Paintings in English Country Houses Subject of Lecture

Laing will illustrate his talk with slides detailing the houses and their collections. His visit is co-sponsored by Wake Forest’s Office of the Dean of the College and the Royal Oak Foundation.

Laing has worked for the National Trust since 1986. He currently advises on everything to do with pictures and sculpture in more than 100 houses owned by the National Trust in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He has written brief catalog entries regarding the artwork for guidebooks on the historical houses and is preparing a summary catalog of the National Trust’s entire holdings of oil paintings. He selected the pieces and wrote the catalog for the National Gallery exhibition,”In Trust for the Nation,” a thematic cross-section of the collections in houses belonging to the National Trust. He has contributed a major section of the “Catalogue of the Edmond de Rothschild Collection of Decorative Drawings at Waddesdon Manor,” to be published in 1999.

Laing’s lecture will be the second annual 18th century studies lecture, named for the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. The society is a national organization with more than 2,400 members based on the Wake Forest campus. Byron Wells, professor of Romance languages, is the society’s executive secretary.

Admission is free. For information, call 758-5788.