Southeastern to present slide lecture on Picasso muse Francoise Gilot in Let’s Talk Art series
Friday, March 8, 2019
by: Tonya Lowentritt
SLIDE LECTURE TO FEATURE PICASSO MUSE - New Orleans Mac-Gryder Gallery co-founders Jill McGaughey and Garlyn Gryder will present a slide lecture titled “Francoise Gilot: Eight Decades of Artistic Achievement” at Southeastern Louisiana University’s next installment of the lecture series “Let’s Talk: Art.” The free lecture is scheduled March 13 at 5 p.m. in Southeastern’s Contemporary Art Gallery.
HAMMOND – The second lecture in the series “Let’s Talk: Art,” sponsored jointly
by Southeastern Louisiana University’s Department of Visual Art + Design and the Friends
of Sims Library, as well as a special presentation of the university’s Women’s History
Month lectures, will be held on Wednesday, March 13, at 5 p.m., at the Contemporary
Art Gallery on Southeastern’s campus.
New Orleans Mac-Gryder Gallery co-founders Jill McGaughey and Garlyn Gryder will
present a slide lecture titled “Francoise Gilot: Eight Decades of Artistic Achievement.”
The lecture is free and open to the public.
“I’m excited that we’re able to bring Jill and Garlyn to Hammond to discuss one
of my favorite artists,” said Eric Johnson, Sims Library director and co-founder of
the Let’s Talk Art series. “Both are wonderful presenters as well as friends of Francoise
Gilot, and I know that our audience is in for a fascinating talk.”
McGaughey said French painter Francoise Gilot occupies a unique niche in the
modern art landscape as a female giant of the art world.
“At 97, Francoise Gilot remains one of the most exciting and collectible artists
of our century, as well as the preceding one,” McGaughey said. “The presentation will
touch on her early milestones as a member of the burgeoning School of Paris in the
1940s, her experiences during the German occupation, the decade she shared with Picasso
as his muse and the mother of their children Claude and Paloma Picasso, and her remarkable
longevity and continued relevance in a largely male-dominated industry.”
Still active and producing new work, Gilot is truly a living legend in the art
world, McGaughey added. A book of her “Travel Sketchbooks” with accompanying lithographs
was recently published by Taschen, and copies of the book will be available for purchase
after the talk, McGaughey said.
A native of Minneapolis, McGaughey’s early studies in art and music blossomed
into an avid art collecting habit after college. Following a career in marketing and
project management, she moved to New Orleans in 1999 to be part of the vibrant local
art community. She managed the Gustavo Duque Art Center and Bryant Galleries before
becoming a director at the Vincent Mann Gallery, which specialized in French art from
Impressionism to Modernism.
Indigenous to the Deep South, Gryder studied at Loyola University and Trinity
College in Dublin before graduating from Tulane University with a Bachelor of Arts
in the History of Art and from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London with a Master
of Arts in Fine and Decorative Arts. After studying and traveling extensively through
Europe, she returned to New Orleans and co-founded the Mac-Gryder Gallery with McGaughey.
For more information, contact Johnson at 985-549-3962.
