Indians, Buffalo and Storms: the American West in 19th Century Art

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Tony Faber to give the next Chiswick Decorative & Fine Arts Society talk

Tony Faber is to give the next talk in the series present by the Chiswick Decorative and Fine Arts Society entitled 'Indians, Buffalo and Storms: the American West in 19th Century Art' on Thursday 8 June.

He has written two works of narrative history, Stradivarius and Fabergé's Eggs, published by Macmillan in the UK and Random House in the US, and given lectures associated with these two subjects at venues including The Victoria and Albert Museum, Bath Theatre, The Library of Congress and the Huntington Library, as well as a number of literary festivals. His career began with Natural Sciences at Cambridge and has been through investment banking, management consulting and five years as managing director of the publishing company founded by his grandfather, Faber and Faber, where he remains on the board. Is also non-executive Chairman of its sister company, Faber Music, a trustee of Yale University Press (UK) and a director of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society.

Artists were never far behind the explorers who opened up the west of America in the 19th Century. Sometimes they painted what they saw. Sometimes they painted what they wished they saw. Either way, painters like Alfred Miller, Frederick Church and Albert Bierstadt have left us a powerful, if romanticised, record of the country and people that the settlers found. Now we can use their pictures to chart the history of the opening of America’s west - the arrival of the railroad, the confinement of native Americans into reservations, and the extermination of the buffalo.

This is a story on a big scale and among the pictures illustrating the lecture are some of the largest and most grandiloquent paintings of the era. After a period of deep neglect, they are now very much back in vogue.

The lecture starts at 8pm on Thursday 8 June in the Malinova Room at The Polish Centre (POSK), 238-246 King Street, Hammersmith, W6 0RF. All are welcome and you are encouraged to arrive early to join the rest of the audience for a pre-lecture drink. Tickets cost £8 for non-members.

May 31, 2017