Josh T Franco to Deliver Annual Pamela H. Simpson Lecture Franco will deliver a lecture titled “FERAL (Dance and Art Historical Method)” Sept. 22 in the Wilson Concert Hall.

By Brian Laubscher
September 17, 2026

Artist and art historian Josh T Franco will deliver this year’s Pamela H. Simpson Lecture in Art History at Washington and Lee University at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 22, in the Lenfest Center’s Wilson Concert Hall.

The lecture, titled “FERAL (Dance and Art Historical Method),” is free and open to the public.

Franco’s visit coincides with “FERAL (A History of Art),” his solo exhibition on view at W&L’s Staniar Gallery through Oct. 9. In the exhibition, audiences witness the artist dancing at Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch home in northern New Mexico. Franco has experimented with dance as a means of study for over a decade. In addition to O’Keeffe, he has employed this method to study the work of Martha Graham, Dan Flavin, Lonnie Holley and many others. In his lecture, Franco will present some of these experiments and propose that art history can be a full-bodied practice.

“Fifteen years after Pamela Simpson’s passing, Josh Franco is an especially fitting scholar and artist to deliver the lecture that bears her name,” said Andrea Lepage, Pamela H. Simpson Professor of Art History. “His emphasis on art that is made by hand, and on art history as an embodied, expansive practice connected to lived experience, reflects the kind of intellectual curiosity and openness that defined Pam’s 38 years at W&L. We are delighted to have his exhibition and lecture bring those ideas into conversation with our students and community.”

Franco earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from Southwestern University and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in the same field from Binghamton University. He is a founding member and the current executive director of the U.S. Latinx Art Forum, and he serves on the board of directors of the Joan Mitchell Foundation.

His next book, “Marfa, Marfa: Rasquachismo and Minimalism in Far West Texas,” will be published by Duke University Press in October 2026. Drawing on his own family history in Marfa, Texas, the book examines how Donald Judd’s Minimalist legacy in the town intersects with the rasquache sensibilities of its Chicanx, Mexican American and Catholic communities.

Franco’s art has been exhibited and supported by institutions including the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Art Bridges Foundation and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, where he served as National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Innovator in Residence during the 2025-26 academic year.

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.