The Georgia Tech Office of the Arts and Poetry@Tech will host the Arts@Tech Salon Series, a new lunchtime speaker series focusing on a variety of arts-related topics, starting Wednesday, January 28 in the Galleries of the Ferst Center for the Arts.  The first event in the series features Duncan Sandys, the great-grandson of Winston Churchill, and Rodney Cook, Millennium Gate Museum Founder and Director of the National Monuments Foundation, discussing an exhibition of paintings by Churchill at the Millennium Gate Museum at Atlantic Station titled “The Art of Diplomacy: Winston Churchill and the Pursuit of Painting.”

"The Salon Series' inaugural event features Churchill's paintings and highlights for Georgia Tech students and faculty the importance of developing the total self - through both the academic and the arts - by demonstrating how the iconic figure Winston Churchill explored art - through both his appreciation of and the making of it. Students will walk away not only having learned something about history, but also about the importance of art in our everyday lives," states Travis Denton, Curator of the Arts@TECH Salon Series & McEver Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech. Winston Churchill produced over 500 paintings as a relaxing hobby, of which he wrote, “If it weren’t for painting I could not live. I couldn’t bear the strain of things.” 

The Atlanta exhibition of 33 paintings is the largest of Churchill’s work held in America since 1965, and commemorates the 50th anniversary of the British statesman’s death.  Duncan Sandys now lives in Georgia and will speak about the artwork and his family’s connection to the state, which includes Churchill’s 1932 visit to Georgia Tech.

 The Arts@Tech Salon Series is sponsored by the Georgia Tech Office of the Arts and Poetry@Tech. 

Tickets are free and lunch is included.  Tickets can be reserved by phone or in person at the Box Office in the Student Center, 404-894-9600. Seating is limited.