Lectures
“St. Giles House: The New Beginning”
Tuesday, March 10
6:00 pm, Copeland
St. Giles House has been a family home to the Earls of Shaftesbury and their descendants since the 13th century. It was also a home to the philosopher John Locke, frequently visited by the composer George Frideric Handel, and housed one of the great collections of English 18th-century furniture. Sadly, like so many English country houses, it fell into a period of disrepair following the Second Word War, and the family moved out, selling the majority of the furniture and possessions in the process. It remained shuttered for 30 years, during which time it came close to collapse and appeared on the English Heritage “Buildings at Risk” register. In 2005, Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, a former DJ living in New York, became the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury after the tragic death of his father and older brother. Inspired by his ancestors and determined to make St. Giles House a family home once again, he and his wife embarked on a 4-year restoration project to bring St. Giles House back to life. Members $5. Nonmembers $15.
“Pennsylvania German Fraktur: From A to Z”
Thursday, March 19,
12:15–1:15 pm, Rotunda
Fraktur is a Germanic tradition of decorated manuscripts and printed documents. Introduced to Pennsylvania by German immigrants beginning in 1683, fraktur is noted for its use of bold colors and whimsical motifs. Learn about the artists who made these works and the people who owned them in this comprehensive overview with Lisa Minardi, assistant curator at Winterthur and curator of A Colorful Folk, that includes birth and baptismal certificates, bookplates, religious texts, writing samples, rewards of merit, house blessings, and cutworks. A book signing will follow of the newly-published catalogues A Colorful Folk: Pennsylvania Germans & the Art of Everyday Life and Drawn with Spirit: Pennsylvania German Fraktur from the Joan and Victor Johnson Collection. Book signing to follow lecture. Members free. Included with admission.
“Dissolving the Political Bands: Depictions of American Rebellion by a London Print Publisher”
Thursday, March 26
12:15 pm, Rotunda
Exactly 240 years ago, just before fighting began in the American Revolution, a satirical image appeared for sale in the window of a London print shop. In it, a group of patriotic North Carolina women refuse to drink tea to protest sanctions imposed by the Boston Port Bill in 1774. One in a series of five mezzotints, which are all owned by Winterthur, the print used caricature and humor to appeal to audiences on both sides of the Atlantic and of the conflict. As a group, these designs visualized widespread anxiety about colonial unity. This talk with Amy Torbert, Winterthur research fellow , Ph.D. candidate in Art History, University of Delaware, explores how the prints were produced and circulated and how one print from the series, The Bostonians Paying the Excise-Man, or Tarring & Feathering, later became an icon of American patriotism. Members free. Included with admission.
“George Stacey and the Creation of American Chic”
Tuesday, March 24
6:00 pm, Copeland
Maureen Footer, ASID, will discuss trailblazing decorator George Stacey, who shot to prominence in the 1930s with projects for socialite Frances Cheney and style priestess Diana Vreeland. The audacity of his work caught the eye of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Town and Country, and House & Garden. An appealing nonchalance and irreverence, combined with erudition, a flair for color, and an innate grasp of balance, scale, and proportion produced rooms that were surprising and sophisticated. Balancing modern aesthetics and modern living with a lifelong passion for French classicism ensured that Stacey's designs were both of the moment and enduring. For the next 40 years, he deftly produced a string of stylish rooms for his clientele. While Stacey’s approach remained constant, he captured the nuances of an exceptionally dynamic era and established a design vocabulary that defined American chic and endures to this day. Members $5. Nonmembers $15. Book signing to follow.
“ESCAPE: The Heyday of Caribbean Glamour”
Tuesday, April 7
6:00 pm, Copeland
Hermes Mallea, architect and author, takes us on a nostalgic celebration of the glamour of warm-weather destinations in the Caribbean and Florida, from the great estates of ambitious patrons, including H. F. du Pont’s retreat in Cuba, to the most exclusive resorts of the mid-20th century. Through iconic photography capturing the cultural mood at the moment when social codes relaxed from the formality of the Gilded Age to the spontaneity of the jet-set era, Mallea takes you inside a world of beach parties and costume balls set in lush tropical landscapes, of rarefied resorts and fairy-tale private estates. Among these idealized settings blossomed the resort lifestyle of international celebrities, from Marjorie Merriweather Post to Babe Paley, Princess Margaret to David Bowie, whose escapades are spectacularly captured in these pages to make the region’s bygone glamour come alive. Members $5. Nonmembers $15. Book signing to follow.
A Colorful Folk Lecture: “The Search for Wisdom in the Gothic Baroque: Text Veneration and Divine Knowledge in Switzerland and German Pennsylvania, ca. 1600–1850”
Thursday, April 9
12:15–1:15 pm, Rotunda
Why did Pennsylvania Germans make those beautiful, neo-gothic illuminated manuscripts colloquially called “fraktur?" This is, perhaps, the most basic question to be asked of the well-known folk art tradition but it is also one of the most difficult to answer. The early modern spiritual world that gave rise to the tradition in central Europe is all but lost to us today. Alexander Lawrence Ames, graduate of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, focuses on the Pennsylvania Vorschrift, or penmanship sample, discusses aspects of early modern German spiritual culture in order to offer context for the Pennsylvania Frakturschrift manuscript tradition. Members free. Included with admission.
“Thesis Topics with American Materials Culture Class of 2015”
Thursday, April 16
12:15 pm, Rotunda
Neal Hurst and Lea Lane, members of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture Class of 2015, will present their thesis research. Hurst will present “18th-Century Men’s Summer Dress in the American South,” and Lea will present “Carving Pipes in Civil War Prison Camps.” Members free. Included with admission.
Living Artfully
Tuesday, April 21
6:00 pm, Copeland Lecture Hall
Estella M. Chung, curator of American Material Culture & Historian, head of Oral History, Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens presents Living Artfully. It is a vibrant and intimate picture of life in the three magnificent residences of Marjorie Merriweather Post, her guests, and staff. From 1957 onward she lived in stately Hillwood in Washington, D.C., for spring and autumn; retreated to Camp Topridge in the Adirondacks for the summer; and enjoyed the winter season at Mar-A-Lago, her glamorous villa in Palm Beach. Author and Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens curator Estella M. Chung’s lecture draws on the recollections of Post’s butler, property caretaker, head gardener, estate superintendent, and distinguished guests to reveal the lively inner workings and polished hospitality of her homes from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Their stories offer a glimpse into Post’s many talents and sense of humor as well as her idiosyncrasies. Members $5. Nonmembers $15.Book signing to follow.
“The Artist's Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement”
Tuesday, May 5
6:00 pm, Copeland
Anna O. Marley, curator of Historical American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, tells the story of American Impressionist artists and the growing popularity of gardening as a middle-class leisure pursuit at the turn of the 20th century, bringing together paintings, sculpture, books, and stained glass. The Artist's Garden: American Impressionism and the Garden Movement 1887–1920, is on view through May 24, 2015, at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. $5 per Member. $15 per nonmember. Reservations encouraged. Book signing to follow.
“Narratives of Manners and Style: The Houses of Cross & Cross”
Tuesday, May 19
6:00 pm, Copeland Lecture Hall
Join architect Peter Pennoyer and architectural historian Anne Walker, authors of the new book New York Transformed: The Architecture of Cross & Cross, for a look at two of the early 1900s’ most important but largely forgotten architects. Brothers John and Eliot Cross counted the country’s richest and most influential figures among their clients, yet they tended to gravitate toward an unpretentious luxury—a polite and historically embedded expression of their wealth. They designed several magnificent Colonial Revival houses in New York as well as country houses in fashionable areas such as Long Island’s North Shore and East End, Greenwich, Connecticut, and Far Hills, New Jersey. Most notably, they designed J. Watson and Electra Havemeyer Webb’s Brick House in Shelburne, Vermont (now part of the Shelburne Museum), Chestertown House in Southampton for H. F. du Pont, and the childhood home of famed decorator Sister Parish in Far Hills, New Jersey. Pennoyer and Walker will share gorgeous photos of these homes and insight into the people who lived there and will discuss the influences the Cross brothers used while designing each property. Members $5. Nonmembers $15. Book signing to follow.
Historic Autos Lectures
Saturday, May 30
1:00 pm
Gregory Landrey, director of Academic Affairs at Winterthur Museum, examines cars, colors, and advertising in the 1950s. He’ll discuss how color was used creatively on the vehicles themselves as well as in the advertisement of the product to entice the buyer in a highly competitive and rapidly evolving automotive industry. Drawing comparisons between fashions from the era and the marketing of automobiles, Mr. Landrey will highlight advertisements from various popular publications including Vogue, Esquire, Look, Life, The National Geographic, and others. Members free. Included with admission.
Press Room | Site Search | Employment
Volunteer | Suggestion Box | Newsletter Signup
General Information: 800.448.3883
Facebook
| Photo Credits
© 2009 Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
.