ANNUAL SAMUEL THORNE MEMORIAL LECTURE 2026

with Victoria Johnson, Author Event takes place at The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main Street, Old Saybrook, CT FREE but reservations required – PLEASE REGISTER HERE This event is also available to live stream. Please send an email to [email protected] to request the link and passcode. Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Victoria Johnson shares the dramatic and consequential life of the artist Frederic Church, whose footsteps she followed around the globe for her “absorbing” (Ron Chernow) and “thrilling” (Andrea Wulf) new biography of Church, Glorious Country. Church’s curiosity, bravery, and passion for nature drove him to explore the world, but it was his astonishing talent that allowed him to bring the world to America at a time when landscape photography was in its infancy and most of his countrymen and countrywomen would never see a different country or continent. Exhibited to acclaim abroad, Church’s blockbuster paintings persuaded skeptical critics that the so-called “New World” could, in fact, give birth to towering artists and furnish the subject matter for great art. At Olana, his estate on the Hudson, he forged an enduring masterpiece of architectural, interior, and landscape design. A master artist and citizen, Church brought the world to America, and America to the world. Presented in Frederic Church’s bicentennial year. Victoria Johnson is the author of three books, including the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic. She holds a doctorate in sociology from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Yale. She is Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College of the City University of New York. A light reception and book signing event to follow presentation. The Thorne Lecture is an endowed lecture series that allows the Museum to invite distinguished speakers and thinkers to share their work with the Florence Griswold community. It is named in memory of Samuel Thorne, who served as the Museum’s President in the 1950s. Mr. Thorne’s widow and son established this signature program in 1995.