Church of the Redeemer has started a Fine Arts Book Club. At its first gathering on Tuesday, September 21, from 6:30-8 p.m., attendees will discuss Magician of the Modern: Chick Austin and the Transformation of the Arts in America by Eugene R. Gaddis.
The biography of Chick Austin, the donor of “The Holy Family” painting to Church of the Redeemer and former director of The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, is the story, in Virgil Thomson’s words, of “a whole cultural movement in one man.” He became director of Hartford’s Wadsworth Athenaeum at age 26 where he was the first to mount a major Picasso retrospective. He staged the premiere of the revolutionary Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson opera Four Saints in Three Acts (with an all-Black cast). Not only a brilliant portrait of an extraordinary man, this wonderfully American story gives us a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into the art world as it was then — and in many ways still is today.
We welcome all residents and visitors in the Sarasota area to join us for this gathering of the Fine Arts Book Club as well as future gatherings of the group. For more information, contact Larry Brown at LarryBrown10@Live.com.
Click here to register for the Fine Arts Book Club.
Future selections for the Fine Arts Book Club include:
Handel in London: The Making of a Genius
by Jane Glover
Thursday, November 18, 6:30-8 p.m.
The City of Falling Angels
by John Berendt
Tuesday, February 15, 6:30-8 p.m.
A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley
by Jane Kamensky
Tuesday, April 26, 6:30-8 p.m.