Image: Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola), The Madonna and Child (detail), c. 1527–30, oil on panel. Kimbell Art Museum
Mary Vaccaro will examine the long relationship between place, sustained looking and art-historical research in a lecture on Francesco Mazzola, better known as Parmigianino, at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth on September 16, 2026. Titled ‘The View from Parma: Parmigianino and a Life in Art History,’ the program will draw on Vaccaro’s more than three decades of studying in Parma, Italy, and her encounters with one of the city’s most celebrated artists.
Vaccaro is a distinguished research professor of art history emerita at the University of Texas at Arlington. The lecture will begin with her doctoral research on Parmigianino’s altarpieces, including the artist’s famous ‘Madonna of the Long Neck.’ It will then follow the questions and discoveries that emerged as Vaccaro returned to Parma over time.
Born Francesco Mazzola, Parmigianino lived from 1503 to 1540. The Kimbell’s event materials identify him by the nickname il Parmigianino, translated as “the little man from Parma,” and frame the talk around the relationship between the artist’s work and the city in which Vaccaro developed her scholarship.
Presented as part scholarly reflection and part personal history, the lecture will consider what close looking and critical thinking can reveal in an age of ubiquitous artificial intelligence. According to the museum’s description, Vaccaro will also address why skills fostered by the humanities remain essential to understanding the world around us.
The program is part of the Kimbell’s Wednesday Series: Art in Context. The series offers free public lectures that introduce the museum’s permanent collection and selected exhibitions on view at the institution. The Kimbell describes its permanent collection as small in size, comprising around 350 works, distinguished by the quality of individual examples rather than by breadth.
‘The View from Parma’ will take place from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in the Piano Pavilion auditorium at the Kimbell Art Museum, 3333 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Fort Worth. Admission is free and no registration is required, although space in the auditorium is limited. The museum’s event page identifies a related Parmigianino image as ‘The Madonna and Child.’
