Author Talk with Elise Armani and Katy Siegel  

Free, with registration required; walk-ins accepted as space allows. Register here. 

Join us for a talk in Abbott Hall* with co-authors of What Was America? Art, Culture, and Politics in the Bicentennial Era—Elise Armani, PhD, Associate Curator of Twentieth-Century Art, and Katy Siegel, the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Endowed Chair in Modern American Art at Stony Brook University. Released on Oct 13, 2026—during the year of the 250th anniversary of the United States’ adoption of the Declaration of Independence—this book will be available for purchase this Fall in The Shop ($65; $55.50 for Joslyn members).

Participants are encouraged to visit the related exhibition, Made in USA: Prints for the American Revolution Bicentennial, in Hawks Pavilion, Works on Paper Gallery H5 (Oct 3, 2026–Feb 14, 2027). 

*Assistive listening system is available in Abbott Hall. American Sign Language interpretation available by request, with three weeks notice; email abelme@joslyn.org.  

About the Authors

Elise Armani, PhD, Associate Curator of Twentieth-Century Art, joined The Joslyn in 2025 and has curated City in Print and Made in USA: Prints for the American Revolution Bicentennial at the Museum. As a PhD candidate at Stony Brook University, her research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her forthcoming book, What Was America? Art, Culture, and Politics in the Bicentennial Era (Yale University Press, 2026), co-written with Katy Siegel, was awarded a 2026 Publication Grant from the Wyeth Foundation of American Art.

Katy Siegel is a scholar of postwar art and Distinguished Professor at Stony Brook University. Her curated exhibitions have appeared at institutions across the US and Europe, ranging from the Metropolitan Museum to the Venice Biennale, and include Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture; Joan Mitchell; Mark Bradford: Tomorrow is Another Day; Postwar: Art Between the Atlantic and the Pacific, 1945-1965; and High Times, Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975. Her writing focuses on the social questions raised by art’s making and histories, most recently in essays for the New Museum New Humans catalog and Artforum; among her books are Jack Whitten: Notes from the Woodshed, and “The Heroine Paint”: After Frankenthaler.