Douglas B. Dowd, Professor of Art and American Culture Studies, Washington University, St. Louis, and director of the university’s Modern Graphic History Library, will discuss N. C. Wyeth’s commercial images and how the artist situated American consumers in a golden past to meet the needs of a nascent, modern advertising business. The Museum will open at 5:30 p.m. with the program at 6 p.m. and a reception to follow.

Professor Dowd received his BA in History from Kenyon College and an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His work as a writer, illustrator, animator and printmaker addresses the social landscape. Dowd's fine books and prints are in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. Dowd is also active as a curator, essayist and critic in the realm of modern graphic culture, writing on topics in comics, animation and illustration. He writes the blog Graphic Tales and serves as an advisor to the Norman Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.