More Information
A Taste of Provence with Van Gogh
Tuesday, January 11, 2022, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Hamon Atrium and Horchow Auditorium
Enjoy an intimate and immersive Arts & Letters Live evening featuring the DMA’s stunning exhibition Van Gogh and the Olive Groves.
The evening will begin with a 45-minute tasting class in the Hamon Atrium featuring the culinary riches of Provence. Ignite your senses with a sampling of the olives, cheeses, olive oils and wines of southern France, characterized by the aromatic herbs that grow wild in this area. Scardello Artisan Cheese head monger Rich Rogers and Sommelier Marco Villegas will guide this culinary journey.
Following the tasting, Dr. Nicole R. Myers, Interim Chief Curator and The Barbara Thomas Lemmon Senior Curator of European Art, will lead an in-depth discussion in Horchow Auditorium of Van Gogh’s striking series of olive grove paintings. Produced during the artist’s yearlong stay at the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Van Gogh’s olive groves comprise one of his most ambitious, yet least well known, series. In her talk, Dr. Myers will explore the intensely personal and spiritual meaning the motif held for the artist, while tracing his shifting motivations and stylistic approaches across all 15 paintings in the series.
Close the evening with a self-guided tour of Van Gogh and the Olive Groves, with Dr. Myers in the exhibition gallery to field audience questions.
This event will be limited to 60 people.
More Information
Isabel Allende’s sweeping new novel tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans 100 years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the 20th century.
Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics.
Telling her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.
More Information
A riveting page-turner about a Black classical musician’s desperate quest to recover his lost violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world. Nothing will stop Ray McMillian from pursuing his dream of becoming a professional musician. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the classical music world.
When he discovers that his great-great-grandfather’s fiddle is a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach. But when the violin is stolen right before the renowned Tchaikovsky Competition, both his family and the descendants of the man who once enslaved Ray’s great-great-grandfather claim that the instrument is theirs. Ray doesn’t know who to trust—or whether he will ever see his beloved violin again.
More Information
Thursday, March 10, 7:30 p.m. CST
The trenchant follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Sympathizer, which has sold more than one million copies worldwide, The Committed follows the man of two minds as he arrives in Paris in the early 1980s with his blood brother Bon. The pair try to overcome their pasts and ensure their futures by engaging in capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. The Sympathizer will need all his wits, resourcefulness, and moral flexibility if he is to prevail. Both highly suspenseful and existential, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that cements Viet Thanh Nguyen’s position in the firmament of American letters.
“The literary event of the season.” —Chicago Review of Books
More Information
Monday, March 14, 7:30 p.m. CDT
Brad Meltzer returns with The Lightning Rod, a hugely entertaining, highly anticipated follow-up to The Escape Artist.
Mortician “Zig” Zigarowski discovers something he was never meant to see. That detail leads him to Dover Air Force Base, where he uncovers a dead man’s involvement in a top-secret military unit and his connection to military artist Nola Brown. Two years ago, Nola saved Zig’s life—so he knows better than most that she’s as volatile and dangerous as a bolt of lightning. As Zig and his investigative partner follow Nola’s trail, they discover one of the US government’s most intensely guarded secrets, which holds the key to something even more sinister.
“[T]rust me, this is a terrific, compelling, unputdownable thriller." —Lee Child
More Information
More Information
Tuesday, May 17, 7:30 p.m. CST
In Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on a mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities with sophisticated civilizations: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, medieval Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, where East St. Louis is today. Through cutting-edge archaeological research, Newitz lends insight into how these cities and their populations may reveal something of our own fate.
Enjoy a pre-event tour of the DMA’s exhibition Spirit Lodge: Mississippian Art from Spiro, which includes artifacts with cultural ties to the Mississippian people of Cahokia.