LECTURES BY LEE SANDSTEAD

Are you coming to Gothenburg in week 34 (Friday August 25 - Sunday 27)? Click here for the details, e.g., how and when to pay, accommodation, and links of interest, etc. Here is a description of the lectures on 8/26 by Lee Sandstead:

• The Use Value of Art

Art Historian Lee Sandstead will discuss the importance of art under the concept of "use value." This lecture will view the history of art from the standpoint of what that art can do for us, living today, striving to be happy. Starting with the Ancient Greeks, we will focus on how the everyday man used art in his own daily life—and how we can use their art in our own daily lives. Significant discussion will be given to the idea that art can be used by an individual as a technological *tool*--then we will springboard through art history looking for the best *tools* and how to use them.

• Lecture: Master Sculptor: Evelyn Beatrice Longman

If someone told you that there was a 6 ½ foot, bronze portrait bust of Thomas Edison—a masterpiece—would you believe him? If someone told you that there was a 15-foot, gilded bronze statue of a winged, nude male called the Genius of Electricity—again a masterpiece—would you believe him? Surely images such as these would be known by everyone, right? Wouldn't both of these images proliferate through prints and other media?

But yet these two pieces exist, right in front of our eyes, in everyday life. But, tragically, few people know of their existence. They are certainly not written about, not photographed and can only be found in obscure, dated art-historical texts. Why? After 100 years of modernism, these two masterpieces—and hundreds more—have been buried.

The 6 ½ foot bronze portrait bust of Thomas Edison (1952)—the only portrait that he ever sat for--is in Washington D.C. at the Naval Research Laboratory. The 15-foot Genius of Electricity (1915), while now at AT&T's world headquarters in Bedminster, NJ, once stood atop a skyscraper in NYC.

In both cases, the artist is Evelyn Beatrice Longman, one of America's greatest sculptors. Today, she is all but forgotten.

Over the past two years, art-historian Lee Sandstead has traveled through several states locating, documenting and photographing the many works of Evelyn Longman. What he has found, quite simply, is amazing. Come to this stirring illustrated lecture to learn more about Evelyn Longman and learn for yourself why she is a master sculptor—and guidepost.