Centennial Lecture Series

The Memorial Art Gallery’s centennial year was presented by Lynne Lovejoy, with additional support from Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull, ESL Charitable Foundation and Nocon & Associates, a private wealth advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. Below is a list of our lectures series from our Centennial celebration called “What’s Up” as well as a few additional programs that we have recorded for your viewing and listening pleasure.

view all lectures

• Sunday, October 21, 2012
  What’s Up: UR Dean Paul Burgett on MAG’s early years.
  Listen to the lecture and view the slideshow
• Sunday, November 4, 2012
  What’s Up: architectural historian Jean France on MAG architecture.
  Listen to the lecture and view the slideshow
• Sunday, January 6, 2013
  What’s Up: Rachael Baldanza, Jeanne Lindsay, Alice Gold and Fred Lipp on “The Creative Workshop, Past, and Present.”
  Listen to the lecture and view the slideshow
• Sunday, February 10, 2013
  What’s Up: Stephen Merritt on Thomas Cole’s Genesee Scenery
  offered in conjunction with Art Reflected: The Inspiration of 100 Years.
  Listen to the lecture and view the slideshow
  
• Sunday, March 3, 2013
  What’s Up: Sue Nurse on “The Herdle Sisters’ Travel.”
  Listen to the lecture and view the slideshow
• Sunday, April 7, 2013
  What’s Up: Betsy Brayer on “George Eastman’s Collection at MAG.”
  Listen to the lecture and view the slideshow
• Thursday, May 23, 2013
  What’s Up: Marie Via on It Came from the Vault: Rarely Seen Works from MAG’s Collection.
  Listen to the lecture and view the slideshow
• Sunday, June 2, 2013
  What’s Up: Curator Nancy Norwood on Dr. James H. Lockhart, Jr. and his print collection.
  Listen to the lecture and view the slideshow
• Sunday, July 14, 2013
  What’s Up: Alan Singer on the Print Club of Rochester and MAG.
  Listen to the lecture and view the slideshow
• Sunday, September 22, 2013
  What’s Up: Marjorie Searl on gifts of art from Emily Sibley Watson and her family.
  Listen to the lecture and view the slide show
• Sunday, October 13, 2013
  What’s Up: Curator Jessica Marten and Rochester Art Club historian Carlos Perez on MAG and the RAC.
  Listen to the lecture and view the slideshow
• Sunday, November 3, 2013
  What’s Up: Artists Luvon Sheppard and Yvonne Cupolo and community leader Hector Arguinzoni on the Allofus Workshop of the 1970s.
  Listen to the lecture and view the slideshow
• Friday, November 8, 2013
  Director’s Circle Lecture: Dana Gioia, poet, critic and former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts.
  View a video of the lecture
• Sunday, December 1, 2013
  What’s Up: Michael Lasser on “Popular Songs of 1913 and the Changing Role of Women as Seen through Songs”
  Listen to the talk

Cell Phone Tours

Experience a deeper level of understanding by listening to our cell phone tours. Access our phone tours by calling 585.627.4132. Tours are free, but your normal minutes apply. The first time you call, you will receive a text message with a link to our mobile site that gives you our complete cell phone tour listings.

Director’s Cell Phone Tour

“A difficult and challenging task.” That’s how MAG director emeritus Grant Holcomb describes the process of selecting just two dozen works for his Director’s Cell Phone Tour. “I wanted the tour to reflect the great breadth of the collection and sought to balance favorite ‘pilgrimage paintings’—major works by acknowledged masters—with more personal, even quirky, choices. And I finished the project knowing that, if asked to do it again, I might come up with a different set of personal favorites.”
view portfolio of images for the Director’s Audio Tour.

view stops

• Stop 101: Thomas Cole’s painting Genesee Scenery
• Stop 102: Albert Bierstadt’s painting The Sierras Near Lake Tahoe, California
• Stop 103: Winslow Homer’s painting The Artist’s Studio in an Afternoon Fog
• Stop 104: Ralph Albert Blakelock’s painting Afternoon Light
• Stop 105: John Henry Twachtman’s painting The White Bridge
• Stop 106: John Sloan’s painting Election Night
• Stop 107: Stuart Davis’ painting Landscape with Garage Lights
• Stop 108: Arthur Dove’s painting Cars in a Sleet Storm
• Stop 109: Edwin Dickinson’s painting Snow on Quai
• Stop 110: Joseph Cornell’s assemblage The Admiral’s Game
• Stop 111: Isamu Noguchi’s assemblage Calligraphics
• Stop 112: Fairfield Porter’s painting The Beginning of the Fields
• Stop 113: John McQueen’s Nofreelunch Basket
• Stop 114: Joseph Hidley’s painting Landscape with Figures
• Stop 115: Walter Goodman’s painting The Printseller’s Window
• Stop 116: Hellenistic Wreath of Oak Leaves
• Stop 117: Two Mycenaean Kraters
• Stop 118: 13th century French sculpture of Doubting Thomas
• Stop 119: Jan Davidsz. de Heem’s Still Life painting
• Stop 120: 17th Century Italian Baroque Organ
• Stop 121: Pietro Paolini’s painting Portrait of a Man Holding the Frontispiece to Dürer’s “Small Passion”
• Stop 122: Jean Baptiste Carpeaux’s bronze sculpture The Breton Poet
• Stop 123: Paul Cezanne’s painting View of Mt. Marseilleveyre and the Isle of Marie (L’Estaque)
• Stop 124: Georges Braque’s painting Still Life with Pipe
• Stop 125: Edouard Vuillard’s Portrait of Lugne-Poë
• Stop 126: Chinese Musicians from a Royal Tomb at Shansi

American Collection Cell Phone Tours

Former chief curator Marjorie Searl leads a tour of the 19th- and 20th-century American galleries.

view stops

• Stop 202: Thomas Ridgeway Gould’s sculpture The West Wind
• Stop 203: John Singelton Copley’s Unfinished Portrait of Nathaniel Hurd (1729-1777)
• Stop 204: Asher B. Durand’s painting Genesee Oaks
• Stop 205: George Harvey’s painting Pittsford on the Erie Canal
• Stop 206: Simon Willard’s Clock
• Stop 207: James Henry Beard’s painting The Night Before the Battle
• Stop 208: Mortimer Smith’s painting Home Late
• Stop 209: Kathleen McEnery Cunningham’s painting Woman in an Ermine Collar
• Stop 216: Thomas Hart Benton’s painting Boomtown
• Stop 218: John Steuart Curry’s painting Negro Head
• Stop 219: William Gropper’s painting The Opposition
• Stop 220: Jacob Lawrence’s painting Summer Street Scene in Harlem
• Stop 221: George Grosz’s painting The Wanderer

Exhibition Cell Phone Tours

Hear featured artists speak about their own works (selected Docent Gallery exhibitions).

Poets Walk/Story Walk Cell Phone Tours

These interactive sidewalks bordering Centennial Sculpture Park were a collaboration between the City of Rochester and local nonprofit organizations. Both projects were curated by a panel of judges with input from the community, and in the case of Story Walk, chosen from hundreds of public submissions. To listen, call 585.627.4132 on your cell phone and when prompted for the stop number enter the first four letters of the keyword engraved on the sidewalk.
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Audio Descriptions for the Visually Impaired:

Visitors who are visually impaired can enjoy detailed verbal descriptions of selected paintings. The descriptions are offered at original speed, and at a slightly faster version for those who are accustomed to the speed of screen reader programs.

listen to audio descriptions

• Lilly Martin Spencer, Peeling Onions, ca. 1852
  listen at original speed
  listen at 80%
  read the transcript
• Thomas Hart Benton, Boomtown, 1928
  listen at original speed
  listen at 80%
  read the transcript
• John Steuart Curry, Negro Head, 1927
  listen at original speed
  listen at 80%
  read the transcript
• John Koch, Interlude, 1963
  listen at original speed
  listen at 80%
  read the transcript
• Walter Goodman, The Printseller’s Window, 1883
  listen at original speed
  listen at 80%
  read the transcript
• Claude Monet, Waterloo Bridge, Veiled Sun, 1903
  listen at original speed
  listen at 80%
  read the transcript
• Frans Snyders and Workshop, The Fox and the Heron, ca. 1630-1640
  listen at original speed
  listen at 80%
  read the transcript
• William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Young Priestess, 1902
  listen at original speed
  listen at 80%
  read the transcript

Performances on the Italian Baroque Organ

Enjoy excerpts from organ performances held at 1:00 and 3:00 every Sunday at MAG. CDs are also available from the Gallery Store.

listen to organ performance excerpts

• Eastman Italian Baroque Organ – Excerpt 1: Girolamo Frescobaldi (1532-1643), beginning of the Toccata Quarta, from Il secondo libro di toccate, 1627, performed by Hans Davidsson
• Eastman Italian Baroque Organ – Excerpt 2: Girolamo Frescobaldi (1532-1643), excerpt from the Bergamasca, from Fiori musicali, 1635, performed by Hans Davidsson
• Eastman Italian Baroque Organ – Excerpt 3: Michelangelo Rossi (1601/2-1656), beginning of the Toccata Quarta, from Toccate e correnti d’intavolatura d’organo e cembalo, ca. 1634, performed by Hans Davidsson
• Eastman Italian Baroque Organ – Excerpt 4: Michelangelo Rossi (1601/2-1656), beginning of the Toccata Settima, from Toccate e correnti d’intavolatura d’organo e cembalo, ca. 1634, performed by Hans Davidsson
• Eastman Italian Baroque Organ – Excerpt 5: Domenico Zipoli (1688-1726), beginning of the Al Post Communio from Sonate d’intavolatura, 1716, performed by David Higgs
• Eastman Italian Baroque Organ – Excerpt 6: Domenico Zipoli (1688-1726), excerpt from the Pastorale from Sonate d’intavolatura, 1716, performed by David Higgs
• Eastman Italian Baroque Organ – Excerpt 7: Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), beginning of the Sonata in C Major (K255), performed by David Higgs
• Eastman Italian Baroque Organ – Excerpt 8: Giuseppe Gherardeschi (1759-1815), excerpt from Sonata per organo a guisa di banda militare che suona una marcia, performed by David Higgs
• Eastman Italian Baroque Organ – Excerpt 9: Paolo Quagliati (ca. 1637-1710), beginning of Canzon II from Toccata dell’Ottavo tuono, 1593, performed by William Porter
• Eastman Italian Baroque Organ – Excerpt 10: Bernardo Pasquini (1637-1710), excerpt from Recercare con la fuga in pi modi, performed by William Porter
• Promenade: A Musical Procession through Paintings at Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York – Excerpt 1: Excerpt from Gregorio Strozzi’s Capriccio primo con partite sopra ut Re Mi Fa Sol La, performed by Edoardo Bellotti on the Italian Baroque Organ, to accompany An Allegory of Hearing, a 16th-century Italian painting
• Promenade: A Musical Procession through Paintings at Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York – Excerpt 2: Excerpt from Girolamo Frescobaldi’s Toccata II per L’Elevatione, Op. 10, no.3, performed by Edoardo Bellotti on the Italian Baroque Organ, to accompany Luca Giordano’s painting of The Entombment
• Promenade: A Musical Procession through Paintings at Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York – Excerpt 3: Excerpt from Bernardo Pasquini’s Partite diverse di Follia, performed by Edoardo Bellotti on the Italian Baroque Organ, to accompany painting of Roman Ruins with Card Players (School of Jan Both)
• Promenade: A Musical Procession through Paintings at Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York – Excerpt 4: Excerpt from Largo from Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto “La Notte,” Op. 10, no. 3, performed by Edoardo Bellotti on the Italian Baroque Organ, to accompany Allesandro Magnasco’s painting The Exorcism of the Waves
• Promenade: A Musical Procession through Paintings at Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York – Excerpt 5: Excerpt from Minuet from Giovanni Benedetto Platti’s Sonata III, Op. 2, performed by Edoardo Bellotti on the Italian Baroque Organ, to accompany Francesco Guardi’s painting of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice
• Promenade: A Musical Procession through Paintings at Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York – Excerpt 6: Excerpt from Allegro from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto in C, BMV 976, performed by Edoardo Bellotti on the Italian Baroque Organ, to accompany William James’ painting of The Riva degli Schiavonni, Venice, Looking West
• Promenade: A Musical Procession through Paintings at Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York – Excerpt 7: Excerpt from Promenade VII, improvised by Edoardo Bellotti on the Italian Baroque Organ, to accompany Bernardo Strozzi’s painting of Two Musicians