Contact:
Dan Carpenter
(325) 673-4587
Marketing@thegracemuseum.org

English art historian to give fakes, forgeries lecture at The Grace

Abilene, TX (February 14, 2007) The Grace Museum will welcome back British Art Historian Nigel McGilchrist back to Abilene Thursday at 6:30 p.m. for a special lecture titled "Fakes and Forgeries."

McGilchrist previously lectured at The Grace in February 2005, and has been a guest of the Museum several times in the past.

His lecture will examine how famous paintings have been altered over time, how these alterations have led to the creation of "look-alike" and "in the style of" forgeries, and the methods used to distinguish fakes from the genuine article.

McGilchrist was a scholar at Winchester College in England, and is a First Class Honours Graduate of Oxford University, where he also won three University prizes and medals in English and in Art History. He is an art historian who has lived in the Mediterranean area - Italy , Greece and Turkey - for more than 20 years, working for a period for the Italian Government's Ministry of Arts as an external consultant in the field of fresco conservation. He was Director of the Anglo-Italian Institute in Rome for six years, has taught at the University of Rome, the University of Massachusetts, and was for seven years Dean of European Studies for Rhodes College and the University of the South at Sewanee, Tenn.

He lectures widely in art and archaeology at museums and institutions in Europe and in the United States . He is currently Chairman of the Board of Editors of the Blue Guides series, the world's oldest English-language cultural and artistic guides: he has contributed to many of the new editions on Italy , and is writing an entirely new Blue Guide to the cultural history and archaeology of the Greek Islands, to appear in March 2008.

While in Abilene, McGilchrist will also lecture to classes at Hardin Simmons and Abilene Christian universities, as well as Abilene and Wylie High schools.

McGilchrist's lectures are generously sponsored by Nita and Doug Drawe, Judy and Larry Godfrey, Jean Hays, Gwen and Greg Kaiser, Dr. Angela Nicolini, and Anca Pacuraru.

The Grace Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; and from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. every Thursday. Admission is free Thursday evening after 5 p.m.

For more information, call 325-673-4587.

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