Unlike other major exhibitions of the art deco period, DecoDence: Legendary Interiors and Illustrious Travelers Aboard the SS Normandie, which opens today at the South Street Seaport Museum, isn’t an over-the-top display. Instead, it’s a balanced, and entirely engrossing, collection of furnishings, ephemera, and architectural elements that graced the legendary ocean liner. Among the show’s highlights: photographs that document the …
Falling for antique Mizpah jewelry
It’s easy to fall in love with Victorian jewelry. The combination of beauty and sentimentality in objects such as mourning brooches made of facetted jet and Etruscan beaded bangles is nearly unparalleled, while the symbolism in 19th-century jewels makes them especially alluring for collectors. Names, inscriptions, and the coded languages of flowers and stones all contribute to their significance. One …
Grandma Moses comes home to Galerie St. Etienne
When the Museum of Modern Art hosted an exhibition of contemporary unknown artists in 1939 one artist to be discovered was Anna Mary Robertson Moses. Beloved as much for her sweet persona as for her winsome paintings, the self-taught folk artist from Eagle Bridge, New York, was 79 years old at the time. Luckily, for the sake of American art …
Portrait miniatures from the Met debut at the Winter Antiques Show
American art aficionados packed into the Tiffany Room at the Park Avenue Armory last night as part of a series of special lectures hosted by the Winter Antiques Show to listen in as Carrie Rebora Barratt, associate director for collections and administration and curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Lori Zabar, an independent scholar and researcher, spoke on …
Curator’s Choice: A tour of TAAS with Stacy C. Hollander
A visit to the American Antiques Show (also known as TAAS) at the Metropolitan Pavilion is always filled with discovery, so I was delighted to have the opportunity to join a special tour of the show with Stacy C. Hollander, the American Folk Art Museum‘s senior curator and director of exhibitions. This year’s new layout designed by Ned Jalbert, which …
Breaking tradition: Ceramics by Michelle Erickson
One upcoming highlight of the New York Ceramics Fair is a lecture and demonstration by ceramic artist Michelle Erickson, who was featured in our September 2009 issue. On Saturday at noon Erickson will show visitors how an early 18th-century Moravian squirrel bottle was made—a subject which she explored for the 2009 issue of Ceramics in America, and which coincides with …
Ceramics 101: A sampling of antique English wares
With the dizzying array of wares on display this week at the New York Ceramics Fair, it seems like an opportune time to review some of the basics of the medium. Though most of our readers are familiar with names like Wedgwood and Grueby, we’ve rounded-up a few quintessential examples of English ceramics as an introduction to the widely varied …
The decorative arts on paper at Ursus Books
A charming array of original prints and watercolors from rare design books and folios is currently on view at the print gallery of Ursus Books in Manhattan in the exhibition The Decorative Arts on Paper. Ranging from early works such as Thomas Sheraton’s The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book and Ackermann’s Repository of Arts to designs for art deco fabrics …
Vintage finds inspired by the pomegranate
Currently on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, An Enduring Motif: The Pomegranate in Textiles (through February 21) is a small exhibition of works from the museum’s permanent collection that spans a remarkably diverse range of techniques and geographic regions including the 18th-century French block-printed cotton fabric shown here. The pomegranate bears many symbolic associations—from the Greek myth of …
Vintage finds in turquoise, Pantone’s 2010 color of the year
When Pantone announced yesterday that it had selected Turquoise (15-5519) as the color of the year for 2010 I wasn’t at all surprised. Touted by the company for its “serene and invigorating” qualities, turquoise has been one of the most sought after colors in decorative arts history starting with the turquoise ground, called bleu céleste, developed in 1753 for Louis …