Maurie McInnis, a professor in the College of Arts & Sciences’ McIntire Department of Art, will give a talk on The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia’s new exhibition, “The Valley of the Shadow: American Landscapes in the Time of the Civil War,” on Sept. 11 from noon to 1 p.m.

The exhibition addresses a central problem faced by artists who depicted the American landscape during the period of the Civil War: how to represent a nation that was ruthlessly divided by political tensions and, by the 1860s, a site of unprecedented violence and trauma. The exhibition considers the myriad ways in which artists of the period either grappled with or avoided the vexing problem of representing a nation at war. Images by Frederic Church, Thomas Cole, Sanford Robinson Gifford, David Johnson, John Frederick Kensett, Aaron Draper Shattuck and others contextualize the questions and challenges faced by American landscapists in these years.

McInnis’ main research interest is in the cultural history of American Art in the colonial and antebellum South. Much of her writing has been focused on the material culture of Charleston, S.C., including the exhibition catalog, “In Pursuit of Refinement: Charlestonians Abroad, 1740-1860” (1999) and the book, “The Politics of Taste in Antebellum Charleston” (2005), which won the George C. Rogers Jr. Award from the South Carolina Historical Society and the Spiro Kostof Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians. Her most recent book, “Slaves Waiting for Sale: Abolitionist Art and the American Slave Trade,” was published by the University of Chicago in 2011.

The museum's Lunchtime Talks are usually held on the second Tuesday of each month, from noon to 1 p.m. These lectures offer the opportunity to join curators and faculty as they explore topics related to museum collections and exhibitions.

Lunchtime Talks are free and open to the public. For information, call 434-243-2050 or e-mail museumoutreach@virginia.edu. The museum is located at 155 Rugby Road, one block from the Rotunda.