Frankfort Heritage Lecture Series - My River is the Ohio: Harlan Hubbard, Art, & Ohio River Valley

One of the most beloved twentieth-century artists in Kentucky’s history, Harlan Hubbard (1900-1988), made the Ohio River Valley landscape we know and love as his muse. Using the significant Hubbard collections at the Filson Historical Society and elsewhere, Jessica K. Whitehead explores how the artist’s bold and varied oeuvre and unique point of view give us remarkable insight into our region’s ecological and cultural past. Against Hubbard’s careful observations and documentations of this vital American waterway and its surrounding landscape, we can measure changes in river towns, river traffic, and river culture since the days he first made the Ohio his studio.
Jessica K. Whitehead is the Nancy B. Rash Curator of Arts & Cultural Partnerships at the Filson Historical Society, where she deepens the Filson's engagement with community stakeholders, expands the community's knowledge of and for Louisville and the Ohio River Valley, and strengthens the Filson's identity as a trusted public history resource and service-oriented institution that prioritizes projects of community revitalization.
She is the author of the recent biography of the artist, writer, and sustainability pioneer Harlan Hubbard, titled Driftwood: The Life of Harlan Hubbard (University Press of Kentucky 2025), as well as the History of the Kentucky Derby in 75 Objects (University Press of Kentucky 2024), penned for the Kentucky Derby Museum in her previous position as their senior curator of collections. She is a contributor to the publications The Watercolors of Harlan Hubbard: From the Collection of Bill and Flo Caddell (University Press of Kentucky 2021) and the open access volume Innovation Nation: The Ohio River Gateway Region and the Making of America (NKU/ORVILLE 2025). Her next book, Jock(ette): Prejudice, Pop Culture, and the Rise of the American Female Jockey, is under contract.
Jessica was as a founding board member of the non-profit organization Payne Hollow on the Ohio, where she still serves as an historical consultant and manages its collection of artifacts. She is currently the vice president for the Kentucky Museum & Heritage Alliance, and she is actively involved in numerous collaborative curatorial projects across the Commonwealth.
In her spare time, Jessica enjoys making art, gardening with her partner, Phil, and reading books with her very large cat, Bean. She lives in New Albany, Indiana.
Please register at https://www.pspl.org/event/fhls-hubbard. For more information, contact Diane Dehoney at (502) 352-2665 x100 or [email protected].