The DAR Museum in Washington, DC, invites you to our annual symposium on Friday, May 4, 2018. This year’s theme will explore the act of collecting in a decorative arts context, to complement the museum’s upcoming exhibit, Lately Arrived: Recent Additions to the Collections.
Through this symposium, the museum hopes to foster professional and academic dialogue about the decorative arts, collecting, and why we do what we do. In particular we will be examining various aspects of collecting. What do we collect? Why? How do we determine what to save, and what to discard? Who decides what is valuable enough to save? What kinds of “value” do we place on objects?
This all-day symposium includes lunch and access to the DAR Museum's exhibits, including 31 period rooms.
Speakers:
"Early Patrons and Collectors of Hudson River School Landscape Painting" Alan Wallach, Wark Professor Emeritus, The College of William and Mary
"Rethinking Good, Better, Best: Alternative Approaches to Collecting" Alice W. Dickinson, Curator of Collections, New York Yacht Club; and Shoshana Resnikoff, Curator, Wolfsonian-FIU
"The Collector and the Cabinetmaker: Reproducing Antiques during the Colonial Revival" Erica Lome, PhD Candidate, University of Delaware
"Furnishing the Rockefeller Family Seat" Katrina London, Curatorial Assistant, Kykuit, the Rockefeller Estate
"Frontier Reality with a French Flair: Collecting Early Louisiana at Maison Chenal" Philippe Halbert, PhD Student, Yale University, History of Art
"George and Florence Blumenthal: A Collecting Partnership in the Gilded Age, 1858-1941" Rebecca Tilles, Associate Curator, Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens
"Northern Dealers, Southern Antiques: The Migration of Colonial Objects in the Early Twentieth Century" Trent Rhodes, Lois F. McNeil Fellow, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture
The DAR Museum looks at the American experience through objects and art of the American home from the 17th through early 20th century. As one of the first museums accredited by AAM, it seeks to preserve and learn from the decorative arts in America during the earlier years of this country.