Winterthur recently lost an extraordinary colleague, mentor, supporter, and friend—Charles F. Hummel. He arrived in 1952 as a member of the second class in the graduate program Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Early American Culture (today American Material Culture) and worked at Winterthur until 2022—the year of his second retirement.
Charlie’s contributions to Winterthur are exceptional. Following his graduation in 1955, Hummel was hired as a curatorial assistant, with steady promotions to assistant curator, associate curator, senior curator and head of the curatorial division, deputy director for collections, and senior deputy director for museum and library. He was also an adjunct professor at the University of Delaware and taught graduate students at Winterthur. At the time of his first retirement in 1991, he was named curator emeritus. But Charlie was only partway through his tenure at Winterthur. He continued to teach, research, and serve as a mentor to hundreds of students for another 31 years.
He played a key role in bringing the Dominy Shops—woodworking and clockmaking shops used by three generations of the Dominy family living in East Hampton, Long Island—to Winterthur. His major books, considered landmarks in the field, include With Hammer in Hand: The Dominy Craftsmen of East Hampton, New York; A Winterthur Guide to American Chippendale Furniture; and, with co-author Beatrice Garvan, The Pennsylvania Germans: A Celebration of Their Arts, 1683–1850.
He also was instrumental in establishing the Scientific Research and Analysis Laboratory in 1969 and the founding of the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation in the 1970s.
Perhaps his great legacy, and what his students, colleagues, and friends will remember most are his generosity, his enthusiasm, his warmth, and his genuine and kind personality. Charlie had an agelessness about him, and he enjoyed engaging in ongoing research and mentoring students in both of Winterthur’s graduate programs.
Charlie’s contributions will continue to impact Winterthur for decades to come.