Location: Neighborhood Church (Ross Chapel)

The event is free and open to the public. RSVP is required, please email: info@ruskinartclub.com

The year 2019 marks the bicentennial of the birth of John Ruskin, the 19th century British art and social critic whose writings and lectures were fundamental to the development of the Arts and Crafts movement. In honor of this anniversary, James L. Spates, PhD, will lecture on the role that Ruskin’s writings played in laying the groundwork for so many figures who followed him in the movement. Professor Spates, a Professor of Sociology Emeritus of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, is a noted authority on the work of John Ruskin.

The lecture is hosted by the Ruskin Art Club of Los Angeles and the Friends of the Gamble House, Sidney D. Gamble Lecture Series and will be held in the chapel of the Neighborhood Church, followed by a reception at The Gamble House next door.

Speaker bio: Jim Spates is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. He has been studying the legacy of John Ruskin for the last quarter century, authoring, over that time, a number of books and numerous articles on Ruskin’s life and works, as well as lecturing widely on both subjects in England and North America. Currently, he is working on clarifying Ruskin’s contribution to the origin of The Arts and Crafts Movement, on a modern rendering of Ruskin’s classic work on social and economic life, Unto this Last, and maintains as well a website–www.whyruskin.online—which is devoted to making Ruskin’s continuing importance to the troubled world in which we live known.