World” will investigate Tanning’s world-making, considering the landscapes she lived in and the landscapes she created across media including paintings, ballet designs and sculptures. The lecture aims to share how Tanning’s art expanded the boundaries of post-war Surrealism and paved the way for contemporary feminist art.

Mahon studied the history of art & architecture and modern English at Trinity College Dublin, graduating with a double first and gold medal for exceptional academic achievement. She earned her Ph.D. at the Courtauld Institute of Art, before becoming a professor at Cambridge in 2000 when she was also elected fellow of Trinity College Cambridge. She is the author of “Surrealism and the Politics of Eros, 1938-1968,” “The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde,” and “Eroticism & Art.”

The Pamela H. Simpson Endowment for Art, established in 2011, is a permanently endowed fund to support the hosting of distinguished academic and professional visitors to campus to work directly with students and faculty in W&L’s Department of Art and Art History. Simpson served on the W&L faculty for 38 years; she was the first female tenure-track professor at the university and the first female professor to receive an endowed chair at W&L.