Paul Crenshaw, assistant professor of art history and archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis, will present a lecture entitled “Value and Judgement in Rembrandt’s Hundred Guilder Print” on Thursday, January 29 at 5 p.m. in Boliou Hall, room 104. A 1990 graduate of Carleton, Crenshaw’s visit is The Edwin L. Weisl, Jr. Lectureship in Art History, sponsored by the Robert Lehman Foundation, and free and open to the public.
Crenshaw’s presentation will focus on the “Hundred Guilder Print,” Rembrandt’s most famous print, nicknamed for its extraordinary esteem and monetary value. He will place the etching within its 17th-century Dutch milieu and within the contexts of both early modern pictorial traditions of Christian healing and Biblical textual associations. The inspiration of the “Hundred Guilder Print” is from Chapter 19 of the Gospel of St. Matthew. However, Crenshaw will also discuss how Rembrandt moves beyond the Biblical text to visualize varying responses to Christ’s healing message.
Crenshaw is the author of several publications, including Rembrandt’s Bankruptcy: The Artist, His Patrons, and the Art World in Seventeenth-Century Netherlands (Cambridge University Press, 2006). His article, “Rembrandt’s Disputes with His Patrons,” appeared in the interdisciplinary journal Dutch Crossings in 2002. He co-authored the catalogue to the exhibition Rembrandt: Beyond the Brush: Master Prints from the Weil Collection at the Montgomery (Ala.) Museum of Fine Arts in 1999. Crenshaw completed his PhD, “Rembrandt’s Bankruptcy,” at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts in 2000. In addition to the publication of his study of Rembrandt’s bankruptcy, Crenshaw is writing a book entitled Rembrandt’s Calumny about the artist’s paintings for the Sicilian patron Don Antonio Ruffo.
Before arriving at Washington University, Crenshaw worked as a photoarchivist at the Frick Art Reference Library, a research associate for the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR), and an education lecturer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has taught at the University of Washington and the City University of New York, College of Staten Island. He is currently a Senior Lecturer of Art History and Archaeology and an Assistant Curator of Prints in the Kemper Art Museum.
Crenshaw received his BA from Carleton College, and his MA and PhD from New York University. His main field of research and teaching is Dutch art of the 17th century. He also teaches classes on Western Art, Baroque art, Northern Renaissance art, and seminars that focus on artists such as Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Artemisia Gentileschi.
For more information on this event, including disability accommodations, contact Patt Germann of the Carleton College Art and Art History Department at (507) 222-4341.