Peter Murray, the founding director of one of the world’s foremost venues for the outdoor exhibition of sculpture, will speak on “Museums Without Walls: Art in the Landscape” March 20 at 5:30 p.m. in the M. Smith Griffith Auditorium of the Georgia Museum of Art.
The event is co-sponsored by the art museum and the Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. A public reception will follow the lecture.
The talk will offer “a brief examination of sculpture in the landscape, touching upon land art in the United States such as ‘Spiral Jetty’ and ‘Roden Crater’ as well as Japanese, European and North American sculpture parks,” Murray said.
He also will refer to the work of the English landscape designer Capability Brown and his influence on the revolution of English parklands.
Murray founded the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, located at Bretton Hall, an 18th-century estate 20 miles south of Leeds, England, in 1977. The park sits on 500 acres, with both permanent and temporary displays of modern and contemporary sculpture as well as four indoor galleries. More than 350,000 people visit the park each year, according to its website.
“Peter Murray’s achievements at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park are truly astonishing,” said Antje Ascheid, an associate professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ theatre and film studies department and associate academic director for arts and public programs at the Willson Center. “His curatorial work with sculptors includes artists like Henry Moore, Joan Miró, Barbara Hepworth, Eduardo Chillida, William Turnbull, James Turrell, Isamu Noguchi, Nigel Hall, David Nash, Jaume Plensa and Andy Goldsworthy, among many others.
“Indeed, the park itself is one of the finest exhibition sites for sculpture worldwide,” said Ascheid, who organized the event.
Murray holds both the titles of Officer of the Order of the British Empire and Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
He was awarded an OBE in 1996 and a CBE in the 2010 Queen’s Birthday Honours. The rank of CBE is one level below knighthood in the British order of chivalry.
