A Conversation at the Westport Arts Center

On Wednesday July 16 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., the Westport Arts Center will host a an in-depth conversation on the work of Robert Cottingham, with the artist and Robert Storr.

Robert Cottingham has been an icon in the world of photorealism. He received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1974-75 and had a retrospective at the Smithsonian Museum in 1986. There is a painting ("Bacon and Eggs") by Cottingham in the Boca Raton Museum of Art, in Florida. There was a special exhibit of his "Star Series" paintings in the Boca Raton Florida Art Museum in 2010.Below is his biography from Wikipedia.

Robert Cottingham (born 1935 in Brooklyn, New York) is considered to be one of most important original photorealist painters.[1] Cottingham's work focuses on items associated as Americana. He studied art at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute. His first solo show was in 1971 at the O.K. Harris Gallery in New York.[2] In 1990, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician, and became a full Academician in 1994. A retrospective of Cottingham's work took place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1998.

Robert Storr is an artist, critic, curator, and in 2006 was appointed Professor of Painting and Dean of the School of Art at Yale University. In 2007 was chosen commissioner of the 2007 Venice Biennale, the first American invited to assume that position. An excerpt from his Wikipedia bio also appears below.

Robert Storr received his B.A. in History and French from Swarthmore College in 1972, and earned an M.F.A. in Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1978. He was reappointed Dean of the Yale School of Art for a second five-year period beginning July 2011 and was the first American commissioner of theVenice Biennale in 2007. He has taught at the CUNY graduate center and the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies as well as the Rhode Island School of Design, Tyler School of Art, New York Studio School and Harvard University, and has been a frequent lecturer in this country and abroad.

From 1990 to 2002 Storr was Curator, becoming Senior Curator, in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art. As a curator, Storr made his mark early with a number of major exhibitions at MoMA and elsewhere, which enhanced the public prominence of such artists as Elizabeth Murray, Gerhard Richter, Max Beckmann, Tony Smith and Robert Ryman. He also organized a number of reinstallations of MoMA's permanent collection, covering such topics as abstraction and the modern grotesque. From 2002 to 2006 he was the first Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. He is considered to be one of the most influential Americans in the art world.

The event is hosted by J.P. Morgan. Admission is $50, and tickets can be purchased online.