Page 32 – Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library

A True Tour de Force

Jacqueline Kennedy’s 1962 televised look inside the White House influenced a generation. It took some help from Winterthur.

When First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave television viewers their first look at the newly restored interior of the White House, she broke ground in many ways—and she made a lasting impression.

“A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy” is considered by some television scholars to be the first prime time documentary targeted to a female audience. Broadcast on the CBS and NBC networks on February 14, 1962, it was the most-watched television program of its day. By the time it was shown on ABC four days later, it had drawn 80 million viewers.

“My mother was still talking about it thirty years later, when I was contemplating a thesis topic and realized the connection between Winterthur and the White House project,” says Elaine Rice Bachmann, a former student in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture and curator of the upcoming exhibition Jacqueline Kennedy and H. F. du Pont: From Winterthur to the White House. “Because the medium of television was well established by 1962, with one in nearly every home, and in a time before multiple channels were available, it meant that nearly every American watched this program.” Due to syndication, people in 50 countries eventually were able to view the tour.

Winterthur founder Henry Francis du Pont played a key role in the First Lady’s famous restoration of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Kennedy, determined to turn the faded home into a place of beauty and historic value that was worthy of a head of state, undertook the project soon after her husband, John F. Kennedy, was inaugurated in January 1961. She personally invited du Pont, then considered the nation’s greatest collector of, and foremost authority on, American historical decoration, to chair her Fine Arts Committee. The committee—suggested by Winterthur Director Charles F. Montgomery—searched for and acquired the art and antiques needed to realize Kennedy’s vision. Du Pont gave scholarly credibility to the effort.

Seeing a need for a permanent steward of the White House collection, Kennedy named Lorraine Waxman Pearce, a graduate of the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture who worked as a registrar at Winterthur, the first curator of the White House in March 1961. By September of that year, Congress enacted legislation designating the White House a museum, and in November, the White House Historical Association was chartered.

“Everything in the White House must have a reason for being there,” Kennedy told Life magazine at the time. “It would be sacrilege merely to redecorate it—a word I hate. It must be restored, and that has nothing to do with decoration. That is a question of scholarship.”

Within the year, cameras captured the big reveal.

“I think what is important to acknowledge is that this was not just ‘celebrity’ watching, although the enormous popularity of Mrs. Kennedy cannot be underestimated,” Bachmann says. “It was considered an important educational event, watched by many children. The media widely applauded the First Lady for her efforts to share White House history and American history with the public.”

Kennedy’s televised tour was not scripted, Bachmann points out. The First Lady wrote her own notes, which she studied in advance of the taping. She specified the route through the White House—through the State Dining Room, and then through the iconic Red, Blue, and Green rooms—and decided what furnishings and art to discuss. “The producers documented that they never needed to reshoot any scenes with her,” Bachmann says. “She was a one-take wonder.” The performance earned Kennedy an honorary Emmy.

Three pages of Mrs. Kennedy’s handwritten notes for the program, generously loaned by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, will be on display in the Winterthur exhibition, as will correspondence between Kennedy and du Pont from the Winterthur collection.

The story of Kennedy and du Pont’s relationship and his influence on the restoration will also be told through beautiful objects, photos, and other documents. Jacqueline Kennedy and H.F. du Pont: From Winterthur to the White House opens May 7, 2022.

Until then, you can celebrate the 60th anniversary of the broadcast—and Valentine’s Day—by watching portions of “A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy” via CBS’s Youtube.com channel.

Wearing Its Winter White

Our weeks-long bloom of snowdrops lightens the winter blues. See them while they last.

Henry Francis du Pont’s garden diaries for the winters of the 1920s and ’30s make many mentions of warm-weather golf and Galanthus, a flower known by the common name of snowdrop. By the 1940s, du Pont wrote that he enjoyed the blossoming of late winter so much, he no longer wished to spend the entire season at his home in Boca Grande, Florida. He wanted to return to Winterthur.

A symbol of spring and hope in Western art and literature, the snowdrop has become one of the estate’s signature flowers, blooming reliably in vast carpets of white on the March Bank and other garden areas starting as early as January, thanks to du Pont’s early experiments. You can start looking for them in all their glorious profusion now.

Galanthus describes a genus of about 20 species of small perennial bulbs that grow as two linear leaves bearing a single white, bell-shaped flower with delicate green markings. The blossom hangs like a drop. Native to Europe and western Asia, they naturalize easily, especially in deciduous woodlands, where du Pont planted them to extend the season of bloom across Winterthur’s 60 acres of natural garden. His earliest recorded sighting in a season was on December 7, 1931.

Du Pont planted seven different species and seven cultivars beginning in the early 1900s. Winterthur still has seven species—though a couple have replaced du Pont’s originals—and more than fifty cultivars. Winterthur’s garden team, always developing new ways to preserve du Pont’s singular vision, continues his experiments.

“We are trialing ones that flower earlier and later, ones with different flower forms such as doubles, and some with variations in green and yellow markings,” says Linda Eirhart, director of horticulture and senior curator of plants. “They are primarily white with green markings, but there are subtle differences between the species and cultivars. It’s fun to look at them with that level of detail.”

Though individual plants keep their flowers for only a few weeks, the sequence of bloom times for the different species ensures touches or drifts of white across the estate from fall into spring.

Snowdrops are wonderful plants for home gardeners who are looking to create visual interest and color in winter, Eirhart says. Snowdrops layer well with hostas and ferns, grow in a variety of conditions, and require little maintenance. Large mail order companies offer a few species and cultivars. Look to specialty nurseries for more unusual ones.

Winterthur boasts one of the largest displays of snowdrops in the United States. Plan your visit around the weather. Mild weather brings the blooms sooner and stronger. The blossoms tighten up during especially frigid days, such as those in mid-January, but will open again on warmer days. You’ll find them into March.

The Needle’s I: Stitching Identity

September 17, 2022–January 8, 2023

The Needle’s I: Stitching Identity examines how we work with needles and thread to create a sense of self. From historic samplers and clothing to contemporary pieces, the exhibition presents stitchers and stitchery from the 18th century to the present day and explores these makers, their marks, and their stories through themes of family, memory, and craft tradition. The exhibit is inspired by The Needle’s Eye: Women and Work in the Age of Revolution, Marla Miller’s important examination of 18th and early 19th-century identity, gender, and craft and moves it to the present day.

On October 6 and 7, The Needle’s I: Stitching Identity, A Winterthur Conference will explore the themes of the exhibition, further examining how we work with needles and thread to create a sense of self. Join visiting scholars, designers, artists, and Winterthur curators, conservators, and other staff for this two-day conference. Register now.

Stefania Urist

Stefania Urist wants people to think about the importance of trees.

A resident of Vermont, Stefania Urist is keenly interested in trees and old-growth forests. She was exploring Winterthur in 2020 learning from staff conservators how to preserve outdoor sculptures, when she saw an Instagram post that changed her direction. In the post, there was a photo of a staff member counting the rings of a 300-year-old oak that had been felled by a tornado that summer. “The tree was a wide as the staff member was tall,” Urist. “I knew right away it was old. When I saw it, I said, ‘I need a piece of that.’”

Among other things, Urist’s art addresses ideas about the environment, in part by using materials in unusual ways. She used parts of the tree she discovered on Instagram, known as the Brown’s Meadow Oak, to create one of two related works in Transformations. Fragmented Memories, made of paper over wood, expands a milling pattern into pieces the viewers can remove and keep, thus involving them in the work’s evolution. Bonded Memories, made of paper embossed with the oak’s rings, imagines the tree reassembled.

“Fragmented Memories” turns a milling pattern into something beautiful.

“I wasn’t searching for something like that tree at that time,” Urist says. “But I was letting my research guide me in terms of being interested in old-growth trees. And I was actually trying to find some up here in Vermont, so it was kind of serendipitous.”

The work is now on display in the Winterthur galleries area as part of Transformations: Contemporary Artists at Winterthur, which showcases current responses to the traditional forms and objects the institution is known for. The six artists currently represented in Transformations were all part of Winterthur’s Maker-Creator Research Fellowship, a program that provides a stipend and gives access to Winterthur and its staff for research that inspires the work of creative professionals. Also on view is Urist’s Mapping the Impact, a sculpture of leaded glass, copper, and reclaimed wood that resembles a tree stump, and The Ceiling, on the patio of the Galleries Reception Atrium entrance.

“Mapping the Impact” (left) and “The Ceiling” (right).

It was living in the Green Mountain State that kicked Urist’s interest in trees into high gear. Since colonial days, Vermont has been clear cut many times for mining, agriculture, settlement, and other purposes. Much forest has grown back, but there is no true old growth, so the ecosystem has changed. Urist wants to call attention to the intelligence of trees—the way they communicate chemically, the way they support each other, and their key role in healthy ecosystems. Art is one way to do that.

“I came to the milling patterns by being interested in the interaction between humans and nature, how we turn natural, curvy, inconsistent shapes into linear, industrialized products,” Urist says. “You can see different artistic shapes in there, almost like art deco patterns, and I found that really beautiful but also really sad.”

In other work, Urist lifts the “fingerprints” of trees. From freshly cut logs and stumps that still ooze sap, Urist imprints paper, then dusts it with graphite to highlight the ring pattern. Each is as unique as a human fingerprint.

“My interest in art in general is about connecting, seeing patterns in life and nature that maybe other people don’t see, or just connecting them in different ways than other people do,” Urist says. “The tree rings are the lifeline and literal timeline of the tree made into a physical shape. I just want people to think about it in a different way, think about our own consumption and how we use these beings to be objects and building materials when they existed for so long before that.”

Urist’s work, and the work of the other Transformations artists, is currently on view in the galleries area.

Teen Volunteer Program

Interested in Art? History? Science? Museums?

If you answered “yes” to the above, consider applying to the 2025 Teen Volunteer Program. Participants in this program will meet the curators and conservators behind Winterthur’s new exhibit Almost Unknown: the Afric-American Picture Gallery and will share what they learn about design, history, and art with their community! Application is due by April 14, 2025.

What you’ll do

● Go behind the scenes at a world-class museum in your own backyard

● Learn about objects in the museum, how we care for them, and how they inspire new works of art

● Guide young children through hands-on activities and demonstrations

● Develop leadership skills while serving your community

The time required

The time required
Training week: June 24–28, 9 am–3 pm

Tuesdays & Thursdays, July 1–August 7, 9 am–3 pm.
Tuesday programs take place at Winterthur.
Thursday programs travel from Winterthur into Wilmington.

How to apply

Complete the online application here: https://forms.office.com/r/qRBZaEtct7

Object of the Month: Frog Mug

This English earthenware mug from the late 18th century, created with the practical joker in mind, has a fun secret: a fake frog inside seems poised to leap at the face of the unsuspecting user—a sort of precursor of the ice cube with the fake fly. Fill the mug with a dark liquid, hand to a friend, then enjoy the show. One can only guess how much joy the reaction gave the joker.

Tyler Johnson, Estate Guide

Frog Mug

England, 1770-1790

Gift of Osborne R. and Mary M. Soverel in memory of Lilian Wilkinson Boschen, 1992.0040

Michael Kalmbach and Creative Vision Factory

A new outdoor bench at Winterthur connects communities through history, memories, and stories.

When you take a seat on the new, beautifully tiled mosaic bench on the patio of the Galleries Reception Atrium, there is much to reflect on.

There is The Ceiling, a gazebo-like sculpture with a glass roof that is part of Transformations: Contemporary Artists at Winterthur, which represents creator Stefania Urist’s interest in the intersection of people and nature.

There is a section of trunk from the Brown’s Meadow Oak, a 300-year-old tree toppled by a tornado on the estate in 2020. The ancient giant inspired other works by Urist and another Transformations artist, Rob Finn, who painted its portrait in watercolor, a striking memorial to the stately tree.

Then there is the bench itself.

Obviously contemporary, the bench has more connections to Winterthur’s world-class collection of traditional American decorative arts than meets the eye. On closer inspection, one can see references to the Winterthur collection in the many tiles that incorporate bits of ceramic dishware and in the bench design itself, which reflects a continuum of fine craftsmanship and design often associated with the museum objects inside. This is Winterthur reimagined in tile and concrete.

The mosaic bench is part of a new exhibition, Upcycled!, which asks viewers to consider how old things can be reused creatively while also creating a community by working with local nonprofit organizations to make and display works of art. The work of many hands, the bench is an expression of caring that unites Winterthur and project partner Creative Vision Factory with Duffy’s Hope Garden in Wilmington and the New Castle County Hope Center, which provides transitional housing for the homeless. Winterthur’s collaboration with these partners included support and supplies for Creative Vision Factory artists to create benches at Winterthur, Duffy’s Hope Garden, and the Hope Center, as well as support for a tile monument at the Delaware State Hospital’s historic Spiral Cemetery that memorializes more than 700 souls who died in state care without being claimed by family between 1891 and 1983.

At Winterthur, the mosaic tiling on the bench includes fragments of donated dinnerware and other ceramics—even some pieces from Joe and Jill Biden’s vice-presidential home—all associated with the feelings, thoughts, memories, and homes of their donors and the experience of volunteers who made them into something new.

“All of this is about telling the stories of people’s lives, both in the past and the present, and connecting them, often by either using things to remember them by or by thinking about the things that surrounded their lives and what their lives were like,” says Catharine Dann Roeber, interim director of Academic Programs at Winterthur. “For example, the people living at the Delaware State Hospital, what were their lives like? How can we learn from that and improve them?”

The question is especially poignant at Winterthur. A former family home filled with 90,000 historical objects ranging from everyday domestic items to the finest examples of decorative arts, Winterthur co-sponsors two graduate programs with the University of Delaware, one in material culture studies and one in conservation. In both programs, students study, care for, and interpret the belongings and lifeways of people in the past. Every object—a bit of a plate or a fancy piece of furniture—can reveal clues to past lives.

“That scholarship connects to thinking about people who are trying to set up a home in the Hope Center or someplace else, who just need that space to call home to be able to live their lives to the fullest,” Roeber says. “That is totally connected in a really exciting way to the things that we think about in a historical sense here.

“The process of making and craft is something that we study. There is a value not only from the aesthetics of things, but the actual process of making serves a purpose. Each tile has a story to tell.”

Two alumni of the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Material Culture, Benét Burton and Molly Mapstone, originated the effort as students by identifying partners in a community art project that would make people aware of Winterthur and strengthen community connections and caring.

They found Michael Kalmbach and Creative Vision Factory, whose mission is to foster the creative potential of individuals on the behavioral health spectrum in a studio art environment that cultivates integration with the local art community through exhibitions, workshops, and communal workspace. Creative Vision Factory in turn identified Friends of the Spiral Cemetery, Duffy’s Hope, and the Hope Center as partners and project sites. It also coordinated workshops where volunteers and clients could create the tiles. Eliza Jarvis and Jonathan Whitney of Flux Creative added additional support and community connections to the project.

“We did what we had hoped to do, create a ripple effect at every stage. It is a beautifully unfolding partnership,” Roeber says. “We’re connecting threads and beginning to set the stage for future collaborations.”

One future collaboration may be the tiling of a tunnel on the Jack Markell Trail that cuts through an extensive Potters Field near the existing Spiral Cemetery, which was disrupted during the construction of route I-295. The murals can bring attention to important history at the site and complement additional endeavors to create a place of memory for those who rest there.

Explore the Winter Garden

Without the adornment of leaves and flowers, the structure of the landscape is laid bare in intimate, vivid details and provides a clear view of far-reaching vistas. Its imposing tree trunks show off their powerful roots, shining in the spotlight of a winter sun. The fragrant and vibrant evergreens, no longer overpowered by showy blooms, take center stage. And the landscape, in its naked beauty, offers a true connection to nature.

Each season at Winterthur offers its own unique delights, but winter is perhaps the most inimitable of all as the bones of the landscape are exposed, offering an appreciation for the raw beauty of nature, sprinkled with little treasures of color from winter berries and flowers. The quiet solitude is a peaceful retreat from the busyness of everyday life.

Become a Member and enjoy the transformative experience of the winter landscape during our seasonal closing in January and February, when Members are able to walk the garden and grounds daily, dawn to dusk (weather permitting).

Beyond Transformations: Daniel Feinberg

Dan Feinberg’s Radish Project could prove a solution where asphalt paving is a problem.

When Dan Feinberg sees a large expanse of unused asphalt such as the parking lot of an abandoned big box store, he sees damage he’d like to mitigate. So Dan and a colleague from Berea College, soil scientist Mary Parr, are experimenting with a way to break up that surface through plants.

In a corner of the parking lot at the Brown Horticulture Learning Center and on a short stretch of road leading to the Dairy Barn, Feinberg has planted about 1,500 tillage radishes in patterns inspired by the parquet floor of the Empire Parlor and rugs in the Marlboro Room and the Port Royal Parlor. Tillage radishes were bred to relieve soil compaction. At Winterthur, Feinberg hopes they will break up the asphalt.

Visitors can view the project as part of Transformations: Contemporary Artists at Winterthur, which shows how the collection inspires makers and creators today. Feinberg came to Winterthur though its Maker-Creator Fellowship program, which provides special access to the collections and staff for research and inspiration. Opened in September 2021, Transformations is a multi-year commitment to showing the work of contemporary artists and makers in the galleries and garden.

If successful, the project will encourage greening, revitalize nutrients in the underlying soil for the benefit of plants that will eventually replace the radishes, and promote drainage to reduce pollution and other environmental damage from the runoff of surface water.

Feinberg saw the problems created by large areas of asphalt paving at home in the historic village of Paint Lick, Kentucky, where a buildup of asphalt increases problems during heavy rains and floods.

“I look at this big parking lot every day and see plants growing through the cracks,” Feinberg says. “Then I started to wonder if we could use plants to help mitigate the problem.”

With a special interest in patterns, Feinberg, a professor of art at Berea, found Winterthur rich with examples in its collections of wallpapers and textiles. Most people see vegetation growing through asphalt as a sign of dereliction or neglect. “By planting radishes in patterns, we send an intentional signal that a problem is being addressed,” Feinberg says.

In spring 2021, he spent about a month mapping the planting area, marking the patterns, drilling an estimated 1,500 holes—three-quarters of an inch in diameter—through the asphalt, planting radish seeds with compost from Winterthur and help from Winterthur staff, and then waited while nature took its course.

Fracturing around some holes mean the first planting of radishes is working. The holes will be re-seeded every fall and spring. Feinberg is studying light cycles and other conditions as he determines when best to plant. Winterthur staff will document the project’s progress.

Photographic documentation will result in a surprising, augmented reality project that will be revealed in the house in coming years. For now, visitors can see the radishes growing on the Winterthur property.

Conservation Focus Lab Tour

Learn about behind-the-scenes work happening in Winterthur’s conservation laboratories, where works of art and cultural heritage are examined, studied, and cared for by your tour hosts, our conservators, scientists, and graduate students. Registration required; capacity limited. For ages 8 and up. $10 with admission; $5 for Members.

Select Wednesdays | 1:00–2:30 pm

March 4: Paper, Textiles, and Preventive Labs | Register now.
April 1: Objects, Research & Analysis, and Library Labs | Register now.