Stephen E. Ostrow Distinguished Visitors
ALEXANDER NEMEROV
MARCH 10, 2009
Prof. Nemerov's lecture, entitled "Helen Keller: Making Contact," examined the relation of Helen Keller to the visual arts in America. Exploring the ways in which the turn of century painter Dennis Bunker's landscapes project a sensuous immediacy, which corresponded to to Keller's famous description of her immersion into the realm of language, Nemerov argued for the central place of communication and conviction in artistic and intellectual practice.
Alexander Nemerov, professor of the history of art at Yale, teaches and writes about American visual culture from the 18th to the mid-20th century. His work has focused primarily on painting, but lately he has turned to the study of film, theater, and sculpture. Nemerov is the author of numerous articles and three books: Icons of Grief: Val Lewton's Home Front Pictures (2005), The Body of Raphaelle Peale: Still Life and Selfhood, 1812-1824 (2001) and Frederic Remington and Turn of the Century America (1995).