Harold Tovish, Visiting Artist Lecture 1959

Harold Tovish gives a lecture talking about his experiences as an artist, explaining the sense of urgency he felt in art during the Works Progress Administration and the shift he felt after World War II. Tovish meditates on the development of abstract art, talking about his interest in it as being purely technical. While Tovish admits to using techniques from abstract art, he also states his inability to truly accept the philosophy of it. Tovish goes on to talk about his experiences teaching, and his years of visiting Skowhegan as a visiting artist. Tovish notes a shift in the attitude and skills of arts students, whom he sees as having a much deeper level of sophistication than he did at their age while also being more closed off and harder to convince to change their point of view. Tovish then turns the conversation towards himself, remarking on his self-critical nature and suggesting that world changing art is perhaps being made now and that he simply cannot understand it. Tovish ends his lecture by inviting the students to question him and challenge his perspective.