British–born art historian, T. J. Clark is best known for his groundbreaking sequence of books on the social character and formal dynamics of modern art: The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France 1848-1851 (1973); Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution (1973); The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (1984); and Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism (1999). He has also authored Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War (Retort, 2005); The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing (2006); and Picasso and Truth: From Cubism to Guernica (2013). In 2013 he co-authored (with Anne M. Wagner) Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life, a book accompanying an exhibition at Tate Britain. A pamphlet on the present state of Left politics, Por uma esquerda sem futuro, was published in Brazil, also in 2013. In 2017 he co-curated (with Wagner again) an exhibition at Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, Pity and Terror: Picasso’s Path to Guernica. George C. and Helen N. Pardee Chair Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, Clark writes art criticism regularly for the London Review of Books. He will discuss his most recent title, Heaven on Earth: Painting and the Life to Come (Thames & Hudson, 2018), centering on works by Giotto, Bruegel, Veronese and Poussin with Eric Banks.

Eric Banks is director of the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU. He was previously the editor in chief of Bookforum (2003–2008) and senior editor of Artforum (1995–2003). In 2012–2013, he served as president of the National Book Critics Circle. His writing has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Graduate Art Seminar is a forum for graduate students and members of the ArtCenter community to enter into dialog with internationally recognized artists, critics, and art historians. The Seminar is a core component of ArtCenter's Graduate Art program. The Seminar is also free and open to the public.

ArtCenter's Graduate Art program is based on intensive studio practice and rigorous academic coursework. The program is distinguished by its low faculty-to-student ratio that provides students with the attention and feedback they need to refine and achieve their artistic goals. Faculty and students are artists working in all genres—film, video, photography, painting, sculpture, performance and installation. A significant number of alumni have achieved national and international acclaim and often return to share their insights and expertise as visiting faculty and guest lecturers.