The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts

The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts are the National Gallery of Art’s annual lecture series, inaugurated in 1949 and named for the museum’s founder. Speakers from art history, archaeology and related disciplines use a sequence of lectures to develop a substantial argument about the visual arts, their interpretation and their wider cultural significance.

The National Gallery of Art works with Princeton University Press to turn each lecture cycle into a published volume. Mary Beard’s Twelve Caesars is volume 74, expanding her lectures into a study of how portraits of Roman rulers shaped later images of political authority.