Curator Talk: Blanche Lazzell and the Advancement of American Modernism - Lecture by Robert Bridges

Curator Talk: Blanche Lazzell and the Advancement of American Modernism — Lecture by Robert Bridges

March 29, 2026 — 2:00pm–3:00pm
Free with museum admission

This program is organized in conjunction with the exhibition Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist, organized by the Art Museum of West Virginia University and generously supported by Art Bridges.

Join Robert Bridges, Chief Curator at the Art Museum of West Virginia University and curator of Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist, for a presentation that will cover Lazzell's life and art, illustrating her important position as a pioneering American Modernist.

Robert Bridges has been a curator for thirty years and currently serves as chief curator of the Art Museum of West Virginia University, which has holdings of over 4,000 works of art. He has curated more than a dozen museum exhibitions since the museum’s opening in 2015, including:
- Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist
- Paintings and Sculptures by Sally and Peter Saul
- Shepard Fairey: Work Against the Clampdown
- a solo exhibition by Nina Chanel Abney
- Independent Vision: Self-Taught Artists from Appalachia
- Studio Window: The Prints of Grace Martin Taylor

From 2001 to 2015, he organized over 80 exhibits in the Mesaros Galleries at the College of Creative Arts, including the international exhibition Ceramic Art from the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute and two national exhibitions featuring the work of American Modernist Blanche Lazzell.

Bridges has written several book chapters and magazine articles. He is a co-editor of the book Blanche Lazzell, The Life and Work of an American Modernist (2004) from WVU Press.