Goldberg Lecture in Art History: Tanya Sheehan

Public Art, Public Health: Jacob Lawrence and the Murals of Harlem Hospital

In this year’s Goldberg Lecture in Art History, Tanya Sheehan will present “Public Art, Public Health: Jacob Lawrence and the Murals of Harlem Hospital.” Sheehan’s talk explores the significant connections between the federally funded murals painted in Harlem Hospital in the late 1930s and the images of health and medicine in Harlem created by artist Jacob Lawrence. It considers how and why a commitment to the publicness of Black care took shape more fully in Lawrence’s private images than on the walls of the municipal hospital.

Sheehan is Ellerton M. and Edith K. Jetté Professor of Art and chair of the Humanities Division at Colby College.

Location: 203 Cohen Memorial Hall