Current and upcoming exhibitions and events

A selection of events and exhibitions featuring the decorative arts not covered in the DAS Newsletter

Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light
Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
Winchester, VA
https://www.themsv.org
Throughout September 1, 2019

Painting with Color and Light presents five windows, 19 lamps, and more than 100 pieces of opalescent flat glass and glass “jewels” that illustrate the expanse of color and light available to the artists at the Tiffany Studios.

As a painter, Louis C. Tiffany (1848–1933) was captivated by the interplay of light and color. Through the medium of opalescent glass, he could capture light in color and manipulate it to achieve impressionistic effects. Using new and innovative techniques and materials, Tiffany Studios created leaded-glass windows and lampshades in vibrant colors and varied patterns, textures and opacities.

Organized by the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass (Queens, NY), Tiffany Glass: Painting with Color and Light presents objects that exemplify the glass palette, color selection and intricacy of design that was characteristic of Tiffany’s leaded-glass objects. The exhibition highlights key figures at Tiffany Studios, including chemist Arthur J. Nash and designers Agnes Northrop, Frederick Wilson and Clara Driscoll; illustrates the labor-intensive process of making leaded-glass shades; and explores authenticity through three examples Tiffany lamp forgeries.

About the Neustadt Collection
Dr. Egon Neustadt, the founder of the Neustadt Collection, began acquiring Tiffany lamps in 1935 and amassed an almost-encyclopedic collection. In 1967, he purchased the flat glass and “jewels” left over from the closing of the Tiffany Studios in the late 1930s. The collection contains some 275,000 pieces of glass and is the only holding of its kind.

20th-Century American Jewelry from a Promised Gift of Toni Wolf Greenbaum
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, CT
artgallery.yale.edu
Through August 26, 2018

This installation of 16 pieces of American studio jewelry from the 1930s to the present day is a promised gift from Toni Wolf Greenbaum, a New York–based art historian specializing in 20th- and 21st-century jewelry and metalwork who is the author of Messengers of Modernism: American Studio Jewelry, 1940–1960 and is writing a monograph about modernist jeweler Sam Kramer. She is also an associate professor at the Pratt Institute (New York, NY).

The works from Greenbaum’s collection — all of which she has worn — expand on the gallery’s jewelry holdings and present evidence of the role of jewelry in the context of 20th-century and contemporary American decorative arts.

Studio jewelers design and fabricate one-of-a-kind or limited edition pieces in a studio, rather than factory, setting. The pieces on view are made from aluminum, brass, enamel, paint, plastic, repurposed objects, silver and tin, and demonstrate techniques such as hammering, chasing, assembling, anodizing, patinating and mokume gane (a Japanese technique that uses mixed metals to produce a layered pattern resembling wood grain). The gift brings new artists to the gallery’s collection such as Harriete Estel Berman, Peter Macchiarini and Art Smith.

21st Annual Arts and Crafts Conference
Initiatives in Art and Culture
Chicago and Environs, IL
www.artinitiatives.com
September 19–22, 2019

Featured speaker: Gunny Harboe, architect, whose recent projects include Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West, Robie House, Unity Temple and Beth Sholom Synagogue; Mies Van der Rohe’s Crown Hall; Louis Sullivan’s Carson Pirie Scott store; Holabird & Roche’s Marquette Building; and Holabird & Root’s Chicago Board of Trade Building and Lafayette Building, all National Historic Landmarks.

Program highlights include: Glessner House Museum (H. H. Richardson, 1887); Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio (1895); Unity Temple (Frank Lloyd Wright, 1909); Robie House (Frank Lloyd Wright, 1910); Second Presbyterian Church (James Renwick, 1874; Howard van Doren Shaw, interior after 1900 fire); Richard H. Driehaus Museum (Burling & Whitehouse, 1879–1892, restoration, 2003–2008); Crab Tree Farm, collection of English and American decorative arts in settings created to reflect esthetics of the Arts and Crafts movement; and a walking tour of downtown Chicago, featuring sites such as: Marquette Building (Holabird & Roche, 1895; Tiffany mosaic murals); The Rookery (Burnham & Root, 1888, with subsequent work by Frank Lloyd Wright); Monadnock Building (Burnham & Root, 1891). 

Speaking of Fibers 2019! Stories of Importance
Maryville University
St. Louis, MO
www.maryville.edu
October 31–December 13, 2019

Speaking of Fiber is a Missouri Fiber Artists (MoFA) members’ biennial, juried exhibit that explores fiber forms and materials. Fiber collage artist Fran Gardner is the speaker, juror and workshop leader for MoFA Speaking of Fibers 2019! She paints and draws with traditional materials and with the sewing machine, layering her work with texture, color and mark-making. She is also an educator at USCL Lancaster and University of South Carolina, and a studio fiber artist. She has a BFA from Columbia College and an MFA from Vermont College, Norwich University. She has won awards in competitive exhibits, both statewide and nationally, and has exhibited at art centers and museums, including the Florida Museum for Women Artists (Deland, FL).