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Here is a guide to activities through this weekend. For a guide to Picnic Day art themes for Saturday, including the FADS Fashion Show and the return of the Gong, go to the Picnic Day special blog here. Karen Nikos-Rose, Arts Blog Editor

Earplay: a Shinkoskey Noon Concert; Guitar workshop in afternoon

Guitar Workshop with Alessandro Penezzi

51�ԹϺ��� Davis Art History Alum Gives Talk on 'The Challenges of Altered Paintings'

Thursday, April 16, 3:30 p.m.

Conservator/technical art historian and 51�ԹϺ��� Davis alumnus Mark Tucker, who is The Neubauer Family Director of Conservation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, will give a presentation, “The Challenge of Altered Paintings,” at the Student Community Center, meeting room D, on Thursday, April 16 at 3:30 p.m. The event is free and open to all.

In his talk, Tucker considers how paintings change over time, and the challenge of discovering and recovering qualities of original appearance and effect. 

“Mark Tucker’s lecture is a golden opportunity for the 51�ԹϺ��� Davis community to learn about art conservation from one of its most distinguished practitioners,” said Michael Yonan, Templeton Professor of Art History and chair of art history at 51�ԹϺ��� Davis. “Tucker oversees the material status of art at one of the nation’s most important museums.”

What are you seeing when you look at a painting? For many paintings, certainly those of any age, it’s both what artists put into creating them and everything that happened to them afterward, beyond the artists’ control. Whether by others’ interventions or aging of materials, it is common for a gap to open between how a painting looked as the fresh, pure expression of an artist’s will and how it comes to look over time. Conservators conduct technical and historical research into the nature and breadth of that gap, gathering information that may be used to support restoration of features that had meaning for the artist and the painting’s first audiences but with time have been obscured, weakened, or removed. Tucker will share examples of this basic challenge of art conservation and the insights and satisfactions that come with better understanding what we see when we look at paintings.

As the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s head paintings conservator for 30 years, Tucker oversaw the historical and technical research on which conservation practice and object-based scholarship are based, and was in charge of preservation and restoration of the museum’s collection of more than 6000 European and American paintings dating from the 12^th century to the present.

Tucker earned his bachelor’s degree in studio art from 51�ԹϺ��� Davis and his master’s degree in conservation of historic and artistic works from the State University of New York. He has worked throughout his career to shed light on paintings’ effects and meanings obscured by restorations, reconfigurations, and aging of artists’ materials, devising conservation treatments to reflect recovered knowledge of original appearance and restore fragile ties between the materials of the work of art and the ideas, values, and varieties of expression they serve.

The Department of Art and Art History is part of the College of Letters and Science at 51�ԹϺ��� Davis.  

At the Mondavi

Coltrane 100 is Thursday

Coltrane 100, featuring Joe Lovano, Melissa Aldana and others will pay tribute to Coltrane. 7:30 p.m., April 16, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, 51�ԹϺ��� Davis 

A centennial celebration of the iconic saxophonist John Coltrane, featuring reimagined classics and new works inspired by his legacy.

Joe Lovano, a central figure in modern jazz for more than three decades, brings a deep connection to the post-Coltrane saxophone lineage. Melissa Aldana contributes a distinctive contemporary voice shaped by close engagement with the jazz canon and a focus on narrative and identity. Nduduzo Makhathini draws on South African musical and spiritual traditions, as well as the legacy of McCoy Tyner, to articulate a highly personal pianistic language. Linda May Han Oh adds a globally informed perspective as a bassist whose work spans ensemble writing, film, and collaborative performance. Jeff “Tain” Watts brings decades of experience and rhythmic authority forged alongside many of the defining artists of modern jazz. 

Attaca Quartet at Vanderhoef Studio Theatre Sunday

2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Sunday

Founded by students at the famed Juilliard School during the early 2000s, this Grammy winning quartet is acclaimed for its versatility.

Their catalog includes works that celebrate the music of the Renaissance period as well as collaborations with modern-day stars. The quartet’s Mondavi Center program includes the contemplative Nocturnes of both Poulenc and Chopin, one of Bartók’s greatest masterpieces, “The Dream” from Haydn, “Father of the String Quartet,” and an exploration of innocence during the Vietnam War by David Lang.  

Coming up

Art History public lecture next week