WILSON, N.C. — “Connoisseurship in Art and the Decorative Arts,” the first seminar in a new “Lunch and Lecture Series” hosted by the Barton College Friends of Visual Arts, will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 16, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Led by Barton’s professor emeritus of art and artist-in-residence J. Chris Wilson, this lunch workshop will highlight and cover issues leading to a higher level of connoisseurship for participants and will address topics that will meet the needs of the artist, the collector, and the consumer.
The “Lunch and Lecture” cost is $10 for Friends of Visual Art members and $20 for non-members. To register as a Friend of Visual Arts, visit www.barton.edu/culturalarts. To make reservations, contact Bonnie LoSchiavo at 252‐399‐6477 or email: artgalleries@barton.edu. An RSVP is required for lunch reservations.
Wilson describes a connoisseur as an individual with expert knowledge or training, especially in the fine arts, and possesses informed and discriminating taste. The suffix –ship indicates intent of academic or scholarly pursuit. Ultimately, connoisseurship is the developed, trained judgment necessary to discern the very best of type whether it is a painting, a ceramic sculpture, a glass vessel, a chair, or anything else that might vary in quality and that possesses artistic merit and intent. In addition to debunking the false premise that “taste” is something you either have or do not have, rather than something you learn and develop, the workshop will address issues of quality and best of type and its relationship to value.
Wilson has served on the Barton College faculty for 38 years and now continues as the College’s first artist-in-residence. With a passion for bringing art into the community, Wilson has been involved in symposia, community presentations, and publications on art, decorative arts, and historic preservation. Wilson has also served on the boards of the Edgecombe County Cultural Arts Council, the Arts Council of Wilson, the Board of Advisors for Preservation/NC, and now serves on the board of the Blount Bridgers Museum/Hobson Pittman Memorial Foundation. Most recently, he is working on a 100-painting series “From Murphy to Manteo—An Artist’s Scenic Journey” of which several works are currently on view at the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.
He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Georgia, where he also completed post-graduate work, with Lamar Dodd as his major professor. He has exhibited throughout the Southeast and all across North Carolina. Wilson’s art is represented in numerous public and private collections in the United States, especially in the Southeast, and in England, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
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Questions? Contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu.