Welcome to Mad About Art!

Authors Elizabeth Schlosser and Deborah Wadsworth
Discuss Their Books About Denver’s Public Art and About the Art of John Edward Thompson

Tuesday, April 7, 2026, 11am

Elizabeth Schlosser will lead a discussion of why and how she wrote Denver: The City and Its Art 1870-1970, 100 Public Masterpieces, a guidebook to Denver’s early public art treasures.  

The book documents the artistic choices made over more than a hundred years by the citizens of this “Paris on the Platte” and “Queen City of the Plains”.  A photographic homage to those that came before, the book seeks to protect our artistic heritage and to help design for the future.  
 
As Elizabeth says “When I consider the vicissitudes of Denver’s past—remote and recent—it seems miraculous that so much beautiful early art has survived.  This book is about that beauty, presented through photography.”

Deborah Wadsworth will discuss her book Paris to the Platte – John Edward Thompson, Colorado’s First Modernist Painter
 
“Fraud upon the Public!” “Bolshevists! Anarchists!” “Selections from a Madhouse!” “Idiocies of conception!” “Outrages that should be prohibited!  One would scarcely have expected such frenzied responses to the twenty-fifth annual exhibition of the Denver Art Museum in 1919. The previous exhibitions were rather comfortable and conventional. Denverites went to see – and buy – art that was familiar, pleasing and “real”. Residents of the Centennial State liked their art straightforward and plain-spoken, like themselves. Many Colorado artists had studied in Europe and were well aware of the seismic shift shaking the art world, but the wider Colorado public remained blissfully traditional.
 
Their tranquility would be traumatized by an art scandal in Denver, just over 100 years ago. John Edward Thompson had come from Paris to Denver, bringing Modernism to Colorado.

Location of event: Cherry Hills III Clubhouse, 2800 South University Boulevard, Denver
Program limited to 35 members. No cost to attend.
Parking suggestions: Parking available around the Clubhouse

Please note!  This is an event with limited space and seating.  Every MAA! member must RSVPfor this event. The gatehouse will have a list of attendees. If you are not on that list, you will not be able to attend the lecture.