| Project Title | Transatlantic American and German Art Perspectives: The Cultural History of the Darmstadt Mastodon, 1800 to the Present Day |
| Project Description |
With generous funding from the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Department of Art and Architectural History at TU Darmstadt hosted an international symposium in Summer 2022. This event coincided with the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt exhibition “American Heiner: A Mastodon is Making History”, which, for the first time in Germany, presented an important selection of historical American paintings and works on paper loaned from major museums in the United States. These artworks were exhibited alongside the Landesmuseum’s Mastodon skeleton, a significant relic discovered in the early nineteenth century by the American artist and naturalist Charles Willson Peale. The symposium brought together scholars and curators engaged in research on transatlantic intersections of art and science, including representatives from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In the Summer semester of 2022, Dr. Allison Stagg also offered a university course on historical American art, focusing on the artworks loaned from U.S. museums to the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, providing students with the opportunity for direct study and critical engagement with these rare transatlantic works. |
| Coordination |
Prof. Dr. Christiane Salge, Department of Art and Architectural History, TU Darmstadt Dr. Allison M. Stagg, AUK |
| Project Partners |
Terra Foundation for American Art Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt |
| Project Duration | Summer 2022 |
| Funding | Terra Foundation for American Art https://www.terraamericanart.org |
| Project Website | www.architektur.tu-darmstadt.de/americanheiner |
| Image Credit |
The Artist in His Museum (detail), 1822 Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827) Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts |
Architektur
