Welcome! This website has information on courses I'm teaching at the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies, the Life Institute and Curious Minds, assorted musings on art, and my own photography, art and poetry.  Click on the labels at right to find particular topics. Thanks for visiting, and if you'd like to get in touch, it's isherwood dot barbara at g mail dot com.

The Making of Modern Art, September 12 to October 17, Fridays, 10:30 am to 12:00 pm, 2025

The radically new ideas and inventions that dramatically changed life in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries transformed art as well. We’ll examine the impact of the industrial revolution, new forms of transportation, scientific discoveries, colonial expansion, secularization and new concepts of spirituality on the development of modern art. Works by Manet, Gauguin, Kandinsky, Malevich, Picasso, Mondrian, Carr, O’Keeffe and others reflect the revolutionary changes that ushered in modernity.  

This course is presented at the JCC, Bloor and Spadina in Toronto, as part of The Speakers Annex series of lectures. Registration is available here and the course syllabus is available here.

 

 

Overnight Nomads

Calling All Explorers

Sweet Charlotte

Destiny

Transformation

Afternoon of a Faun

Fin de siècle