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The renowned history professor emerita of Princeton, now a visual artist, talks about her new self-illustrated volume of essays with Ira Wagner, executive director of the Montclair Art Museum.
No registration required. This event is part of Succeed2gether's Montclair Literary Festival and will take place in the library auditorium.
Open Book / Open Mind is sponsored by Montclair Public Library Foundation, Watchung Booksellers, the New Jersey Council on Humanities, Rosemary Iversen, and an anonymous donor. We are also grateful for the generous support of our in-kind sponsors, First Congregational Church of Montclair, The George, and Amanti Vino. To support Open Book / Open Mind and other library programs, click here to donate.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nell Irvin Painter is the award-winning author of many books, including "Sojourner Truth," "Southern History Across the Color Line," "Creating Black Americans," "The History of White People," and "Standing at Armageddon." She is the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University and lives in Newark, New Jersey. Since retiring she has established a second career as an artist.
ABOUT THE BOOK
From the New York Times bestselling author, historian and artist comes a comprehensive new collection of essays spanning art, politics, and the legacy of racism that shapes American history as we know it.
Along with Painter’s writing, this collection offers her original artwork, threaded throughout the book as counterpoint and emphasis. Her visual art shows a deft mind turning toward the tragedy and humor of her subjects; pulling from newspapers, personal records, and original sketches, Painter’s artwork testifies to the dialectic of tremendous change and stasis that continues to shape American history.
"Consistently brilliant, restlessly curious and profoundly empathetic...This decades-spanning collection pulls together some of her most elegant, engaged and urgent work. With a historian’s sense of context and a poet’s gift of language she lays bare truths we’ve collectively ignored and points us toward the democratic possibilities we have yet to realize.” —Jelani Cobb, dean of the Columbia Journalism School
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Ira Wagner became the executive director of the Montclair Art Museum in April 2021. A Montclair resident for more than 30 years, Ira began studying photography in 2008, after working on Wall Street for more than 25 years. With an interest in urban history and design, he has focused on photographing the urban landscape. He received his MFA from the Hartford Art School in 2013 and has taught photography at Monmouth University in New Jersey from 2013 to 2021. His project "Houseraising," photographs of houses being raised on the Jersey Shore following Hurricane Sandy was featured in The New Republic, The National Geographic, and was released in a photobook by Daylight Books in 2018. His most recent completed project, "Twinhouses of the Great Northeast," had a photograph included in MAM’s Personal Landscapes exhibition during 2020. Based on images from Twinhouses, he was selected a Critical Mass Top 50 photographer by Photolucida and participated in Review Santa Fe during 2019. As executive director of the Museum, he has added an emphasis on photography in exhibitions and acquisitions, been closely involved in the three year project to reinstall MAM’s outstanding collection of Native
American art, and worked to establish strong collaborations with many community partners.
