newsletter/fall 2015 Volume 23, Number 2 Decorative Arts Society The DAS The Decorative Arts Society, Inc. founded in 1990 for the encouragement of interest in, the appreciation of and the exchange of information about the decorative arts. (DAS) To pursue is a not-for-profit its purposes, New the DASYork sponsors corporation meetings, programs, seminars, tours and a newsletter on the decorative arts. Its supporters include museum curators, academics, collectors and dealers. Please send change-of-address information by e-mail to [email protected]. DAS Board of Directors President Robert C. Smith Award Committee Newsletter David L. Barquist Jeannine Falino, Chair H. Richard Dietrich, Jr., Curator Independent Curator, Museum Consultant The DAS Newsletter is a publication of American Decorative Arts Adjunct curator, Museum of Arts and of the Decorative Arts Society, Inc. The Philadelphia Museum of Art Design purpose of the DAS Newsletter is to serve as Philadelphia, PA New York, NY a forum for communication about research, exhibitions, publications, conferences and Vice President Suzanne Findlen Hood other activities pertinent to the serious Nicholas Vincent Associate Curator, Ceramics and Glass study of international and American deco- Manager of Collections Planning Colonial Williamsburg Foundation rative arts. Listings are selected from press Metropolitan Museum of Art Williamsburg, VA releases and notices posted or received New York, NY from institutions, and from notices submit- Dennis Carr ted by individuals. We reserve the right Treasurer Carolyn and Peter Lynch Curator of to reject material and to edit material for Stewart G. Rosenblum, Esq. American Decorative Arts and length or clarity. Sculpture We do not cover commercial galleries. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA The DAS Newsletter welcomes submis- Secretary Boston, MA sions, preferably in digital format, by e-mail Moira Gallagher in Plain Text or as Word attachments, or Research Assistant Karen Zukowski on a CD. Images should be at high quality Metropolitan Museum of Art Art historian (400 dpi), as TIFFs or JPEGs, either color or New York, NY black-and-white, with detailed captions. Emily Orr The newsletter of the DAS is published Margaret Caldwell Assistant curator of modern and two times a year. Submission deadlines for contemporary American design 2016 are: March 31 for the spring issue; Judith Hernstadt Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design September 30 for the fall issue. Send mate- Museum rial to: Charles F. Montgomery Prize and New York, NY Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, Award Committee DAS Newsletter Coordinator Wendy Cooper, Chair Jennifer Scanlan 2500 East Avenue, #7K Curator emerita of Furniture Independent curator Rochester, NY 14610 Winterthur Museum or: Winterthur, DC [email protected] Nancy Carlisle The DAS website may provide informa- Senior Curator of Collection tion about events that fall between issues. Historic New England Boston, MA Editor Gerald W. R. Ward Gerald W. R. Ward Senior Consulting Curator & Senior Consulting Curator Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of of American Decorative Arts and American Decorative Arts and Sculpture Emeritus Sculpture Emeritus Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Boston, MA Boston, MA Cover image: Coordinator Ruth E. Thaler-Carter Labyrinth, gold, silver, cloisonné enamel on copper, fine silver, amethyst, Freelance Writer/Editor tourmaline, pearl, snail shell; 3 3/4 x 1 1/2 x 3/4 in. (9.5 x 3.8 x 1.9 cm). 1984. Rochester, NY William Harper (born 1944). Photo: Jairo Ramirez. In Little Dreams in Glass and Newsletter design by Plum Crane. Metal: Enameling in America, 1920 to the Present (see Exhibitions). All content © Decorative Arts Society. DAS news DAS offers extraordinary opportunity to experience decorative arts in Georgia For DAS participants planning to in fares, please make your indepen- he DAS brightens the dreary dentbook travelflights arrangements early in the hope to arrive of locking days of February by offering con- in Atlanta no later than 11a.m. on museum admission and administrative Ttributors a private, curator-led February 4 to attend the High Museum expenses incurred by the DAS. We sug- tour of the decorative arts collections gest making reservations early to avoid of the High Museum of Art (Atlanta, motor coach will drop DAS participants disappointment. GA) organized just for the DAS, fol- attour the at Atlanta 12 noon. airport For return by 3 p.m. flights, on the The Decorative Arts Society, Inc. lowed by participation in the Henry February 7, so please book departures and cooperating organizations and D. Green Symposium on southern no earlier than 5 p.m. that day. Fares individuals have no liability or respon- decorative arts (Athens, GA) and tours between Atlanta and a number of cities sibility whatsoever for this event, nor of private collections. are currently comparatively favorable. for any acts or omissions of others in What makes this trip extraordi- Registration for the symposium connection therewith, and shall in no nary is not just the access to museum and booking convenient hotel accom- event be under any liability or re- and private collections and a renowned modations at the conference center’s sponsibility whatsoever for the injury symposium on the decorative arts, but hotel must be done on an individual or death of any person or any loss, also the reasonable price for what is basis and is easy to do. We recommend expense, delay, injury or other damage being offered to DAS contributors. The registering for the full symposium to any person or property occurring trip will be held from February 4–7, package at $285 to take advantage of on, during or in relation to the event, or 2016, with the DAS segment at only the meals and additional hospitality any change in the schedule or cancella- $150/person. being offered. Rates start at a modest tion of the event. Reservation of a place Participants will reach Atlanta on $99 per room per night plus tax at the for the event or any portion thereof their own and arrange to gather at the Georgia Center UGA conference center or any accommodation in connection High Museum on Thursday, February hotel. therewith will constitute acceptance of 4 (the MARTA Northbound Gold or To register for the symposium and these terms. Red subway lines run directly from the book hotel accommodations, call 800- - 884-1381 between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. tional airport to Arts Center – the High Monday through Friday or go online In this issue MuseumHartsfield-Jackson stop; luggage Atlanta may Interna be stored www.georgiacenter.uga.edu, then click at the museum) for a special tour of the on the following: Plan Your Stay under DAS news 1–5, 12 museum. The group will then travel by Hotel and Conferences; Register for an motor coach to Athens, GA, to attend Event; The Eighth Henry D. Green Sym- Book review 6 the two-day Henry D. Green Sympo- posium of the Decorative Arts under sium on southern decorative arts, February 2016; and Register Online. Events 7 augmented by private collection visits arranged especially for the DAS. you can make hotel reservations for the Books 9 The trip concludes with a visit on nightsAfter filling of February out the 4–6. registration form, News 11 Sunday, February 7, to the home of A separate DAS registration will be renowned collector William N. Banks required. The formal trip announce- Acquisitions 10 in Newnan, GA, after which a motor ment will go out shortly. The fee will coach will take DAS participants to the be $150 per person to cover the cost People 13 - of the DAS-sponsored portions of the al airport. trip, including the motor coach, tours, Exhibitions 17 Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Internation Newsletter of the Decorative Arts Society, Inc. Fall 2015/1 DAS recognizes excellence in decorative arts publishing and Art History at Wesleyan University. 2015 Robert She received her undergraduate degree Smith Award in 1998 from Grinnell College, MA in 2005 from Bard and PhD in 2012 from By Jeannine Falino, the Department of the History of Art at Smith Award Committee chair Yale University. he Robert C. Smith Award of the Hartzell’s research and teaching DAS for the best article published span topics in the history of European Tin 2014 in English on the deco- art, design and architecture from 1750 rative arts goes to Freyja Hartzell for through the present day, with special her article “A Renovated Renaissance: emphasis on German visual and mate- - rial culture of the 19th and 20th centu- riors for the Thieme House in Munich,” ries. Her research has been supported publishedRichard Riemerschmid’s in Interiors Modern Inte by the Berlin Program for Advanced 1: 5–36). German and European Studies, German Hartzell considers (Volume Munich 5,artist Issue Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Richard Riemerschmid’s anti-mod- and Central European History Society. ernist application of German Renais- Hartzell’s manuscript, Designs on sance principles in his modern designs the Body: The Modern Art of Richard for a gentleman’s study. Her nuanced Riemerschmid, examines how Riemer- investigation draws upon Dürer’s “Self- schmid’s early 20th-century designs for portrait” of 1500 as a cultural touch- housewares, interiors and clothing force stone and Riemerschmid’s use of wood a reconception of canonical modernism. to symbolize the German character, one The Robert C. Smith Award was that embodied both a rough materiality and a soulful spirituality. established in March 1978Robert and firstC. Smith (1912–1975),presented in 1979. who taughtIt is named at the for Uni the- versityinfluential of Pennsylvania art historian and specialized in the art and architecture of Portugal, The 2015 recipient of the Mont- Spain, South America and the United gomery Prize is In Plain Sight, Discover- States.