Distinguished art historian David Wilkins of the University of Pittsburgh will visit the West Virginia University College of Creative Arts Monday, April 4, where he will present the first annual event in the Division of Art’s J. Bernard Schultz Lecture Series in Art History.

Wilkins will speak at 4 p.m. in the Creative Arts Center’s Gladys G. Davis Theatre. Titled”Donatello: Innovation, Tradition and Revolution,”the lecture will focus on the art and life of this famous Italian Early Renaissance sculptor (1386-1466).

The J. Bernard Schultz Lecture Series in Art History was endowed in the College of Creative Arts in 2004 by donors who wish to remain anonymous. The Lecture Series honors current College of Creative Arts Dean Bernie Schultz , who is also professor of art history in the Division of Art and director of the Creative Arts Center .

“I am deeply honored that these donors, who are my dear friends and so much a part of the cultural life of our community, have chosen to name this lecture series for me,”Dean Schultz said.”Each year, their thoughtful endowment will allow us to bring to our campus a leading art historian, who will enhance our art history program, as well as engage the intellectual life of the University.

“Also, I am thrilled that the art historian who will inaugurate this lecture series is David Wilkins, professor emeritus of art history from the University of Pittsburgh . David is a consummate scholar of Renaissance Art, as well as one of the finest teachers of art history in the country.”

Until his retirement in 2004, Wilkins taught for 37 years in the Henry Clay Frick Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Pitt. He is a specialist in Italian late-Medieval and Renaissance art and architecture. He has offered a large number of diverse courses in his field at all levels, teaching freshman as well as graduate seminars. He served for many years as undergraduate and graduate advisor and for nine years as department chair.

In 1987, Wilkins received the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of Pittsburgh and in 2005 he received the Distinguished Teaching of Art History Award given by the College Art Association, a national organization of artists, art historians, scholars, curators, collectors, educators, art publishers and other visual arts professionals, based in New York City.

Wilkins has influenced generations of students at Pitt and beyond. He was Distinguished Visiting Professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and has taught in the Sarah Lawrence College-University of Michigan Program in Florence , the London and Semester-at-Sea programs of the University of Pittsburgh , the Academy for Lifelong Learning and at the Western Pennsylvania Penitentiary.

He has reached a wider public through the 109 exhibitions he organized for the University of Pittsburgh Art Gallery on topics ranging from Baroque prints to Chinese art to works by contemporary artists.

His many publications include scholarly books, edited volumes and numerous articles on the art of late Medieval and Renaissance Italy, American art, the Dutch

Baroque and contemporary art. The author of a monograph on Maso di Banco and a catalogue of the art of the Duquesne Club in Pittsburgh, Wilkins also authored Donatello with Bonnie Bennett and co-edited The Search for a Patron in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance with Rebecca Wilkins, The History of the Duquesne Club with Mark Brown and Lu Donnelly, The Illustrated Bartsch (Pre-Rembrandt Etchers) with Kahren Arbitman, and Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in the Italian Renaissance with Sheryl Reiss. He has produced several editions of the survey Art Past/Art Present with Bernie Schultz and Katheryn Linduff and was revising author of several editions of Frederick Hartt’s History of Italian Renaissance Art. He is now completing a study of New Hampshire public libraries with Ann Thomas Wilkins.

The J. Bernard Schultz Lecture Series in Art History endowment was created through the WVU Foundation, a private non-profit corporation that generates and provides support for WVU .

David Wilkins’lecture is free and the public is encouraged to attend and hear one of the master teachers of art history in our country.

For more information about the lecture, contact the WVU College of Creative Arts at (304) 293-4841 ext. 3108.