Betty Cooke: The Circle and the Line is the first major museum retrospective of the Baltimore artist’s work. On the opening day of the exhibition, join Ellen Lupton, the Betty Cooke and William O. Steinmetz Design Chair at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA); Fred Lazarus, President Emeritus of MICA; and Jeannine Falino, independent scholar and curator of Betty Cooke: The Circle and the Line, for a discussion moderated by Jo Briggs, Jennie Walters Delano Associate Curator of 18th- and 19th-century Art at the Walters. The speakers discuss Cooke’s inventive jewelry using simple, geometric forms and the Store Ltd., the art and design store Cooke has run for over five decades.

This program takes place in the Walters’ Graham Auditorium.

This program is part of a series inspired by Cooke and her artistic practice that is explored in the exhibition Betty Cooke: The Circle and the Line, on view at the Walters Art Museum from September 19, 2021–January 2, 2022. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication, with an essay by Jeannine Falino and reflections by a number of friends and collectors. The Circle and the Line: The Jewelry of Betty Cooke is published by the Walters Art Museum in association with D Giles Limited; it is available for purchase at the Walters Museum Store.

About the Speakers:

Jeannine Falino explores the relationships between design, craft, and art in American culture. As the Carolyn and Peter Lynch Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, she published Silver of the Americas, 1600–2000 (2007). Ms. Falino has curated numerous exhibitions in decorative arts and design, among them Artistic Luxury: Fabergé—Tiffany—Lalique, (Cleveland Museum of Art 2008) featuring these legendary firms in an international context. At the Museum of Arts and Design, she produced the major survey Crafting Modernism: Midcentury American Art and Design (2011), and What Would Mrs. Webb Do? A Founder’s Vision (2014), an exhibition on the role of advocacy and philanthropy in American craft. At the Museum of the City of New York, she co-curated Gilded New York: Design, Fashion & Society (2013-17). New York Silver, Then & Now brought contemporary artists and designers in dialogue with historic silver (Museum of the City of New York, June 2017-May 2018).  www.jeanninefalino.com

Ellen Lupton is the Betty Cooke and William O. Steinmetz Design Chair at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Lupton has authored numerous books on design processes, including Thinking with Type, Graphic Design Thinking, Graphic Design: The New Basics (with Jennifer Cole Phillips), and Extra Bold (with Farah Kafei, Jennifer Tobias, Josh Halstead, Kaleena Sales, Leslie Xia, and Valentina Vergara.) She is Senior Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City. Recent exhibitions include The Senses: Design Beyond Vision, Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, How Posters Work, and Beautiful Users. She received the AIGA Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Fred Lazarus served as president of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) from 1978 to 2014. Before coming to MICA, he was staff assistant to the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1975 to 1978, President of the Washington Council for Equal Business Opportunity from 1971 to 1974, and a staff associate for the National Council for Equal Business Opportunity from 1969 to 1971. He currently serves on the boards of Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design, Maryland Independent Colleges and University Association, Arts Every Day, and as the Chairman on the Central Baltimore Partnership. He has served on numerous boards, including Maryland Art Place, the Afro-American Newspaper, American Visionary Art Museum, the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, and the Maryland State Department of Education’s Fine Arts Advisory Panel. Mr. Lazarus received his M.B.A from Harvard University in 1966, his B.A. from Claremont-McKenna College and an Honorary Doctorate of the Science of Arts from Osaka University for the Arts, Osaka Japan in 1999. Mr. Lazarus has received a Baltimore City Mayor’s Arts Award, a Howard County Arts Award, and the National Art Education Association’s Distinguished Service Award among others. Fred and his wife, Jonna, reside in Baltimore.