Watch, Read, Listen

Among the first generation of landscape architects in Southern California, Ralph Cornell (1890–1972) is considered the most influential. His wide scope of projects included college campuses, city parks, and significant residential commissions. Noted architect Brian Tichenor discusses Cornell’s life and milieu while examining three of his highly significant landscape designs. The lecture is presented in collaboration with the California Garden and Landscape History Society.

If England’s King Charles II and his courtiers had had their way, most of eastern North America would have been the personal property of about a dozen men who dreamed of wielding virtually absolute power over their vast domains. Daniel K. Richter, professor of history and director of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the Robert C. Ritchie Distinguished Fellow, explores this neglected chapter in American history and why it still matters.

Lugene Bruno, curator of Carnegie Mellon’s Hunt Institute, and Alice Tangerini, curator of botanical art at the Smithsonian Institution, present an illustrated lecture on recently rediscovered artworks long forgotten in their archives. These botanical illustrations represent significant historical and scientific findings of an earlier era.

David Loewenstein, Erle Sparks Professor of English and Humanities at Penn State, discusses the daring originality of Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” This year marks the 350th anniversary of the great poem’s first publication in 1667. This talk is part of the Ridge Lecture Series at The Huntington.

In his groundbreaking biography of American sculptor Alexander Calder (1898–1976), author Jed Perl shows us why Calder was—and remains—a barrier breaker, an avant-garde artist with mass appeal. Perl is joined in conversation by Alexander S. C. Rower, chairman and president of the Alexander Calder Foundation and Calder’s grandson.