Displaying items by tag: symposia

M. Melissa Wolfe will join the Saint Louis Art Museum as curator and head of the Department of American Art, the Museum announced today. She assumes her duties in January.

“Melissa Wolfe is an impressive and prolific curator, having organized dozens of groundbreaking exhibitions, symposia, and publications over her career that speak to her creativity and intellectual rigor,” said Jason T. Busch, the Saint Louis Art Museum’s deputy director for curatorial affairs and museum programs. “Her vision will guide the comprehensive evaluation and reinstallation of the Museum's American art galleries over the next two years.”

The Frick’s Center for the History of Collecting announces a new book series with the publication of its first volume, "Holland’s Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals." This series, entitled The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Collecting, is co-published with the Pennsylvania State University Press, and will ultimately cover a broad range of art collecting, reflecting the Center's reach well beyond the parameters of the Frick's own scope to include topics on modern and non-western art. Comments Inge Reist, Director of the Center, “We aim to encourage new scholarship in this young field of art history through our annual acclaimed symposia and ongoing fellowship program, much of which leads to new publications. Complementing that activity is this series that enables the Center to make its own contribution to the growing bibliography on the history of collecting in America.” This and future volumes are drawn from papers given at the Center’s symposia. Upcoming books from recent events include "A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Painting in America" (February 2015), edited by Inge Reist; "Going for Baroque: Americans Collect Italian Paintings of the 17th and 18th Centuries," edited by Edgar Peters Bowron; and "The Americas Revealed: Collecting Colonial and Modern Latin American Art in the United States," edited by Edward Sullivan.

Americans have long had an interest in the art and culture of Holland’s Golden Age. As a result, the United States can boast extraordinary holdings of Dutch paintings. Celebrated masters such as Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, and Frans Hals are exceptionally well represented in museums and private collections, but many fine paintings by their contemporaries can be found here as well.

Michael K. Brown, a longtime curator at Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, passed away on September 8, 2013 following a heart transplant. Brown, a leading scholar in the field of American decorative arts, was 60 years old. He touched many lives as a scholar and as one of the most gracious and kind lights of the decorative arts world.

Bayou Bend, one of the nation’s premier collections of American paintings and decorative arts, welcomed Brown as associate curator in 1980. An authority on American silver and a specialist in the work of 19^th-century New York cabinetmaker, Duncan Phyfe, Brown leaves behind an inspiring legacy. During his time at Bayou Bend, Brown worked tirelessly to better the institution and helped lead a renovation and restoration to the room settings that are the museum’s landmark.

In addition to his work at Bayou Bend, Brown published dozens of books and articles on American decorative arts, architecture and history and regularly spoke at forums and symposia. He was also an active board member for Houston’s Heritage Society, Preservation Houston and the Victorian Society in America.

David B. Warren, founding director emeritus of Bayou Bend, said, “Michael Brown was my colleague at Bayou Bend for more than two decades; he was a quiet, intense man, who always pursued excellence. As a curator his work was marked by impeccable scholarship, diligent research and, exercising an extraordinary eye, an intrepid pursuit of acquisitions of the most superb quality, whether large or small.”

Brown is survived by his three brothers and their families along with Bart Truxillo of Houston. The museum will hold a memorial in October. Contributions may be made to the Bayou Bend Collection Accessions Fund in Memory of Michael K. Brown; or, to the Michael K. Brown Metals Endowment Fund, c/o Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, P.O. Box 6826, Houston, Texas, 77265.