This lecture, in memorium of James Sloss Ackerman, Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Fine Art Emeritus, is sponsored by the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

James Sloss Ackerman was born in 1919 in San Francisco. At Yale University his professor, Henri Focillon, wrote to him “Remain faithful to our studies for which you are so well suited.” Ackerman's graduate work focusing on Renaissance architecture was guided by Richard Krautheimer and Erwin Panofsky at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. His innovative approach to the study of art and architecture is demonstrated throughout his work as a thinker, teacher, film producer, writer, and scholar. Ackerman was the Harvard University Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Art Emeritus. He was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, the Prix de Rome, a J.S. Guggenheim fellowship, the Balzan Prize, and a Venetian Leone d'Oro for Architecture. His last work Origins, Invention, Revision. Studying the History of Art and Architecture, was published in 2016.

Guido Beltramini, architectural historian and curator, has been Director of the Centro Palladio in Vicenza since 1991. He has published widely on the architecture of the Italian Renaissance, in particular on Andrea Palladio. His writings include: The Private Palladio (Zürich 2010, Berlin 2009, Venice 2008), Andrea Palladio and the Architecture of Battle (Venice 2009), Palladio (with Howard Burns, London 2009). He is currently working on the first complete catalogue of the drawings of Palladio, which will be published by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2021.

This event is free and open to the public.

Learn more about James Sloss Ackerman Memorial Lecture: Guido Beltramini