Author Talk | “The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters”

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Sunday, October 15, 2023

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Benjamin Moser talks about his new book, The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters, in conversation with Gary Tinterow, Director, the Margaret Alkek Williams Chair, of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. This event is presented on opening day of the exhibition Rembrandt to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the Armand Hammer Collection.

Arriving as a young writer in the Netherlands, Moser began exploring the great 16th- and 17th-century Dutch painters―Rembrandt, Hals, and Vermeer among them―who seemed to be asking the same questions he’d been grappling with: “Why do we make art? What is art, anyway? Does it provide solace? Or something more necessary to human happiness?”

Featuring 17 artists, The Upside-Down World seeks to explain how such resplendent beauty can―indeed, must―flourish in a world so endlessly marred by tragedy.

SOLD OUT | Event Admission
Tickets to this event, free with Museum admission, have reached capacity. Any unclaimed seats are released five minutes before start time. No late seating. 

Plan Your Visit
The conversation takes place in Lynn Wyatt Theater in the Kinder Building, with seating available on a first-come, first-served basis. The exhibition is on view in the Law Building. On Sundays, the Museum is open from 12:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters
Copies of the book are available through the MFA Shop (713.639.7360).

About the Author
Benjamin Moser was born in Houston and lives in Utrecht, the Netherlands. He is also the author of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector and Sontag: Her Life and Work. For his work promoting Lispector’s work internationally, he was awarded Brazil’s first State Prize for Cultural Diplomacy. For Sontag: Her Life and Work, Moser received the Pulitzer Prize.