Lecture: 18th-Century French Painter Jean-Antoine Watteau

New York art critic Jed Perl will present a free lecture titled “Watteau and His World: The Mysterious Life and Afterlife of an 18th-Century Artist” on Friday, February 20, at 6 p.m. in the Museum auditorium. Perl has been the art critic for The New Republic since 1994.

In a discussion that will range from 18th-century paintings to the writings of Samuel Beckett and the modernist masterpieces of Cézanne and Picasso, Perl will celebrate the French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau, one of the greatest painters of young love and imperishable dreams.

Perl’s most recent book, Antoine’s Alphabet: Watteau and His World, delves into the work of Watteau and his colleagues while highlighting the author’s reflections about the artist. Novelist Jonathan Safran Foer has called it a history and a fairy tale, a work of criticism, and itself a work of art.

Perl has covered the art world for Vogue and The New Criterion and has contributed to The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, and The Yale Review, among others. Among his numerous books, New Art City, was named “Best Book of the Year” in 2005 by Atlantic Monthly.