The Mary Ann Frable Lecture in Ancient Art | "It's Showtime! Greek Vases and Ancient Performances"
Fri, Mar 22, 2024 | 6:30–7:30 pm
Reynolds Lecture Hall
Among the ancient Greek vases in VMFA’s collection are a number of examples that relate directly to ancient dance, drama, and other types of performance. In this talk, Dr. Tyler Jo Smith will highlight these vases—made not only in the city of Athens but also in other regions of ancient Greece—to show the ways their shapes and decorations have the power to reveal important information about settings, participants, and audiences. She will also consider the ways that vases may have been used within these specialized settings.
The Mary Ann Frable Lecture is presented annually by a distinguished scholar to foster the study and appreciation of ancient Mediterranean art and is supported by the Jack and Mary Ann Frable Fund for Ancient Art.
About the Speaker
Tyler Jo Smith, PhD, is Professor of Classical Archaeology in the Department of Art at the University of Virginia and the Director of the Interdisciplinary Archaeology Program. She is the author of Komast Dancers in Archaic Greek Art (2010), the co-editor of A Companion to Greek Art (with D. Plantzos, 2012), and Religion in the Art of Archaic and Classical Greece (2021).
Smith is also the co-founder of Kerameikos.org and heads the 3D-GV cohort focused on scanning and printing the Greek vase collection and other antiquities at the Fralin Museum of Art at UVA. She is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships for her research. An active field archaeologist, she has worked on projects in Turkey, Greece, Sicily, and Israel. Her current project is a guidebook to the Greek and South Italian vases in Sir John Soane's Museum, London.
$8 (VMFA members $5)
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