Barbara Isherwood, Art Education & Writing

Welcome! This website has information on courses I'm teaching at the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies, the Life Institute and Curious Minds, assorted musings on art, and my own photography, art and poetry. Click on the labels at right to find particular topics. Thanks for visiting, and if you'd like to get in touch, it's isherwood dot barbara at g mail dot com.

Art History’s Greatest Hits, Wednesdays, 1:30pm - 3:30pm, Jan. 15 to Feb. 19, 2025

Long before the Mona Lisa, Whistler's Mother, The Scream and American Gothic became art world clichés, each was in its own way a bold statement made by an artist at the forefront of innovation. We will explore how works such as The Birth of Venus by Botticelli, Rembrandt's The Night Watch, Las Meninas by Velázquez, Van Gogh's Starry Night, Vermeer's Girl with the Pearl Earring and Dalí's The Persistence of Memory fit into the context of their creators' careers and the broader culture from which they arose.

This course is presented by the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies.

J. A. M. Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, 1871. Musée d’Orsay.

The Art of Photography: A History, Thursdays, February 27 - April 17, 2025, 12:30-2:30 p.m.

This survey course presents a chronological and thematic overview of the art of photography, from the medium's genesis in the mid-19th century through to contemporary photo-based art. We will explore photography's beginnings, its evolving relationship to the wider art world, photography and modernism, the photograph as document, the role of magazines, street photography, photography as expression, and the position of photography in the post-modern age.

Outstanding images by key artists such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Steichen, Tina Modotti, Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Stephen Shore, Cindy Sherman and Edward Burtynsky will illustrate developments in portraiture, landscape, street photography, photojournalism, colour, experimental processes, digital and more. Prepare to be amazed!

This course is offered through The Life Institute.

Art Through the Ages Part II, Wednesdays, 11:00am - 1:00pm, Mar. 12 to Apr. 30, 2025

Learn about art’s fascinating trajectory from the Age of Enlightenment to the pluralism of today. The great 18^th and 19^th century western art movements of Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism and Impressionism reflect an increasingly secularized society, while Expressionism, Symbolism and Post-Impressionism bring the individual artist’s view to the fore.

In Africa and Oceania, art retains its traditional role in worship and ritual, while providing inspiration for the European avant-garde including Picasso, Gauguin and Modigliani. The birth of Abstraction signals western art’s final emancipation from representation, culminating in Minimalism, Conceptual and Earth Art. Yet the image returns as currency in Pop Art and Post-Modernism.

Contemporary art, ranging from painting and sculpture to installation and multi-media, is explored in its various roles as vehicle for social criticism, signifier of wealth, barometer of the zeitgeist, or as a soothing respite from the daily grind.

This course is eight weeks of two-hour classes, and can be taken in conjunction with Art Through the Ages I, or independently. This course is offered through the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies.