One of the best things about this season of the year is the beginning of new lecture series and the installation of important new gallery exhibits. Here's a hearty recommendation for two such, should you be lucky enough to find yourself near Philadelphia this week. Professor John Lukacs, one of the finest of contemporary historians, will lecture Friday evening at the International Institute for Culture in their series Christianity and the Creative Imagination. His subject is Tradition, Land, and Conservatism.



Dr. Lukacs will address the ways in which Western man once lived in a cultural harmony with nature and the land, forming an often organic unity. He will also analyze the intellectual and historical trends which have served to break down this relationship, causing the destruction of the environment, the alienation of persons from a sense of place, and the loss of beauty in daily life.



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Friday is also the official opening of a major exhibit of the drawings, models, and maquettes of the sculptor Anthony Visco at the Connelly Center at Villanova University. The exhibit is curated by the gallery's director, the distinguished artist Rev. Richard G. Cannuli, O.S.A.



Anthony Visco is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art. After graduation he was the recipient of the Fulbright-Hayes Grant to study in Italy where he attended studios at the Academia delle Belle Arti in Florence. In 1975, he was awarded the Elizabeth T. Greenshields grant for figurative sculpture. He is a member of Classical America and has received the coveted Arthur B. Ross award twice for sculpture in an architectural setting. Along with his commission work, Mr. Visco teaches out of his studio and is on the faculty of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where he chaired the Sculpture Department from 1986 to 1992.



Mr. Visco designed and created The Stations of the Cross in the Chapel of Saint Joseph at Saint Joseph's University and recently completed two bronze commissions for the National Shrine of Saint Rita in Philadelphia.