International Neo-Grec: Luxury of the Ancients Reinterpreted for an Industrializing Age
Kyle McGuire, San Francisco, CA
This ADAF Lecture will take place on Zoom, click here to register for the online event.
Detail of bronze portrait medallion on cabinet by Alexander Roux, New York
French marble and gilt bronze clock with garniture urns, Paris, Unknown Maker, ~1860 – 1870s
Collector and American Design and Arts Forum Board member Kyle McGuire will present the highlights of his collection of Neo-Grec furniture and decorative arts and tie them back to the history and development of this unique period in American and European design history.
This era bridges the tail end of the small hand-based workshop with the flowering of larger design and furnishing firms. These newer firms were taking full advantage of industrial techniques to produce and market a wide variety of highly ornamental goods at various levels of quality and price.
The presentation will walk through some of the key elements, motifs, and design source material used in Neo-Grec pieces of the 1860s and 1870s. He will cover connoisseurship, how to distinguish Neo-Grec from other historical revival Victorian styles, and how the style fits into the long arc of over five centuries of Neoclassical design. The talk will also cover preliminary research into the designers and print sources of this under-studied area of 19th century decorative arts.
