Mozart to Matisse | The Debussy of the Camera: Art, Music, and Photography at the Turn of the 20th Century

Join CMA curator Kaitlin Booher and members of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra for an afternoon of music and art.

In 1975, British fashion photographer Cecil Beaton called his predecessor Baron Adolf de Meyer the “Debussy of the camera,” because of de Meyer’s atmospheric and luminous lighting in his photographs from the 1910s and 20s. Beaton’s comparison was apt, because de Meyer, like Claude Debussy, was preoccupied with pushing the limits of his chosen medium. They were each influenced by James Abbott McNeil Whistler’s 1870s Nocturnes painting series, which was made at night and hovered between abstraction and representation.

Booher will explore de Meyer’s photographs as a point of departure to consider how American, British, and French artists across media experimented with ideas about modernism, testing acceptable styles and subjects for works of art. The talk will be followed by a live performance by Columbus Symphony musicians.

Tickets are $5 for members, $15 for nonmembers.