European Tour: Poland

For this season of virtual art presentations, Joe Caliva, a docent at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and host of the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America's Improving Lives through Art series, will return to take us on a virtual trip to Europe, focusing on the art and artists from two countries with very different histories in the world of art.

 

For the next stop on our European tour, we'll head to a country that has been underrepresented in the world of art - Poland. Joe will walk us through the capital city of Warsaw and feature two of the country's most iconic artists - painter and photographer Zdzisław Beksiński, and our very first musical artist to be featured in this series, composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin. Joe will perform several of Chopin's most beloved piano pieces as part of the presentation.

 

Joe Caliva is a professional musician, educator, and art docent at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Since 2020, his studies, research, and specialization has focused on how historic artists used their art to cope with personal challenges, illness, and trauma. In many cases, their art also served as a therapeutic means to healing. In this European Tour Series, Joe will also share some of his research concerning the connection between art as a coping mechanism with all four of the featured artists.