It's easy to forget that the big names of history still have living relatives today.
As the many-times great-grandson of First Lady Abigail Adams, art professor Henry Adams has taken an interest in his famous ancestor. In the second part of Wednesday's Up to Date, we'll talk about how he's putting a personal spin on the historical tales.
HEAR MORE: Henry Adams will speak at 6:30 p.m. April 3 at the Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Public Library as part of the Beyond the Gowns series co-sponsored by KCUR. A free reception precedes the event at 6 p.m.
A specialist in American Art of the 19th century, Dr. Henry Adams has worked at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cummer Museum of Art in Jacksonville, Fla., and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Kansas City. He has also taught at the University of Illinois, the University of Pittsburgh, Colorado College, the University of Kansas, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Adams, now a professor at Case Western Reserve University, has published widely, focusing principally on American artists of the 19th and early 20th century including: George Caleb Bingham, Thomas Cole, John F. Kensett, John La Farge, William Morris Hunt, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, George Bellows, Charles Burchfield, Thomas Hart Benton, John Graham, Fairfield Porter, and David Hockney. He has curated numerous major traveling exhibitions and produced several books and exhibition catalogues, including John La Farge (principal author), 1987; Thomas Hart Benton: An American Original, 1989; Thomas Hart Benton: Drawing from Life, 1990; Albert Bloch: The American Blue Rider (principal author), 1997; and Dale Chihuly: Thirty Years in Glass, 1997. In 1989, in partnership with acclaimed film maker Ken Burns, he produced a documentary on Thomas Hart Benton which was broadcast nationally on PBS to an audience of 20 million.
