"The Shade of Private Life": The Right to Privacy and the Press in American Art, 1875-1900

This brown bag is postponed to a later date.

This talk considers how American artists at the close of the nineteenth century advanced a new, modern notion of privacy in response to the rise of tabloid journalism and the emergence of invasive reporting genres like the gossip column and the personal exposé. It examines a diverse series of paintings, sculptures, and photographs in relation to period critiques of the press and the emerging legal concept of "the right to privacy."