2026 Graham & Sally Lusk Lecture with Marni Kessler

Discomfort Food: Tissot’s Bread and Vollon’s Butter 

Sat, Oct 3, 2–3 pm  

Free program; no registration required. 

 Due to the generous support of Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program, Café Society: Art and Sociability in Paris, 1855–1914, is free to all today.  

Join us for a program featuring Marni Kessler, PhD, Professor of Nineteenth-Century European Art and Director of Graduate Studies in the Kress Foundation Department of Art History at the University of Kansas. On the occasion of The Joslyn’s exhibition, Café Society, Kessler will consider how late nineteenth-century French representations of food resonate far beyond the bounds of the canvas, becoming for certain artists potent vehicles for evoking a spectrum of pleasure and unease associated with Parisian life. During this time of great social, cultural, and political turmoil, depictions of food could embody delight and the promise of culinary satisfaction even as they could engage the messier aspects and discomforts of life in the metropole. 

About the Speaker 

Marni Kessler specializes in European art of the long nineteenth century. Her research is characterized by a focus on the material agency of works of art, engagement with critical theories like ecocriticism, and attention to historical context. Her recent book, Discomfort Food: The Culinary Imagination in Late Nineteenth-Century French Art (University of Minnesota Press, 2021), analyzes the ways in which representations of food may be uniquely evocative, conveying material and immaterial possibilities that far exceed their seemingly mundane subject matter. Kessler has also published articles and book chapters on issues related to fashion, food, photography, gender, urbanism, and portraiture in late nineteenth-century French visual culture. 

Her book, Discomfort Food: The Culinary Imagination in Late Nineteenth-Century French Art, is available for sale in The Shop: $30 for General Public; $27 for Members. 

About the Graham & Sally Lusk Lecture series 

Established in 2015, the series presents distinguished speakers—acclaimed artists, scholars, and visionary thinkers in the field of art and creativity—who engage and inspire audiences wishing to better understand and appreciate art from around the world and throughout time. Created through an estate gift from Graham Lusk, PhD, the series honors both Graham and Sally’s commitment to The Joslyn. Esteemed lecturers have included Cannupa Hanska Luger, artist; Craig Dykers, Snøhetta founder and architect of The Joslyn’s expansion; Patricia Marroquin Norby, Associate Curator of Native American Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Christopher Knight, art critic, Los Angeles Times; Eleanor Harvey, Senior Curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum; and others. 

Café Society: Art and Sociability in Paris, 1855–1914 is organized by Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, and Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha. It is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue.