A Sneak Peek at the 2020-2021 Lineup
I started teaching a new elective class last school year for the gifted and high-achieving students at my school. It's called Excel, and it's basically an academic enrichment elective, a chance for students to be challenged and to challenge themselves in ways that they often aren't in their regular classes.
Right away, I knew that I wanted to expose them to more fine arts. I came across Art Class Curator and was inspired by what I saw, so I decided to cobble together Masterpiece Monday, a weekly discussion about an art piece. I borrowed Art Class Curator's SPARK acronym to guide discussion and over the course of the year, Masterpiece Monday helped my students appreciate art, think critically about what they saw, express their ideas and listen and respond to the ideas of their classmates, and learn how to be a part of a community of scholars. I think it was a huge success.
Over the last few days, I've been putting together my plan for this coming school year's Masterpiece Monday. Here's what I have so far. This is a work-in-progress, so please excuse any grammatical or titular errors 😋.
Parson Weems’ Fable, Grant Wood, 1939
Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring c. 1665
Franz Marc, Fate of the Animals, 1913
Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-3
Guardians of Eternity, Guardian Figures, Freer Gallery of Art, F1949.20–21
Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Anna of Austria, Queen of France, c. 1622–1625
Barack Obama portrait, Kehinde Wiley, 2018
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2), 1912
Henri Matisse, Icarus, from Jazz series, 1947
Pearblossom Highway #1, 11th-18th April 1986
Edward S. Curtis, Volume 8: Portfolio: plate no. 256 (Chief Joseph)
Autumn Rhythm (Number 30), 1950 by Jackson Pollock
A portrait by Jordan Casteel
A Cold Morning on the Range (c. 1904) by Frederic Remington
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Flying Pins, 2000
Octopus Frontlet, A.D. 300–600, Moche
Michelangelo Buonarroti, Pieta, 1498-99
Thomas Moran, The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, 1872
Robert Delaunay, Endless Rhythm, 1934
Gustav Klimt, The Kiss 1907–08 (make comparisons to work by Tawny Chatmon)
Elizabeth Catlett, Harriet, 1975
Kayla Mahaffey, “Take Action”, 2019
Julien de Casabianca from William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s “Au pied de la falaise”, 1886
The Buddhist deity Simhavaktra, a dakini, 1736–1795 (Asian Art Museum)
A piece by Kevin Peterson
Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781
Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, Panel 1, 1940-41
Something from Simon Stålenhag’s Tales from the Loop
Plains Indian Ledger Drawings, SMAH
Christo, Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-76
Kara Walker, The Katastwóf Karavan, 2018
Tea bowl, White Satsuma ware, Freer Gallery of Art, F1904.323
Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians, 1921
Patrick Dougherty sculptures
Afghan Girl, Steve McCurry, 1984
Works by Lori Nix and Kathleen Gerber
Other possibilities:
Scott Listfield
Kadir Nelson
Josh Keyes
???
I'm sure I'll swap some of these out – I feel like it's weighted a little heavily toward the contemporary side of things – and put them in a different order, but for now, I think I have a pretty solid list.
For comparison, here's last year's group (yikes – the English teacher in me cringes at how ugly this list is):
Two Fridas by Frida Khalo
Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth
Untitled (skull 1982) by Jean Michel Basquiat
black on black pottery by Maria Martinez (with clips from 1972 documentary)
Girl Before Mirror by Pablo Picasso
We the People are Stronger Than Fear by Shepard Fairey
Summer Days by Georgia O’Keeffe
Boxer at Rest (Seated Boxer)
Things Are Looking Native, Native’s Looking Whiter by Nicholas Galanin
Migrant Mother, Dorthea Lange
The Book of Kells
Drowning Girl by Roy Lichtenstein
Keith Haring "Crack is Wack" mural
Norman Rockwell Freedom from Want 1943 (#3 of 4 part series)
The Persistence of Memory, 1931 by Salvador Dalí,
Impression, Sunrise by Monet
Tamalada by Carmen Lomas Garza 1990
Rene Magritte, Son of Man, 1964
Georges Saurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884
Jeff Koons rabbit
Yirawala “Red Plains Kangaroo 1962”
Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich
Composition 8 by 1923 by Wassily Kandinsky
Chauvet cave art
Ansel Adams Moonrise Hernandez New Mexico 1941
Power figures
Nighthawks, 1942, Edward Hopper
Rodin’s Gates of Hell
Chuck Close self-portrait
Chief of the Undersea Kingdom mask, SNMAI
James Jean “Adrift”
Arnolfini portrait (1400s)
Amy Sherald Michelle Obama
Buddha 338
Love is in the Air (Flower Thrower) by Banksy 2003
When we shifted to distance learning, I created Google Slide shows, we did our discussion online, and I added a written component for accountability. In the slides, I added additional reference information, images, and links that I normally didn't include in class. Here's the slide show for Week 35. It was serendipitous that we ended the year with the piece by Banksy right when protests were happening all across the country, one of those yes-of-course-I-planned-it-that-way moments.
All signs point to us continuing with distance learning for the first part of the new school year, so I'm already putting together new slide shows.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, I will have some of last year's students in my classes next year, so there's no way I was going to repeat myself. I have to stay true to my persnickety ways!
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