Reception at 3:30pm
Please join us for a presentation by art historian and author
RUTH D. NELSON
about her book
OUR LADY OF THE WORLD'S FAIR: Bringing Michelangelo's "Pietà" to Queens in 1964
Our Lady of the World’s Fair explores how Robert Moses and Francis Cardinal Spellman persuaded the Vatican to allow one of the world's greatest works of art, Michelangelo’s Pietà, to leave Europe for the only time—resulting in the first papal visit to the Western Hemisphere. Although the 1964 World's Fair did not turn out to be the financial bonanza that Moses expected, the Pietà drew record crowds of art lovers, the faithful, and the curious.