Hidden in Plain Sight::Fan Styles, the Free Style, and the Impact of H. H. Richardson::Oct. 2, 2014 

7–9 p.m.

Series tickets are also available. 

In this first lecture of the Hidden in Plain Sight series, Dr. Charles Brownell and Ray Bonis celebrate adventuresome nineteenth-century architectural styles in the Fan, culminating in the inspiration of the great H. H. Richardson.

Dr. Charles Brownell

Charles Brownell is a Professor of Art History at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He earned a master’s degree in the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture, and a master’s and doctorate in Art History at Columbia. He has lectured and published widely on the Classical tradition, particularly the work of B. H. Latrobe and Latrobe’s friend Thomas Jefferson. Many of Dr. Brownell’s publications have won national awards, such as the Virginia Museum book he co-authored, The Making of Virginia Architecture, which is the first general history of architecture in the Old Dominion. He is even prouder, however, of having shaped the graduate program in Architectural History at VCU. His pride and joy is VCU’s Annual Symposium on Architectural History and the Decorative Arts, which he founded, and which will celebrate its 22nd anniversary this November 21st at the Virginia Historical Society.

Ray Bonis

Ray Bonis is an archivist at VCU Libraries' James Branch Cabell Library. He graduated from VCU in 1988 with a bachelors' degree in Mass Communication. He is the co-author of Virginia Commonwealth University (2006) and Greetings from Richmond (2009), which presents an architectural history of the city through vintage postcards. Ray also runs a blog on Richmond history called the "The Shockoe Examiner."