Displaying items by tag: Winterthur

Long known for its inimitable exhibitor list and spectacular offerings, the Delaware Antiques Show is setting its sights on interior design with keynote speaker and honorary co-chair, Thomas Jayne. Jayne, a graduate of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, is well-known for his sophisticated interiors and reverence for the past. Says Jayne, “It is an honor and a privilege to serve as honorary co-chair and deliver the keynote lecture at the 2015 Delaware Antiques Show, benefiting one of this country’s most important cultural institutions. I see myself as a scholar-decorator much as Henry Francis du Pont, the founder of Winterthur, saw the ideal curator as part...

The collection, which was organized by The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass in New York City, showcases works created by Tiffany Studios. The exhibition comes to Wilmington, Delaware, after a stop at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Michigan. Dr. Ergon Neustadt, the founder of The Neustadt Collection, began acquiring Tiffany lamps in 1935. In 1967, he purchased the flat and pressed glass leftover from the 1930s Tiffany Studios closing. A display case of these bits of glass is also on view in the exhibit.

On Thursday, April 2, 2015, at 4PM, Jay Robert Stiefel, a lawyer and well-known collector and historian of American decorative arts, will give a lecture entitled “Leather Apron Men: Benjamin Franklin & Philadelphia’s Artisans” at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The event, which is under the auspices of Yale's History Department, is free and open to the public.

The illustrated talk will center on Benjamin Franklin’s work as an artisan as well as his role in fostering the public appreciation of his fellow craftsmen. One of America’s foremost founding fathers and the country’s first printing magnate, Franklin tended toward self-deprecation, writing in a 1740 issue of his “Pennsylvania Gazette” that he was no more than “a poor ordinary mechanick of this City.” But Franklin, who crafted witty editorial that promoted and encouraged his fellow artisans and founded such enduring cultural institutions as the Library Company of Philadelphia and the American Philosophical Society, served as a role model for his peers. In addition to encouraging many Philadelphia artisans to elevate themselves, Franklin provided them with opportunities for education that had previously been reserved for the privileged. Stiefel will illustrate Franklin’s profound influence with pieces of furniture and fine art, including “Handiworks” made by Franklin and other admired Philadelphia artisans.

Settled by the Dutch and claimed by the English, New York, from the start, was “a Babel of peoples—Norwegians, Germans, Italians, Jews, Africans . . . Walloons, Bohemians, Munsees, Montauks, Mohawks, and many others,” as writer Russell Shorto has observed. In the landscapes they shaped, buildings and furniture they made, New Yorkers created a place “unlike any other, either in the North American colonies or anywhere else.” This unique legacy is reflected in New York furniture featuring elaborate Dutch-inspired turnings, solid English construction methods, French sculptural carving, and Germanic painted decoration. In assembling the collection at Winterthur, Henry Francis du Pont created a world-class destination for viewing New York furniture in all of its splendid variety.

A series of lectures on costume design related to “Downton Abbey” and other TV and movie productions are offered at Winterthur this fall. In addition to the British period piece, the lecture series will feature costume designers linked to “Mad Men,” “Saturday Night Live,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “The Hunger Games,” “True Blood,” “Deadwood” and Netflix’s “House of Cards.”

Oct. 26, 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. — “Behind the Seams: Perspectives on Costume Design of Downton Abbey,” featuring “Downton Abbey” costume designers Susannah Buxton and Caroline McCall.

When he collected maps, Winterthur Museum founder Henry Francis du Pont brought to them the same discerning eye for color, form, and verity he applied throughout the collection. His correspondence with dealers was always polite though brief; understandable, given the sheer number of “rarities of every description” offered to him for sale. The letters also indicate du Pont’s curiosity about certain material aspects of maps—their format for display and early color.

In honor of the statewide celebration – Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture – the state’s governor, Deval Patrick, has named September 17, 2013 Massachusetts Furniture Day. A special event will be held in Nurses Hall in the State House in Boston.

Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture is the first-ever collaboration between 10 museums and cultural institutions throughout the state that will highlight the area’s furniture making legacy. A series of exhibitions and public programs will explore furniture making from the 1600s to the present day. Participating institutions include the Colonial Society of Massachusetts; Concord Museum; Fuller Craft Museum; Historic Deerfield; Historic New England; Massachusetts Historical Society; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; North Bennet Street School; Old Sturbridge Village; and Peabody Essex Museum; and Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library.

Dennis Fiori, President of the Massachusetts Historical Society and one of the project’s founders, said, “We are honored that Governor Patrick has recognized the Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture project with such a wonderful designation. By declaring September 17 as Massachusetts Furniture Day, Governor Patrick is recognizing the truly remarkable legacy in American furniture history that Massachusetts holds, not only as a traditional industry but also as an art form.”

Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture will run through December 2014. For more information visit www.fourcenturies.org.

Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library in Wilmington, DE has established the Wendell Garrett Award, which honors the memory of Wendell Garrett, an esteemed member of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture Class of 1957. Garrett, who passed away in 2012, went on to become one of the most distinguished experts on Americana and American-origin decorative arts in the world. He also made frequent appearances on the television series Antiques Roadshow.

The first recipient of the Wendell Garrett Award will be Gerald W.R. Ward, Senior Consulting Curator and Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture Emeritus at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Like Garrett, Ward has influenced a generation of graduate students and young professionals, most recently as an adjunct faculty member of the Sotheby's Institute Program in American Fine and Decorative Art. Through his work at Yale; Winterthur; Strawbery Banke; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Ward has had an indelible effect on the field of American decorative arts.

Ward will receive the inaugural Wendell D. Garrett Award on November 9, 2013 during the 50^th Annual Delaware Antiques Show in Wilmington.

Winterthur, set on 980-acres in northern Delaware, is charged with the management, preservation, and interpretation of over 850,000 objects in the museum, garden, and library collections combined. But there is only one antique at Winterthur you may see driving around the grounds: an American built 1927 Rolls-Royce Phantom I.

When Henry Francis du Pont inherited his family’s country estate, Winterthur, in 1926, his newfound passion for collecting the best in early American architecture, antiques, and fine art found its ultimate expression. His desire to share that passion led to the opening of Winterthur as a museum in 1951 (Fig. 1). In support of that venture, Charles Montgomery, hired to catalogue the collection, encouraged du Pont to endorse the creation of an onsite graduate program dedicated to the study of American antiques. With the support of the University of Delaware, two master’s degree programs were subsequently designed. The first five students began their studies in early American material culture in 1952 (Fig. 2); presently, eight students participate in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture. The program in art conservation—now the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation—was added in 1974 (Fig. 3), and currently accepts ten students annually.