Imagining the Big Moment
8-weeks | Registration opens 2/14/2026 9:00 AM EST
In sculpture and painting, how do artists choose culturally significant stories to depict, and what is their process for building out their vision? How do more contemporary artists take foundational images and remake them to reflect new societal contexts and truths? For example, how does Kent Monkman, a Cree Canadian artist, take the iconic painting by Leutze of Washington Crossing the Delaware and turn it into a contemporary statement about European colonization and the rights of individuals? How do sacred family portraits of the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck influence contemporary portraiture?
John McGiff
John McGiff has been an artist and teacher for over 40 years. He was an adjunct at Drexel and Temple Universities in Philadelphia and was Chair of the Arts Department at St. Andrew's School, an independent boarding school in Delaware, for more than 20 years. He taught studio arts courses and art history and has shown his paintings at numerous venues across the mid-Atlantic region. He and his wife, “The Salt-Point Potter,” live in Dutchess County, New York.