American Decorative Arts Forum

Programs

The American Decorative Arts Forum is proud to have brought over 25 years of outstanding lectures by scholars and experts in American decorative arts to Northern California.

2012
1. Jan 10
  
  Modernizing the Traditional: Furnishing the Sophisticated Garden in the 1920s and 30s
  
  Maggie Lidz, Winterthur Museum, Wilmington, DE
2. Feb 21
  
  Youthquake: High Style in the Swinging Sixties
  
  Mitchell Owens, Architectural Digest, New York, NY
3. Mar 13
  
  Wedded Perfection: Two Centuries of Wedding Gowns
  
  Cynthia Amneus, Cincinnati Art Museum, OH
4. Apr 10
  
  Crafting Modernism: Midcentury American Art and Design
  
  Jeannine Falino, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
5. May 08
  
  Carved, Curved, Classical: Baroque Furniture and Architecture in Eastern Virginia, 1710–60
  
  Sumpter T. Priddy, Alexandria, VA
6. Jun 09
  
  The Cult of Beauty: British and Japanese Influences on the American Aesthetic Movement
  
  Hannah Sigur, Berkeley, CA
7. Jul 10
  
  Panorama of the American Campus over the Centuries
  
  Paul V. Turner, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
8. Aug 14
  
  Thomas Chambers, American Marine and Landscape Painter
  
  Kathleen A. Foster, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
9. Sep 11
  
  Bringing the Outdoors In: Cottage and Wicker Furniture for House and Garden
  
  Brock Jobe, Winterthur Museum, Wilmington, DE
10. Oct 09
  
  Black and White All Mixed Together: The Hidden Legacy of Enslaved Craftsmen
  
  Daniel Ackerman, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Winston-Salem, NC
11. Nov 13
  
  Kenneth Jay Lane: American Jeweler to the World
  
  Curt DiCamillo, DiCamillo Companion, Boston, MA
12. Dec 11
  
  The Glamour of Glory: War of 1812 Commemorations
  
  Ann Wagner, Winterthur Museum, Wilmington, DE
2011
1. Jan 11
  
  Americana Exotica: Antiques Dealer J.A. Lloyd Hyde
  
  Jennifer Carlquist, Newburgh, NY
2. Feb 20
  
  Utilitarian Pottery or Modern Art: Mocha and Related Dipwares, 1780–1840
  
  Donald Carpentier, Eastfield Village, East Nassau, NY
3. Feb 20
  
  The Treasures of Spode
  
  Don Carpentier, Eastfield Village, East Nassau, NY
4. Mar 08
  
  Magnifying Light and Reflecting Beauty: Looking Glasses in England and America, 1680–1860
  
  David Barquist, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
5. Apr 12
  
  Creole Louisiana Architecture and Furniture, 1735–1835
  
  Cybèle Gontar, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, NY
6. May 10
  
  Matthew Boulton—Manufacturer of “what all the world desires to have”
  
  Janine Skerry, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, VA
7. Jun 14
  
  Paint, Pattern and People: Furniture of Southeastern Pennsylvania, 1725–1850
  
  Wendy A. Cooper, Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE
8. Jul 12
  
  Wall Art: Painted Interiors and Decorative Woodwork
  
  William Hosley, Terra Firma Associates, Enfield, CT
9. Aug 02
  
  Lockwood de Forest: Furnishing the Gilded Age with a Passion for India
  
  Roberta A. Mayer, Bucks County Community College, Newtown, PA
10. Sep 13
  
  Reinventing the American House: Domestic Architecture, Interiors and Furniture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe
  
  Patrick Snadon, University of Cincinnati, OH
11. Oct 11
  
  Costume Accessories from Head to Toe, 1600–1840
  
  Linda Baumgarten, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, VA
12. Nov 08
  
  Picturing a More or Less Perfect Union: Painting Everyday Life, 1860–1880
  
  Margaret C. Conrads, Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO
13. Dec 13
  
  California Design: Living in a Modern Way, 1930–1965
  
  Wendy Kaplan, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA
2010
1. Jan 12
  
  The Modern and the Mundane: The Nifty Fifties, Biomorphism and Space
  
  Fern Prosnitz, Walnut Creek, CA
2. Feb 09
  
  Julia Morgan, Bernard Maybeck and the École des Beaux Arts
  
  Victoria Kastner, Hearst Castle, San Simeon, CA
3. Mar 09
  
  Evidence of Accomplishment: Learning, Painting and Needlework at Susanna Rowson's Ladies' Academy, 1797-1822
  
  Jane C. Nylander, Historic New England, Portsmouth, NH
4. Apr 13
  
  Ralph Earl: Artist of the Young Republic
  
  Dr. Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
5. May 11
  
  Early Americans in Their Cups: A Survey of Drinking Glasses—and Habits
  
  Arlene Palmer Schwind, Portland, ME
6. Jun 08
  
  Making It Real: Augustus Saint-Gaudens and the New Movement in American Sculpture
  
  Dr. Thayer Tolles, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
7. Jul 13
  
  Degrees of Latitude: Mapping Colonial America
  
  Margaret Pritchard, Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, VA
8. Aug 10
  
  To Carve, Inlay or Paint: New York Neoclassical Furniture
  
  Matthew A. Thurlow, Winterthur Museum, Wilmington, DE
9. Sep 14
  
  American Rococo: Evolution in Style
  
  Jason T. Busch, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg, PA
10. Oct 12
  
  Japanning in America
  
  Christine Thomson, Salem, MA
11. Nov 09
  
  Show and Splendour: Charleston’s Neoclassical Interiors
  
  Robert Leath, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Winston-Salem, NC
12. Dec 14
  
  A Great Variety of Gold and Silver: Charleston’s Silver Trade
  
  Brandy S. Culp, Historic Charleston, Charleston, SC
2009
1. Jan 13
  
  Historic American Landscapes: Creating a Sense of Time and Place
  
  John Forti, Strawbery Banke, Portsmouth, NH
2. Feb 10
  
  Streamlining: The American Contribution to Modernism
  
  Jeffrey L. Meikle, University of Texas at Austin
3. Mar 10
  
  Charles Rohlfs, the Aesthetic Movement and the Roots of his Artistic Furniture
  
  Sarah Fayen, Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee, WI
4. Apr 14
  
  Scrimshaw, The Whalemen’s Art
  
  Stuart M. Frank, New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, MA
5. May 12
  
  Cutthroat Competition for Peaceable Kingdoms: Connoisseurship in the Marketplace for Edward Hicks
  
  Susan D. Kleckner, University City, MO
6. Jun 09
  
  The Shipcarvers’ Art: Wooden Sculpture in 19th Century America
  
  Ralph Sessions, DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY
7. Jul 14
  
  George G. Wright and Philadelphia’s Federal Cabinetmakers, 1795-1815
  
  Clark Pearce, Essex, MA
8. Aug 16
  
  Michael Weller Silver Seminar: American Flatware - American Nineteenth-Century Flatware: Jewelry of the Table
  
  William P. Hood Jr., M.D., Dothan, AL
9. Aug 16
  
  Michael Weller Silver Seminar: American Flatware - A Cornucopia of Choices: American Patterned Flatware, 1842-1876
  
  D. Albert Soeffing, Philadelphia, PA
10. Aug 16
  
  Michael Weller Silver Seminar: American Flatware - Unexpected Servings: Colonial and Federal Flatware
  
  D. Albert Soeffing, Philadelphia, PA
11. Sep 08
  
  'They took to their tools like ducks to water': The Cincinnati Women Woodcarvers of the Aesthetic Movement
  
  Jennifer L. Howe, Cincinnati, OH
12. Oct 27
  
  America’s First Face: The Progress of Portrait Miniatures in the New Republic
  
  Elle Shushan, Philadelphia, PA
13. Nov 10
  
  Ornamented Furniture of the Inland South, 1775-1850
  
  Sumpter T. Priddy III, Alexandria, VA
14. Dec 08
  
  Harbor and Home: Furniture of Coastal New England, 1725-1825
  
  Brock Jobe, Winterthur Museum, Wilmington, DE
2008
1. Jan 08
  
  Samuel McIntire: Carving an American Style
  
  Dean Lahikainen, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
2. Feb 12
  
  Connecticut Furniture: Quirky Delights from the Land of Steady Habits
  
  Susan Schoelwer, Connecticut Historical Society Museum, Hartford CT
3. Mar 18
  
  From Furnishing to Collecting: The What, Why and How of a Federal Collection
  
  Susan Doherty, San Francisco, CA
4. Apr 08
  
  Sophistication in Central Massachusetts: the Inlaid Furniture of Nathan Lombard
  
  Clark Pearce, Essex, MA
5. May 13
  
  Timothy Pflueger: San Francisco’s Art Deco Renaissance Man
  
  Michael F. Crowe and Therese Poletti, San Francisco, CA
6. Jun 10
  
  Was Gustav Stickley a Modernist? New Views in Early Experimental Masterworks
  
  Joseph Cunningham, ADA 1900 Foundation Collection, New York
7. Jul 08
  
  From Rooftops to the Stratosphere: “Appreciating” American Weathervanes
  
  David Schorsch, Woodbury, CT
8. Aug 12
  
  When Surface is Everything: Judging the Paint
  
  Peter Deen, Nottingham, PA
9. Sep 09
  
  Out of this World: Shaker Design Past, Present and Future
  
  Jean M. Burks, Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT
10. Nov 11
  
  From Empress Eugenie to the Prince of Chintz: a Short History of Furnishing with Antiques
  
  Jared Goss, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
11. Dec 09
  
  Pets in America: Their History Through Portraits and Possessions
  
  Katherine C. Grier, Winterthur and University of Delaware, Wilmington, DE
2007
1. Jan 09
  
  Competing Scrolls and Cabrioles: Stiff Competition in the New York Furniture Trade, 1825–1850
  
  Matthew A. Thurlow, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
2. Feb 13
  
  European Precedents for American Veneer and Inlay Work
  
  Dr. Ulrich Leben, Waddeston Manor, Buckinghamshire, England
3. Mar 13
  
  The Other Asian Exports: Indian Textiles and Luxury Goods in America
  
  Karina Corrigan, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
4. Apr 10
  
  A Brass Menagerie: Metalwork of the Aesthetic Movement
  
  Anna Tobin D’Ambrosio, Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY
5. May 08
  
  On the Playing Fields of Privilege: The Residential Work of Delano and Aldrich, 1903–1940
  
  Derek E. Ostergard, New York, NY
6. Jun 12
  
  The Clark Brothers as Collectors of John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer
  
  Marc Simpson, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA
7. Jul 10
  
  Understanding the Midas Touch: Gilding Through the Centuries
  
  Christine Thompson, Conservator, Salem, MA
8. Aug 14
  
  Quilts in a Material World: Selections From the Winterthur Collection
  
  Linda Eaton, Winterthur Museum, Wilmington, DE
9. Sep 11
  
  New York’s Tenth Street Studio Building: A Fraternity of Artist-Entrepreneurs
  
  Annette Blaugrund, National Academy of Design, New York, NY
10. Oct 09
  
  New Perspectives on Old Rooms: The Reinstallation of the 18th Century Period Rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
  
  Amelia Peck, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
11. Nov 13
  
  'A Grand and Elegant House and Furniture': Furnishing the Cadwalader’s Philadelphia House, 1770–1775
  
  Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
12. Dec 11
  
  Silversmiths to the Nation: Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner
  
  Ann Wagner, Winterthur Museum, Wilmington, DE
2006
1. Jan 10
  
  Lions & Eagles & Bulls: Early American Tavern and Inn Signs
  
  Susan Schoelwer, Director of Museum Collections, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, CT
2. Feb 14
  
  Blueprints for Modern Living: LA in the 50s and 60s
  
  Elizabeth A. T. Smith, Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
3. Mar 14
  
  From Rome to San Francisco Direct: American Neoclassical Sculpture in the Victorian Age
  
  Dr. Thayer Tolles, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
4. Apr 11
  
  The Art of the Garden, Indoors
  
  Peter Brown, Curator, Fairfax House, York, England
5. May 09
  
  Gambling Collectors: Chippendale Furniture and its Revival in America During the 1890s
  
  Thomas Michie, Curator of Decorative Arts, L.A. County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
6. Jun 13
  
  Carpets and Colors in the American Home, 1800–1900
  
  Jean Dunbar, Preservation Scholar/Consultant, Lexington, VA
7. Jul 11
  
  On the Walls: Window Treatments in the American Home, 1750–1900
  
  Natalie Larson, Historic Textile Furnishings Specialist, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, VA
8. Aug 08
  
  Of Show and Splendour: Charleston’s Federal Interiors
  
  Robert A. Leath, Vice President of Collections and Research, Old Salem Museum & Gardens, Winston-Salem, NC
9. Sep 12
  
  Imports and Industry: Glass Made and Used in Early America
  
  Mary Cheek Mills, Manager of School and Docent Programs, Corning Museum Of Glass, Corning, NY
10. Oct 10
  
  Preserved and Properly Covered: 250 Years of Historic Upholstery
  
  Elizabeth Lahikainen, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
11. Nov 14
  
  Building Newport Furniture Today: Carving and Construction by a Modern Master
  
  Alan Breed, Artisan, South Berwick, ME
12. Dec 12
  
  'Cups that Cheer': Tea Drinking in Early America
  
  Beth Wees, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
2005
1. Jan 11
  
  Art Pottery, Bungalows and Atascadero: E.G. Lewis and the American Women's League
  
  Anne Woodhouse, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, MO
2. Feb 08
  
  Duncan Phyfe: Legendary Cabinetmaker
  
  Peter Kenny, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
3. Mar 08
  
  American Sampler: Silver and Other Treasures from the Ruth Nutt Collection
  
  Julie Emerson, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
4. Apr 12
  
  Victorian Glory: Victorian Interiors and All the Stuff They Contained
  
  Paul Duscherer, San Francisco, CA
5. May 10
  
  American Fancy: Exuberance in the Arts, 1790–1840
  
  Sumpter T. Priddy, III, Alexandria, VA
6. Jun 14
  
  Collecting Country Arts: Nina Fletcher and the Conousseurship of Anonymity
  
  Philip Zea, Historic Deerfield, Deerfield, MA
7. Jul 12
  
  The American Potter: Redware, Stoneware and Porcelain, 1700–1900
  
  Amanda Lange, Historic Deerfield, Deerfield, MA
8. Aug 09
  
  The East India Marine Society and Early Maritime Collecting in Salem
  
  Daniel Finamore, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
9. Sep 13
  
  Golden Gate Park: Gallery of Victorian Style, Culter and Custom
  
  Christopher Pollock, San Francisco, CA
10. Oct 11
  
  Benjamin Franklin at Home
  
  Paige Talbott, Bala Cynwyd, PA
11. Nov 08
  
  California Paintings of the Hudson River School and the Barbizon Period
  
  Alfred C. Harrison, Jr., Northpoint Gallery, San Francisco, CA
12. Dec 13
  
  To the Table: Food Preparation, Presentation and Pleasurable Partaking
  
  Elisabeth Garrett, Strawbery Banke, Portsmouth, NH

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Programs

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

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