On
Monday, December 15, under the Professionals Campus program of Queens College I
spent an afternoon with beginning art history students in Dr. Deborah Vischak's
class.
(The
Manhattan skyline is a change since my graduate school days.)
The day
was organized by Lauren Cooper who visited the gallery back in July. She works with
Laurie Dorf, AVP for Institutional Advancement. Ms. Dorf introduced the
program; Dr. Vischak moderated; colleague Rona Schneider also participated.
The
event was held in Klapper Hall. It was great to be back there -- the scene of
all those art history classes in the 1970s. At the Godwin-Ternbach
Museum I visited the Daghlian Collection of Chinese Art with director Amy
Winter. Ranging from hundreds of years before the Christian era through to the
nineteenth century, the show focused on ceramics; included were pieces older than
the county of China itself. In addition to plates and bowls, there were small models
of yurts and chicken coops, perhaps for funerary purposes. In particular, pieces
from the Song Dynasty (960-1279) reflected it’s “golden age” brilliance.
