In Conversation with Stephen Lash: From Crisis to Color
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Stephen Lash, Ocean House’s Advisor on the Arts and Chairman Emeritus of Christie’s, leads an engaging conversation with Susan Fisher, Executive Director and curator of Mystic Museum of Art, to discuss the special exhibit “From Crisis to Color: Derrière le Miroir (‘Behind the Mirror’)”
From Crisis to Color features the artists who reinvented the art world in the terrible aftermath of the Second World War: Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder and more. World War II shattered the morale, economy, and physical environment of its battlefield countries. When General Charles de Gaulle and his entourage set off from the Arc de Triumphe down the Champs Elysées for a thanksgiving service at Notre Dame Cathedral, for the city’s liberation in August 1944, a world of hurt and a desperate need for regeneration awaited them.
From Crisis to Color: Derrière le Miroir (“Behind the Mirror”) traces the remarkable activity of Parisian art-dealer, Aimé Maeght in response to the devastation. Amidst the rubble of war, Maeght knew, art would find a way to mourn inexpressible loss and bring solace; to reclaim freedom of expression; and to foster new means of expression. “I got the idea that great painters should do limited series of lithos, so that the greatest number of people could buy them,” he said—and proceeded to offer prints by the era’s most celebrated Modernists at a fraction of their usual cost.
Refreshments will be served, including wine and cheese.
Reservations are required.
About Susan Fisher:
Susan is the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Mystic Museum of Art (MMoA), having served as the Executive Director of the Taos Art Museum in New Mexico, Director of Development at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, and as Director of Foundation and Government relations at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Fisher has served as a visiting lecturer and adjunct faculty at Temple University in Philadelphia, Rowan University in New Jersey, and the University of Delaware. She wrote art criticism for more than 10 years.
Fisher studied art history at the Sorbonne and museum studies at the Ecole du Louvre. She holds an MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania and two Bachelor’s degrees from he University of California, Santa Cruz- one in studio art and one in French Literature. In Philadelphia, she helped found the city’s first residential cooperative for artist’s, where she lived and worked for 20 years.
