Join us at the Museum of Northwest Art for a lecture and book signing with Matthew Kangas, curator of the exhibition, Permanent Immigrant: Italo Scanga in the Dale and Leslie Chihuly Collection.
Italo Scanga’s biographer, Matthew Kangas, author of Italo Scanga 1932-2001, will share stories about the artist’s childhood, emigration to the US, and travels back and forth to Italy after his higher education in America and subsequent university art school teaching jobs.
Illustrated with photographs from the Italo Scanga Foundation archive and his book, Kangas will explain the artist’s extraordinarily wide education—how he graduated from American high school in two years, received a BA in one, and attended graduate school at Michigan State University to receive his MFA soon thereafter. His teaching jobs on the East Coast at Rhode Island School of Design and Temple University in Philadelphia coincided with his first marriage and growth of his family. After moving to the West Coast and remarrying, Scanga intensified his friendship with Dale Chihuly and became a regular artist in residence at Pilchuck Glass School. While there, he met and invited many prominent contemporary artists who participated in the process of integrating glass into contemporary art, perhaps his greatest legacy.
Cost: Free for members | $5 suggested donation for non-members
As always, admission to the Museum is free. Want to become a member? Join us today.
Please RSVP using the form below. Questions? Email us at education@musuemofnwart.org.
About the Curator
MATTHEW KANGAS, distinguished art critic and former Smithsonian Fellow, has also received other awards including from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Manufacturers Hanover/ART WORLD critic’s award, the Everson Medal and an honorary degree from Shanghai Teachers University.
Besides becoming a noted expert on ceramics and glass, he contributed reviews and articles for many years to Art in America, Sculpture magazine, Art Ltd., Artweek and other publications, as well as publishing abroad in New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Finland, France and Germany. Midmarch Arts Press of New York has issued four collections of his reviews, essays and interviews. His activities as a juror and curator have involved historical surveys of Northwest art at the City of Seattle’s Bumbershoot festivals, and retrospective surveys of Robert Sperry, Mary Henry, Joe Reno, Jerry Pethick, Michael Lawson and Ronald Hall, among others. He was the North American curator for the Second Korea Ceramics Biennale and organized Breaking Barriers: Recent American Craft for the American Craft Museum in New York. He has degrees from Reed College and Oxford University and lives in Seattle.
Please RSVP using the form below.