Our Next Event
This lecture will explore two parallel stories. We will look at the history of a French period room, called the 'French Salon' at the MFA and recent research and scholarship as part of its reconstruction at the museum between 2019-2021.
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Upcoming Events
This lecture will explore two parallel stories. We will look at the history of a French period room, called the 'French Salon' at the MFA and recent research and scholarship as part of its reconstruction at the museum between 2019-2021.
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With new photography from his upcoming book Mansions of The Gilded Age, Phillip James Dodd not only recounts the stories behind these magnificent mansions, but also the fascinating, and sometimes scandalous, lives of those that called them home. From robber barons and social grandames to literary luminaries and circus impresarios; from selfless acts of generosity and philanthropy to family feuds, sham weddings, tragedy on board the RMS Titanic, and accusations of murder.
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Connecting the accounts of women across centuries, Beyond Blue and White crafts a more complete picture of the female experience through the lens of material culture. We meet female Delftware makers, female Delftware patronsa and the female collectors beginning in the 19th century who saw the artistry and craft in these ceramics that others had overlooked.
Beyond Blue and White has been named an NPR Here & Now Editors’ Pick!, The Art Newspaper’s Book Bag Selection and recently received glowing reviews by the Magazine ANTIQUES and The Wall Street Journal.
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Previous Events
Bonus lecture courtesy of CT Ceramics Circle
Hanns Weinberg (1900-76) fled Germany in 1938 and settled in London, where in 1945 he opened The Antique Porcelain Company – a large shop in New Bond Street that sold carpets, furniture, sculptures, and predominantly porcelain. He became the most important dealer of antique porcelain in England and America in the second half of the twentieth century, with shops opened in New York in 1957 and in Zurich in 1972. The Antique Porcelain Company sold porcelain to every significant collector and to many important museums, from the Getty to the Met and the Louvre. In addition to porcelain, Weinberg also dealt in Renaissance jewels, gold boxes, Chinese jades, French furniture and more. This richly illustrated lecture will discuss some of the most significant objects that passed through Weinberg’s hands and which today are in some of the greatest collections in the world.
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Anne Higonnet, the Barbara Novak Professor of Art History at Barnard College, Columbia University. the widely reviewed Liberty, Equality, Fashion; the Women who Styled the French Revolution
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Note Time: 2:00
Drawing on over 40-plus years working with major museums and public and private collections, frame historian and consultant Suzanne Smeaton will share a range of stories of specific frames and interesting 'behind the scenes' details regarding their design, how they were selected, who made the choices, how they were removed or repatriated. Examples include the quiet, unassuming black frame by a known maker that encloses a Rembrandt portrait, an Italian Renaissance frame that went empty for years and ended up enclosing a masterpiece, a frame that was chosen for John Singer Sargent's 'Madame X' and how and why it was selected, frames designed by artists for their own artwork and many more.
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Art and science meet in the garden. Plants were perhaps the first object of man’s curiosity, and women have long been at the forefront of that inquiry. Maria Sibylla Merian, who with her daughter left Europe for Suriname in 1699 to study and draw the metamorphosis of insects (and their relationship to their floral habitat), stands at the beginning of a series of women as scholars, artists, patrons and collectors through to the modern era. Using books, prints and watercolors as our guide, we’ll explore how these pioneering women advanced science and art alike to deepen our engagement with the natural world.
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Santi Jewels: Pairing Museum-Worthy Gems with Contemporary Settings - Zoom Meeting
Krishna Choudhary is a tenth-generation jeweler from Jaipur, India.
Krishna Choudhary 2019 opened Santi Jewels, located in a private salon in Mayfair. Santi Jewels is characterized by elegantly understated pieces adorned with dazzling gems and multiple references to Mughal jewelry.
Born in a farmhouse in Wisconsin, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe is celebrated for her paintings of flowers –although factually recorded, they are so large, seen so close up, and so sumptuously colored that they verge on abstraction. She loved the vast American Southwest region where she found solitude as well as inspiration for the colors and picturesque shapes of the rocky landscape depicted in her paintings. Visit the two adobe homes in New Mexico of an artist described as a “loner.” Join Dr. Janetta Rebold Benton for this richly illustrated PowerPoint lecture tracing O’Keeffe’s life story, examining her creative process and sources of inspiration, as well as her complicated relationship with the gallerist and photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
Beginning in the 1930s, a concerted effort began in France to rescue the centuries-old tradition of tapestry-making from economic collapse. This talk charts the revival of tapestry as a compelling modern art medium in France during and after the second world war, consider the trans-Atlantic nature of the revival, and follow the bumpy path towards recognition of tapestry as an original mode of artistic expression – a story still unfolding today.
Beginning in the 1930s, a concerted effort began in France to rescue the centuries-old tradition of tapestry-making from economic collapse. This talk charts the revival of tapestry as a compelling modern art medium in France during and after the second world war, consider the trans-Atlantic nature of the revival, and follow the bumpy path towards recognition of tapestry as an original mode of artistic expression – a story still unfolding today.
H. Richard Dietrich III will discuss decorative arts, showcasing highlights from the Dietrich American Foundation over its history, paying particular attention to furniture and also items related to the China trade, with an exhibition opening in June at the Lyman Allyn Museum of Art in New London, called China from China: Porcelain and Stories of Early American Trade. The foundation was established in 1963 and focuses on 18th and early 19th century American fine and decorative art, with a range of collecting areas, including furniture, silver, ceramics, paintings, books and manuscripts, as well as whale trade related art and artifacts. The foundation works with museums and cultural institutions to support their collections primarily through loans of objects, with the Philadelphia Museum of Art as its closest partner.
Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.
Mellissa Huber, Associate Curator, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
This behind-the-scenes look at the recent Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition Women Dressing Women explores the considerable impact of fashion created by and for women tracing a historical and conceptual lineage across over one-hundred years of design. Women’s progress in fashion is charted through the critical premises of Anonymity, Visibility, Agency, and Absence/Omission, celebrating the work of well known, forgotten, and emerging designers alike—all drawn from the incredible permanent collection of The Costume Institute.
Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.
Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com
Picture: Melissa Huber
James Haag,
Managing Director, Verdura
Fulco di Verdura, a Sicilian Duke, will forever be associated with Coco Chanel, Cole Porter, Greta Garbo, Babe Paley, Tallulah Bankhead, and scores of legendary twentieth-century women who preferred style over status.
The presentation will trace Verdura’s design legacy from turn-of-the-century Sicily and 1920s Paris to 1930s Hollywood and the unfolding café society style revolution in 1940s and 1950s New York.
Verdura’s women of style will be profiled, as well as the enduring mark his work has left on modern fine jewelry design.
As a special treat, Jim will provide an intimate glimpse into Verdura’s role in the styling of the television show, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, for which they loaned over 100 iconic pieces, including vintage jewelry owned by the original swans.
Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.
Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com
Picture:VINTAGE GOLD AND DIAMOND "FEATHER HEADDRESS" TIARA
VERDURA, 1957
Verdura Museum Collection
Yellow gold and platinum tiara designed as a feather headdress, composed of 36 leaves, half diamond with gold veins and have gold with diamond veins, set with 1,223 diamonds.
Dr Rebecca Tilles, Senior Project Manager of Exhibitions at L'Ecole School of Jewelry Arts
Lecture on Zoom
Guests Welcome: There is no charge for lectures on zoom.
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com
Marjorie Merriweather Post in her Icon Room at Tregaron, Washington, D.C., 1950
Philip Hook, Board Member and Senior Director of Impressionist & Modern art in Sotheby’s London
Philip Hook takes the lid off the world of art dealing to reveal the brilliance, cunning, greed and daring of its practitioners. In a richly anecdotal narrative he describes the rise and occasional fall of the extraordinary men and women who over the centuries have made it their business to sell art to kings, merchants, nobles, entrepreneurs and museums.
From its beginnings in Antwerp, where paintings were sometimes sold by weight, to the rich hauteur of the contemporary gallery in London, Paris and New York, art dealing has been about identifying what is intangible but infinitely desirable, and then finding clients for whom it is irresistible. Those who have purveyed art for a living range from tailors, spies and the occasional anarchist to scholars, aristocrats, merchants and connoisseurs, each variously motivated by greed, belief in their own vision of art and its history, or simply the will to win.
Guests Welcome: There is no charge for lectures on zoom.
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com
Lecture on Zoom
Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com
Philip D Zimmerman, Author, Museum and Decorative Arts Consultant
An interest in early American furniture--has been constant throughout my career. My book on the furniture and other collections of two important houses (1771 and 1774) owned by the Historic Odessa Foundation in Odessa, Delaware. Each house retains many original furnishings and was actively preserved at a very early date. The resulting connections between objects and interpretive possibilities are extraordinary and have already spawned several smaller publications. Other furniture topics, notably the work of William Savery of Philadelphia, occupy my time and energy.
Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.
Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com
Philip Dodd, is an author and classically-trained architect who graduated from the Prince of Wales Institute of Architecture in London. His firm, Philip James Dodd Bespoke Residential Design LLC is now based in America with an office in Greenwich.
The Gilded Age, also referred to as the American Renaissance, is an era associated with unparalleled growth, technological advancement, prosperity, and cultural change. Spanning from the 1880s to the1930s it marks the first time that the titans of American finance and industry had more wealth than their European counterparts. As the center of this dynamic economy, New York City attracted immigrant workers and millionaires alike. It was not be enough for the self-appointed elite to just build their own grand chateaux’s and palazzo’s along Fifth Avenue, as collectively they dreamed of creating a new metropolis to rival the great cultural capitals of London, Paris and Rome. To fluent their newly acquired wealth they needed an architecture dripping in embellishment and historical reference. Enter the Beaux-Arts
For this special event hosted by The Greenwich Decorative Arts Society, Author Phillip James Dodd will discuss the five homes featured in his book – The Samuel Tilden Mansion (now The National Arts Club), the Joseph De Lamar Mansion (now the Polish Consulate), The Frick Collection, and the Otto Kahn and James Burdens (which now combine as the Convent of the Sacred Heart); as well as the patrons and architects that designed them; and collectively their influences on the television adaptation of The Gilded Age.
Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.
Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com