Opening this Sunday, Nature and the American Vision: The Hudson River School showcases 45 outstanding masterpieces of the American landscape from the premier collection of the New-York Historical Society. With works from 19th-century painters like Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, and Albert Bierstadt, this exhibition reflects an entire movement of both real and romantic attitudes toward nature and the countryside. Members see it first during special previews on Friday and Saturday. Special admission toNature and the American Vision also grants you access to Samurai: Japanese Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection and Pierre Huyghe. Additionally, a lecture by Linda Ferber, senior art historian at the New-York Historical Society, on Sunday at 1 pm explores the origins and influence of the Hudson River School. "Nature’s Nation—Americans and Landscape Painting, 1825–76" is free and open to the public.
In the Bing Theater the latest film series from Academy @ LACMA, "A New Career in a New Town: Weimar Directors in Berlin and Hollywood," features German films from the 1920s and 30s and motion pictures by the same directors after immigrating to the States. Friday night see the works of F. W. Murnau with Sunrise at 7:30 pm, followed by The Last Laugh at 9:15 pm (featuring a live musical accompaniment). Continuing on Saturday, "The Perfect Match: Hollywood Costume Collaborations" series jumps back in time with a look at costume designs from the roaring twenties in The Golden Bed and Male and Female starting at 6 pm.
Free tours over the weekend include "Decades of Abstraction in Latin America" on Saturday at 1 pm, an overview of Delacroix’s Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi at 2:30 pm on Saturday, and "Classical Mythology in Western Art" at 2 pm on Sunday. Don't forget to check out the free talk with photography critic Philip Gefter in his lecture "Larry Sultan: Whose American Dream Is It, Anyway?" at 1 pm on Saturday. On Sunday at 3 pm stop by the Brown Auditorium for the 27th-Annual Michele and Peter Berton Memorial Lecture on Japanese Art. Finally, at Sundays Live the VEM Quartet perform alongside the UCLA Camarades at 6 pm on Sunday.