Art Historian Dawn Ades to Deliver 2017 Simpson Lecture Her lecture, titled “À Propos Salvador Dalí and Marcel Duchamp,” will consider the friendship and artistic relationship between two important 20th-century artists.

By Erica Turman
October 13, 2017

“It’s a rare treat to hear from the world’s leading authority on any subject. Professor Ades is absolutely the foremost specialist in Surrealist art, and over the past 40 years she has been responsible for many of the most important exhibitions in the field.”

Washington and Lee University will host art historian and curator Dawn Ades, Nov. 16, when she will deliver the Pamela H. Simpson Lecture in Art History. The talk will take place at 5:30 p.m. in the Wilson Hall Auditorium. Her lecture is titled “À Propos Salvador Dalí and Marcel Duchamp” and will consider the friendship and artistic relationship between two important 20^th-century artists who are also the subject of an exhibition Ades opened in Oct. 2017 that is currently on view at London’s Royal Academy of Arts.

The event is free and open to the public.

“It’s a rare treat to hear from the world’s leading authority on any subject,” said Elliott King, assistant professor of art history. “Professor Ades is absolutely the foremost specialist in Surrealist art, and over the past 40 years she has been responsible for many of the most important exhibitions in the field. Having seen her speak all over the world, I am thrilled she is coming to Lexington to present on these two artists and her Royal Academy exhibition.”

Ades is a professor of the history of art at the Royal Academy in London and professor emeritus of the history and theory of art at the University of Essex. A preeminent authority on Surrealism, Dada, abstract art, and Latin American art, she has authored multiple books, including “Close-Up: Proximity and Defamiliarisation in Art, Photography, and Film” (2008), “The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art” (2011) and “Dalí/Duchamp” (2017).

In the 2002 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) “for services to art history,” and in 2013 was promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) “for services to higher education and art history.” She is a former trustee of Tate and of the National Gallery, and is a Fellow of the British Academy, the United Kingdom’s national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.

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

For more information on the lecture, please call (540)-458-8861.