Our Lady of the World's Fair:
Bringing Michelangelo’s ‘Pietà ’ to Queens in 1964
by Ruth Nelson
February 26th, 2025
2 PM EST / 12 PM PST / 12 PM MST / 7 PM GMT / 6 AM AEDT+1.
This event is free, open to the public, and will be held online via Zoom.
Art historian Ruth Nelson will present her book, Our Lady of the World's Fair: Bringing Michelangelo’s ‘Pietà ’ to Queens in 1964, uncovering the remarkable story of how two of New York’s most influential leaders persuaded the Vatican to allow Michelangelo’s iconic Pietà to leave Europe for the first and only time. Though driven by different motives, Robert Moses and Francis Cardinal Spellman shared a vision: to bring one of the world’s greatest masterpieces to the Vatican Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.
Ruth Nelson holds an MA in Art History from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research on the Marquette Building in Chicago earned her the Corning Museum of Glass Rakow Research Grant, and in 2018, she was named a State of Illinois Humanities Council Road Scholar. She teaches art history at the College of DuPage’s continuing education department and continues to research and write on American art history.
Read the Introduction of Our Lady of the World's Fair: Bringing Michaelangelo's Pietà to Queens in 1964 by Ruth Nelson in preparation for her talk!
*A Three Hills book published by Cornell University Press. Copyright (c) 2024 by Ruth D. Nelson. Used by permission of the publisher.