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The New York Public Library presents An Art Book Series Event <http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2015/05/12/coney-island-robin-jaffee-frank-charles-denson-charles-musser-terry> *Coney Island* *Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861-2008* *Robin Jaffee Frank * *in conversation with* *Terry Carbone, Charles Denson * *Charles Musser and Red Grooms* Tuesday May 12, 2015 6:00 p.m. Celeste Auditorium South Court, Lower Level The New York Public Library Stephen A. Schwarzman Building 5th Avenue at 42nd Street New York, NY 10016 917-275-6975 www.nypl.org (directions) <http://www.nypl.org/locations/schwarzman> Auditorium doors open to public at 5:30 p.m. All events are FREE and subject to last minute change or cancellation *Join us for a conversation inspired by the exhibition* *Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861–2008**, on view at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and accompanied by the Yale University Press publication of the same title. Artists of different generations continue to be inspired by “America’s Playground.” Hear firsthand from the exhibition curator and author, Robin Jaffee Frank, Charles Denson, Charles Musser, Terry Carbone and special guest artist Red Grooms about the allure and excitement of Coney Island, which occupies not only a strip of sand in Brooklyn, but also a singular place in the American imagination*. Coney Island <http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/coney-island-beach-and-boardwalk/> is a world-famous resort and national cultural symbol that has inspired music, literature, and films. The major exhibition *Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861–2008* organized by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, is first to look at the site’s enduring status as inspiration for artists throughout the ages, from an elite seaside resort in the mid-19th century, to its evolution into an entertainment mecca for the masses, with the eventual closing of its iconic amusement park, Astroland, in 2008. How artists chose to portray Coney Island <http://www.coneyisland.com/> over a 150 years period—in tableaux of wonder and menace, hope and despair, dreams and nightmares—mirrored the aspirations and disappointments of the era. The dazzling catalogue, published by Yale University Press, highlights more than 200 images from Coney Island’s history, including paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, posters, film stills, architectural artifacts, and carousel animals. Essays by prominent scholars analyze Coney Island through its imagery and ephemera as both a place and an idea—one that reflected the collective soul of the nation. *Copies of* *Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861–2008* <http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300189902> *are available for purchase and signing at the end of the event*. *Terry Carbone* <http://nypl.bibliocommons.com/search?q=Carbone%2C+Teresa+A.&search_category=author&t=author> is the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art at the Brooklyn Museum. She served as co-curator of the major exhibition *Eastman Johnson: Painting America*, in 1999, and as co-author and volume editor of the accompanying exhibition catalogue, which was awarded the New York State Historical Associations' prestigious Henry Allen Moe Prize. She also served as project director for the innovative reinstallation of the Museum's American art galleries, which opened in 2001 as *American Identities: A New Look* <http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/american_identities/>. More recently Terry completed the project to which she has devoted much of her tenure at the museum, serving as principal author of a two volume scholarly catalogue *American Paintings in the Brooklyn Museum: Artists Born by 1876* <http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/alfred_bar_award.php>. This publication was awarded the College Art Association's Alfred H. Barr Prize, presented each year for an especially distinguished museum publication on the history of art. *Charles Denson* <http://nypl.bibliocommons.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&t=author&search_category=author&q=denson%2C+charles&searchOpt=catalogue> is Executive Director of the Coney Island History Project <http://www.coneyislandhistory.org/> and is the author of *Coney Island and Astroland* (2011) and *Coney Island: Lost and Found* (2004). *Robin Jaffee Frank* <http://nypl.bibliocommons.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&t=author&search_category=author&q=frank%2C+robin+jaffee&searchOpt=catalogue> is Chief Curator and Krieble Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. She is the author of *Love and Loss: American Portrait and Mourning Miniatures* (Yale, 2000), *Charles Demuth Poster Portraits: 1923–1929* (1994), and *American Daguerreotypes from the Matthew R. Isenburg Collection* (1989), and co-editor of *Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness* (Yale, 2008). *Red Grooms* <http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/galleries/new-york/artists/red-grooms> is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life. *Grooms* <https://nypl.bibliocommons.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&t=author&search_category=author&q=grooms%2C+red&searchOpt=catalogue>'s work has been exhibited in galleries across the United States, as well as Europe, and Japan. His art is included in the collections of thirty-nine museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in Nashville, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Knoxville Museum of Art. In 2003, Grooms was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Academy of Design. Grooms currently lives and works in New York City in a studio in lower Manhattan at the intersection of Tribeca and Chinatown, where he has lived for around 40 years. *Charles Musser* <http://nypl.bibliocommons.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&t=author&search_category=author&q=musser%2C+charles&searchOpt=catalogue> is Professor of Film & Media Studies at Yale University. The author of The *Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907* (1990), he has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogs including *Moving Pictures: American Art and Early Film, 1890-1910* (2005) as second author and *The Armory Show at 100: Modernism and Revolution* (2013). In its seventh year the program series *An Art Book* <http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2015/01/21/art-figure-vincent-desiderio-peter-drake-donald-kuspit-alexi-worth-and>, initiated and organized by *Arezoo Moseni* <http://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2015/02/10/trends-art-book-publishing-deb-aranson-todd-bradway-patricia-fidler>, is a celebration of the essential importance and beauty of art books. The events showcase book presentations and discussions by world renowned artists, critics, curators, gallerists, historians and writers. Events at The New York Public Library may be photographed or recorded. 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