Special Lecture with Marble Sculptor Julie Warren Conn

In a special lecture on Sunday, April 30, Julie Warren Conn will discuss her career as a sculptor working with Tennessee Marble and share her memories of an older generation of stone carvers in Knoxville, whom she describes as Italian, "true stone carvers, working as Michelangelo did centuries before...with simple hammers and chisel," and came to this country where they were employed by Candoro and Gray Eagle marble companies to work on several buildings in Washington, D.C.

A native of East Tennessee, Conn earned the first Bachelor of Arts degree with a concentration in Sculpture from the University of Tennessee. She and husband Dr. Philip Conn, retired president of Western Oregon University, now live in Lexington, Kentucky, where she maintains a studio and showroom. Her work can be seen in places ranging from the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., to the Holiday Inn headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. Her largest piece is a 30-ton installation outside GlaxoSmithKline's U.S. headquarters in the Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

The program is is free and open to the public. The lecture will begin at 2:30 p.m. at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay Street, Knoxville.