The Decorative Arts Trust

One if by land, and two if by sea. On April 19, 1775, Paul Revere arranged for two lanterns to be lit in the belfry of the North Church, signaling to fellow patriots that the British were heading out of Boston by water for an attack on Concord. The above is one of those lanterns. Hear more about incredible artifacts like this and see beautiful decorative arts objects in our last Trust Tour featuring Erica Lome, Peggy N. Gerry Curatorial Associate at the Concord Museum. ... YouTube virtual tour recording: https://youtu.be/s-OqcRUdAUY Blog post: https://decorativeartstrust.org/erica-lome-concord-museum-/ Pictured: Lantern, Boston, about 1775, Concord Museum M400a1, Gift of Cummings E. Davis (1886).

We are pleased to announce that Craft in America is the inaugural recipient of the Decorative Arts Trust Prize for Excellence and Innovation. The organization is preparing a free online video dictionary of tools, techniques, and materials spanning all decorative arts media, a project led by Craft in America Center Director Emily Zaiden. Thank you to all who supported the Prize and attended the virtual celebration! Read more on our website: https://decorativeartstrust.org/prize-excellence-and-innov/. Pictured: J. Isaac Vásquez García, master weaver and dyer, is featured in the Craft in America: Borders episode. Photo by Denise Kang. #TrustPrize #TrustVirtual

Join us to hear art critic and writer TK Smith in conversation with contemporary sculpture and weaver Zipporah Camille Thompson on November 16 at 7:00 pm ET: https://decorativeartstrust.org/trust-talk-smith-thompson/. Smith’s scholarship is invested in American material culture and exploring how the symbolic meaning of material is made, preserved, and transformed over time. He will explore Thompson’s work and how she incorporates non-traditional art-making materials, found o...bjects, and the impressions of her own touch to enliven her work with spirit. Together they will discuss how contemporary craft practices not only reference the skill and aesthetics of the past but also function as a continued expression of culture and spirituality. Register now: https://decorativeartstrust.org/trust-talk-smith-thompson/. #TrustVirtual

It's almost here! On Monday 12/7 we announce the recipient of the inaugural Decorative Arts Trust Prize for Excellence and Innovation: https://decorativeartstrust.org/prize-celebration. Join us on Monday at 7:00 pm ET for a virtual celebration featuring four finalists: Cincinnati Art Museum; Craft in America; The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens; and Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. The night culminates with an announcement of the 2020 Prize recipient! Complimentary registration is available, and all proceeds from the event will be directed toward an endowment for future Prizes. The Prize Celebration is sponsored by HUB Flather & Perkins, Inc. RSVP today! #TrustPrize #TrustVirtual

This first portrait of Washington, painted before he had to worry about his national reputation or national memory, is an image that promotes indigenous dispossession and foretells of his later actions against the indigenous nations who prevented expansion by white settlers. -Janine Yorimoto Boldt, PhD In her October 22 Trust Talk with Daniel Ackermann, Janine Boldt used colonial portraits as material evidence to investigate cross-culture encounters and the development of... social and racial relations. In the first portrait of George Washington painted at Mt. Vernon by Charles Wilson Peale (1772), she uses a close reading of the landscape background as a gateway to interpret the painting as a depiction of Washington as ‘Caunotaucarius’ or the town taker, a name that was given to Washington by a Seneca leader after his brutal campaign against them during the Seven Years War. Instead of interpreting colonial portraits as family documents or commodities, inclusivity is central to Janine’s research as she builds scholarship that considers how diverse peoples have influenced these works and American art. Watch the Trust Talk recording on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/00XIcDj-oz0 Learn more in this blog post: https://decorativeartstrust.org/colonial-portraits-boldt-a/ #TrustVirtual

The baroque brickwork featured on the Nicholson House is a rare survival: decorativeartstrust.org/nicholson-house-trust-tour. The year of construction, 1722, is boldly inlaid in sparkling headers above 45 diamond patterns. Belying its Quaker origins, the Nicholson House was a grand and highly decorated dwelling for its time. Such brickwork called for skilled bricklayers who had to plan the pattern layout in advance with care and concentration. John Mason and William Petty car...ried out this work for the Nicholson House and inscribed their initials, as well as those of the owners, in the brick by the front door. On November 10 at 3:00 pm ET, join us for a virtual Trust Tour as Ralph Harvard reveals the many tales of this historic home currently undergoing extensive restoration. This incredible property and Ralph’s racoon fur hat are not to be missed. Register at decorativeartstrust.org/nicholson-house-trust-tour. #TrustVirtual

‘Kodama’ is a Japanese word that refers to the spirit of wood. Central to the Japanese aesthetic is a respect for the materials and a respect for natural forms. These principles were mirrored in the philosophy behind the Modernist design movement. Participants in the Decorative Arts Trust’s October 17 Philadelphia Gardens in Fall program explored the relationship between Modernism and Japanese design during a visit to Shofuso House. Shofuso House is a 17th-century-style Japan...ese house built in Japan in the mid-20th century as a gift to American citizens. Originally exhibited in the courtyard at MoMA, the structure has a history of facilitating the relationship between Modernism and Japanese aesthetics. During our gardens program, we enjoyed a tour of the exhibition, ‘Shofuso and Modernism: Mid-Century Collaboration between Japan and Philadelphia’ from the curators William Whitaker and Yuka Yokoyama. Read more about this invigorating in-person event on our blog: https://decorativeartstrust.org/philadelphia-gardens-bartra. Explore the exhibition and Shofuso house in this documentary: https://www.shofusoandmodernism.com/. #TravelsWithTheTrust

I ensure that the institution we are building is not a place where there is a poverty of imagination. - Brenda Tindal On the second night of the Race, Place & Identity symposium that the Trust co-hosted with Drayton Hall, participants heard from Brenda Tindal on the soon-to-open International African American Museum in Charleston, SC. The mission of the African American Museum is to honor the untold story of the African American journey on one of the country’s most sacred s...ites, Gadsden’s Wharf, where an estimated 100,000 enslaved Africans arrived on American soil during the peak of the international slave trade. Hear more about this incredible new institution and listen to all of the lectures from the symposium on YouTube now. Watch the recording of night one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaoENKuBlF8 Watch the recording of night two here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLfAhU4JIWI Learn more in this blog post: https://decorativeartstrust.org/exploring-race-virtual-symp #TrustVirtual

A catalogue from 1828 features dahlias (dahlia pinnata) in the original single - and 4 or 5 varieties, double & variously colored for sale at Bartram's Garden. The site has featured a botanical collection since 1728, when third-generation Pennsylvania Quaker John Bartram built one of the most varied collections of North American plants in the world. His collection turned into a successful plant export and subscription business that allowed Bartram to send exotic botanicals... all over Europe. By 1828, the garden was under the stewardship of Bartram’s daughter Ann Carr, who continued the family legacy of cultivating and selling botanic wonders. On Saturday, October 17, participants in our Philadelphia Gardens in Fall program visited this incredible collection and had the opportunity to purchase some beautiful plants of their own. Our group enjoyed a tour led by site curator Joel Fry that left us in awe of the site's beauty and historic significance. Read more about this exciting in-person event on our blog: https://decorativeartstrust.org/philadelphia-gardens-bartra. #TravelsWithTheTrust

Wharton Esherick, George Nakashima, Jacob Maentel. These are just a few of the notable names to come out of Pennsylvania’s storied history of artistry and craftsmanship. On October 28, Freeman's Auction will celebrate the state’s legacy with its signature Pennsylvania Sale, this year in the form of an online-only auction. In a new blog post at https://decorativeartstrust.org/freemans-auction/, Vice Presidents Lynda Cain and Tim Andreadis spoke with the Trust on continuing the... Pennsylvania tradition in the face of a pandemic, and what opportunities lie ahead for collectors of decorative arts and design. Image 1: Wharton Esherick, Hammer Handle Chair for Hedgerow Theatre, 1938, Paoli PA. Hickory, oak, painted canvas belting. The Hedgerow Theatre Collection. Image 2: George Nakashima, Conoid Bench, 1976, New Hope, PA. American black walnut, hickory. Image 3: Attributed to Jacob Maentel, An Important Family Portrait: Mary Ann and John Michael Kitzmiller and Children, Littlestown, Adams County, PA. Watercolor and ink on paper.

Join Curator Deborah Rebuck and Richard Dietrich III at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as they lead us through the soon-to-close exhibition ‘A Collector’s Vision: Highlights from the Dietrich American Foundation’: https://decorativeartstrust.org/dietrich-tour/. Among the 55 rare American art objects on view in the exhibition are a delicate watercolor miniature of George Washington painted by James Peale, a signed Daniel Goddard bureau table from Newport, Pennsylvania German frakturs and furniture, Chinese Export porcelain, and prints and watercolors. Explore this amazing collection and H. Richard Dietrich Jr.’s vision as a collector with us during this virtual tour on October 27. #TrustVirtual

Peek into the world’s largest collection of historical pigments: https://www.harvardartmuseums.org//a-history-of-color-an-a. In the fascinating 'A History of Color: An Audio Tour of the Forbes Pigment Collection' online resource, Narayan Khandekar, senior conservation scientist and director of the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at the Harvard Art Museums, and Alison Cariens, the Straus Center’s conservation coordinator, the stories behind some of history’s most fascinating colors. The Forbes Pigment Collection at the Harvard Art Museums began at the turn of the 20th century and today contains more than 2,500 pigments.

October 31 is the deadline to apply for a Dean F. Failey Grant: https://decorativeartstrust.org/failey-grant/. The Decorative Arts Trust underwrites grants in support of noteworthy research, exhibition, publication, and object-based conservation projects through the Dean F. Failey Fund, named in honor of the Trust’s late Governor. Areas of interest include new scholarship in decorative arts, material culture, craftsmanship, and historic preservation. Grants totaling $25,000 will be awarded this fall. Pictured: Alexandra Ward, a past recipient of a Decorative Arts Trust Summer Research Grant, introduces a sequence of didactic displays that were developed to contextualize the Leslie P. and George H. Hume American Furniture Study Center, partially funded through a Dean F. Failey Grant from the Trust.

Recently, the National Trust in the UK completed a study of colonialism and slavery in relation to the houses in their care: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk//addressing-the-histories. This 'Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery' details the connections 93 historic places have with colonialism and historic slavery, including the global slave trades, goods and products... of enslaved labor, abolition and protest, and the East India Company. The report has been designed as a catalyst for further research, and future editions are already planned. Pictured is a detail of a Japanese Chest at Chirk Castle, thought to have been acquired by Thomas Myddelton (photo courtesy of the National Trust/Paul Highnam). For 500 years, British colonialism was fundamental to British social, economic, political, and cultural life. A number of properties and collections were owned or acquired by leading officials from the East India Company, the hugely powerful corporation which dominated trade between Europe, Asia and the Middle East between 1600 and 1857. The Company was instrumental in the East African slave trade and also traded enslaved people from the West Coast of Africa to its settlements in South and East Africa, India and Asia. Thomas Myddelton (1550-1631), an MP and a Lord Mayor of London who bought Chirk Castle in 1593, was one of the founders of the East India Company, which received its charter from Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600.