Marion Wagschal lecture

Montreal painter Marion Wagschal titled her talk Seeing the Unspeakable which for her describes painting's capacity to convey complicated, and sometimes contradictory, ideas without words. It is a silent language, and her dense, figurative paintings certainly have much to say. Throughout her thirty year career she has circled around issues relating to women --- family, masquerade, rituals of beauty, the body as metaphor for experience. Her talk was richly illustrated with many slides of her paintings, including numerous portraits, and she privileged us with a glimpse into the working process surrounding these paintings.

Postscript: Marion has learned that a book exists titled Seeing the Unspeakable - the Art of Kara Walker (by Gwendolyn Dubois Shaw, Duke University Press,2004). Using the same title was an oversight.

Marion Wagschal preparing her talk

President Leslie Cohen and attending members

Slide preparations

Marion Wagschal with Annette Wolfstein-Joseph

who organized the lecture

Louise de Tonnancour and Shirley Cohen

Leslie Cohen with Marion Wagschal

Marion Wagschal's portrait study of her father

The painting of her father and family

Wagschal's painting entitled Beauty

Wagschal's sculpture