Art Historian, Poet, Home-Schooling Educator and Others To Speak at Yale this Week

New Haven, Conn. Q The following talks at Yale University, Sept. 28-Oct. 5, are free and open to the public, unless noted otherwise.

Gallery talks to focus on 19th century New Haven artist

“From Fruit to Nuts: American 19th-Century Still-Life Painting” is the title of two gallery talks to be given by art historian Gertrude Grace Sill at the Yale University Art Gallery. Sill, a professor of art history at Fairfield University, will present the talks on Tuesday, Sept. 29, at 2 p.m. and on Thursday, Oct. 1, at noon.

“Fresh Roasted, Peanuts, 1887” by New Haven native and lifelong resident John Haberle (1858-1933) is one of the works that Sill will discuss. The work is part of the gallery’s permanent collection.

Sill, a recognized authority on Haberle’s work, was curator of the traveling exhibition “John Haberle, Master of Illusion” in 1985, and is currently writing a book about the artist. She considers Haberle to be “the finest, most original and important artist New Haven has ever produced.” Haberle worked as a designer for a few years in the 1880s with Othaniel C. Marsh at the Peabody Museum of Natural History before devoting himself to “imitative work” – meticulously realistic paintings, for which he gained national attention at the end of the 19th century. The final decades of his life, however, were spent in obscurity; he worked as a school janitor near his cottage in New Haven’s Morris Cove. It was not until 1948 that he was rediscovered. “His paintings in the trompe l’oeil style are once more in high demand,” notes Sill, “and at least 15 are still missing. I’m hoping that my talks will prompt collectors in the area to track some of them down.”

Former government adviser to give Preiskel/Silverman Lecture

Conrad K. Harper, a partner in the New York City law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and former legal adviser to the U.S. Department of State, will deliver the Law School’s 1998 Preiskel/Silverman Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 1. His talk, “Public and Private Clients in the 1990s,” will begin at 4:30 p.m. in Rm. 127 of the Law School, 127 Wall St.

Harper worked for Simpson Thacher & Bartlett 1971-93, after which he became legal adviser of the U.S. Department of State. He served in that post until 1996, when he rejoined the New York City law firm. He is a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. He worked at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1965, and has also been a visiting lecturer at the Yale Law School (1977-81), a consultant to the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (1977), chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of New York (1987-92) and president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (1990-92).

Award-winning poet to read from his works

Thom Gunn, a British-born poet who has resided in San Francisco since the 1950s, will read from his poetry on Thursday, Oct. 1, at 8 p.m. in the Yale University Art Gallery lecture hall (entrance on High Street).

Gunn is considered one of the leading poets writing in English today. Born in England in 1929, he has lived in San Francisco since 1954. The first of his many volumes of poetry, “Fighting Terms,” appeared in the same year. His “Collected Poems” were published in 1995, following “The Man With Night Sweats” in 1992, which includes poems written in response to the AIDS epidemic. Gunn, who teaches at the University of California at Berkeley, has won many awards for his poetry, including a MacArthur Fellowship.

Homeschooling is topic of talk by SCSU educator

“Homeschooling and Its Implications” will be the subject of a talk by Jacque Ensign, assistant professor of education at Southern Connecticut State University, on Friday, Oct. 2, at noon in Rm. 211 of the Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York St. The event is part of the weekly lecture series sponsored by the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy.

Ensign has been active in the homeschool field since 1982 as a researcher, writer, consultant and participant. For the past 10 years, she has served as the education consultant and evaluator for homeschool programs in 53 school systems in Virginia. She also educated her own three children at home for 11 years. She earned a Ph.D. degree in the social foundations of education from the University of Virginia in 1996.

For further information, call 432-9935.

Famed Dutch opera singer to present master class

The internationally known Dutch opera singer Elly Ameling will give a master class for Yale opera singers on Monday, Oct. 5, at 7 p.m. in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall. The public is invited to attend the class. Tickets are $8 ($5 for students) and are available at the School of Music box office, 435 College St., 9 a.m.-4:45 p.m. Monday-Friday. Tickets will also be sold at the door, beginning two hours before the event.

Ameling has performed for more than 40 years in nearly every major cultural center in the world. She has appeared with leading international orchestras and has sung under the direction of such conductors as Ernst Ansermet, Carlo Maria Giulini, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Andr Previn, Seiji Ozawa and Robert Shaw. Ameling has performed at music festivals throughout the world, including Caramoor, Edinburgh, Aix-en-Provence, Sofia and Bergen festivals, as well as at Tanglewood, where her recital was the festival’s first chamber music concert ever to be recorded on compact disc. Ameling, who lives in The Netherlands, has been knighted by Her Majesty the Queen for services to music.

Former Humane Society president to deliver Schweitzer Lecture

John A. Hoyt, president emeritus of the Humane Society of the United States, will deliver the 1998 Schweitzer Lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 7. His topic will be “The Essential Ethic.” The lecture will begin at 4:30 p.m. in Rm. 208 of the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St.

Prior to the lecture, Hoyt will be the featured guest at a tea at 3 p.m. in the Silliman College master’s house, 71 Wall St. This event is also free and open to the public.

The Schweitzer Lectures were established in honor of the humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer and are cosponsored by the Albert Schweitzer Institute for the Humanities and the Whitney Humanities Center. For further information, call 432-0673.