Visitors to the Block Museum of Art on February 7, 2018 enjoyed William Blake’s art through music when students from the Bienen School of Music performed two song cycles inspired by Blake: Benjamin Britten’s 1965 Songs and Proverbs of William Blake and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s 1957 Ten Blake Songs. The performances took place in the museum’s gallery surrounded by […]
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Inspired by the work of William Blake, poets Ed Roberson, Reginald Gibbons, Rachel Jamison Webster, and Parneshia Jones joined Tristram Wolff, English and Comp Lit professor for a discussion and expanded reading on February 28, 2018. Wolff addressed the theme of the garden in Blake’s poems, followed by readings by the assembled poets from Blake’s poetry and the poets’ own work. Blake’s […]
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On Tuesday, February 20th Twelve student vocalists from the Bienen School of Music performed Mad Song, a work by Chicago composer, flutist and vocalist Janice Misurell-Mitchell that translates the text and imagery of a William Blake’s poem by the same name into a sonic experience. The performance was preceded by a discussion by Misurell-Mitchell and […]
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In the late 1960s, Blake’s words and ideas permeated the culture broadly and profoundly. Some musicians, such as Jim Morrison of The Doors, were inspired by Blake’s poems and adapted his texts for their lyrics, while others conjured abstract themes in Blake, such as innocence and love, that were associated with the ethos of the […]
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A stunningly illustrated look at how Blake’s radical vision influenced artists of the Beat generation and 1960s counterculture The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is proud to partner with Princeton University Press on the exhibition catalog William Blake and the Age of Aquarius, edited by exhibition curator Stephen F. Eisenman, with contributions by Mark […]
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UCLA Professor of English and Comparative Literature Saree Makdisi joined the block Museum to discuss the historical parallels between Blake’s era and the 1960’s, examining how these concurrent histories are the result of profound changes in politics, economy, art, and society during their respective periods. From the lecture: The [Block Museum] exhibition is one of […]
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On Saturday September 23, 2017 the Block Museum celebrated the opening of the exhibition William Blake and the Age of Aquarius. The capstone of the opening day was “Blake, Now and Then” a conversation with Northwestern University Professor of Art History and exhibition Curator, Stephen Eisenman and W.J.T. Mitchell, Blake scholar, editor of “Critical Inquiry” […]
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Professor Michael J Kramer offers a riff on Hendrix “Love & Then Some: 1960s Protest & Liberation” a panel presented in conjunction with the exhibition “William Blake & the Age of Aquarius“ The Blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness, to finger its […]
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The Block Museum welcomed PBS cameras to the exhibition William Blake and the Age of Aquarius for an inside look into the background and objects in the show. The Chicago Tonight segment was produced by Marc Vitali and narrated by Phil Ponce running on September 28, 2017. A who’s who of great artists and writers […]
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50th anniversary of the ‘Summer of Love’ celebrated with major exhibition and publication Exhibition runs Sept. 23, 2017 to March 11, 2018 More than 200 works featured – including over 50 rare Blake engravings and illuminated pages Catalogue co-published by Block Museum and Princeton University The Block Museum of Art will present a major exhibition on […]
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