Masterpieces of French Art Deco
Opened August 4, 2009
The Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery, Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, Modern Art, 1st floor

The installation will include furniture by Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Louis Süe and André Mare, Armand-Albert Rateau, and Pierre Legrain; works in glass by René Jules Lalique, Maurice Marinot, and Henri Navarre; ceramics by Émile Lenoble and Emile Decoeur; metalwork by Jean Puiforcat and Edgar Brandt; textiles by Paul Poiret; jewelry by Georges Fouquet; lacquer work by Jean Dunand; and the magnificent set of reverse-painted and gilded glass panels designed by Jean Dupas for the first-class salon of the ocean liner Normandie.

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Discover the duality of diamonds—at once glittering and tough, decorative and utilitarian—at The Field Museum in the exhibition The Nature of Diamonds. Nearly 800 exquisite objects, including some of the world’s most stunning gemstones, tell the story of our fascination with the beauty and power of this “King of Gems.”

Prized by many cultures throughout the ages as a symbol of strength, wealth, and love, diamonds have inspired scientists, writers, and artisans for thousands of years. The Nature of Diamonds explores all aspects of this extraordinary mineral, from its geological origins, to its place in history, art, and adornment, to its uses in modern technology and research.

The centerpiece of The Nature of Diamonds is The Vault where you’ll discover some of the exhibition’s most breathtaking jewelry from the world’s top designers, including many objects that have rarely been displayed. Also featured are pieces owned by Mae West, Catherine the Great of Russia, Joan Crawford, Elton John, and many more.

You'll feast your eyes on signature stones such as the 128.54-carat Tiffany Diamond—one of the world's largest and finest fancy yellow diamonds—and the Incomparable Diamond—weighing in at 407.48 carats as the largest flawless diamond ever graded by the GIA and the third largest cut diamond ever recorded!

But the exhibition delves deeper than just the story of diamonds as a status symbol. Throughout the 7,000-square-foot exhibition, you’ll learn where diamonds come from, how they form in nature, how they’re mined, graded, cut, and sold, and how they’re used in today’s cutting-edge technologies.

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Discover the spectacular designs of Carl Fabergé, a master goldsmith and legendary jeweler who is still celebrated for his inventive design and meticulous craftsmanship. Perhaps best known for the Imperial Easter Eggs created for the Russian Royal family, the House of Fabergé also fashioned jewelry and luxurious gifts for many ruling families of Europe as well as other wealthy patrons.

Marvel at exquisite objects produced by the Fabergé workshop at its peak, including personal gifts to the Tsar and Tsarina, an extravagant tiara, magnificent "fire-screen" picture frame, and the famed Nobel Ice Egg, a stunning piece that is one of the few Imperial-styled eggs in private hands. From elegantly simple to breathtakingly ornate, the jewelry, clocks, picture frames, boxes and eggs in this collection were thoughtfully selected to exemplify extraordinary materials and workmanship.

In recent years, the McFerrin Collection has become one of the world's most important private collections of Fabergé. While many of the pieces in this collection have been featured individually in other exhibitions and publications over the past 60 years, this event marks the first time that the McFerrin Collection has been presented for public display.

Visit the Houston Museum of Natural History

Elegantly Attired opens the door into a lively time when wealthy sea captains and their spouses traveled the world and brought back cosmopolitan ideals and handiwork to their bustling midcoast communities. The exhibition draws on the museum’s collection of nineteenth century clothing and accessories including day and evening attire, nightgowns, undergarments, hats and shoes, fans, and jewelry dating from 1850 to 1900. The exhibition, which is on display in the museum’s Nevelson/Berliawsky Gallery, runs through April 25, 2010.

During the second half of the nineteenth century the coastal towns of Maine were in an economic boom: Maine was the largest producer of wooden sailing vessels; the lime industry in Rockport and Rockland were at their height; and Bangor was the lumber capital of the world. In addition, many of the captains commanding the American merchant fleet were native Mainers and a good number of them brought their wives on voyages. Those travelers, visiting foreign and domestic ports, shopped for the latest in materials and fashions. In Camden, Rockland and Thomaston men and women could be found wearing the finest in fashion and decorating their homes following the latest styles.

With a growing middle and upper class, entertaining became more prevalent. Dances, dinners and afternoon visiting, or “calling” became a matter of routine. Women strived to look their best for these social occasions. It was the era before clothes were mass-produced and items of clothing were individually designed and sewn by a dressmaker to fit the client’s body. Style features included waistlines as small as twenty inches, achieved with the aid of whalebone corsets and bustles to emphasize the derrière.

Fans were an important fashion accessory, and there are many fine examples in the exhibition. Aside from their obvious use, fans were also convenient communication devices. Whether a fan was snapped shut or fluttered sent a nonverbal message to admirers of the opposite sex. The fan was so essential it was often referred to as the “woman’s scepter.” Imagery on fans ranged from advertising, such as an image of the original Samoset Hotel, to intricate paintings of Chinese court scenes on the fan’s leaves and delicately carved ivory stems and guards.

Included in this show are daytime and evening dresses given to the museum by Archie and Isabel Bailey, clothing once worn in the latter half of the nineteenth century by Maggie Shepard, wife of Captain Frank Shepard of Camden, and their daughter Annabel (Shepard) Hodgman.

Nearly one hundred rings, watches, earrings, bracelets and necklaces worn by members of the William A. Farnsworth family of Rockland will also be on display. This nineteenth century jewelry includes such items as a brooch and earrings that resemble hot air balloons, a collection of personally engraved gold thimbles (that were popular gift items of the time), and enameled and jeweled pocket watches once belonging to individual members of the Farnsworth family.

Since many of the hats and fans are adorned with feathers the exhibition will include a section discussing the feather trade in the nineteenth century. Rampant plumage trafficking almost decimated entire bird species and was the motive behind the beginning of the Audubon Society in the United States.

Charles Rohlfs (1853-1936) called his unprecedented designs “artistic furniture.” A protean designer, actor, and furniture-maker dedicated to the primacy of individual expression, Rohlfs created unusually inventive forms and imaginative carving, which reflected the myriad aesthetic influences circulating at the turn of the twentieth century. With roots in the Aesthetic Movement, Rohlfs’ style was related to the abstract naturalism of Art Nouveau styling, but drew on precedents from Asian and Moorish to English and Germanic designs. In turn, his work was influential on the pared-down oak forms that became hallmarks of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs—the first major exhibition of Rohlfs’s work—will present over 40 pieces of his best surviving furniture and decorative objects. It will explore his success and recognition both in Europe and America and will trace his influence on other early twentieth-century furniture designers. The exhibition and book project springs from an unconventional collaboration between three institutions dedicated to innovative presentation of decorative art and design: American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation, Chipstone Foundation and Milwaukee Art Museum.

Nearly 100 extraordinary examples of kimono created between the 1890s and the 1950s tell the story of how Japan’s traditional national dress was influenced by technological advances in silk production and exposure to Western cultures. Included are everyday garments; intricately embroidered ceremonial robes; boys’ kimono stenciled with cars, airplanes and battleships; and colorful examples with Art Deco patterns that heralded the emergence of Japan’s “new woman.” All are drawn from the famed Montgomery Collection in Lugano, Switzerland.

Louis C. Tiffany (1848-1933) is famous for the original and spectacular effects of colour and light that he achieved in his blown vases, stained glass windows and lamps. A Canadian first, this exhibition focusses on Tiffany's outstanding contribution to design and the technology of glass.

For more information on the exhibit visit The Montreal Museum of Fine Art website.

An Architect, Designer and Universal Artist

In the summer of 2010, the Leopold Museum will be joining with Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt to mount the most comprehensive exhibition to date on the oeuvre of Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867-1908). This large-scale retrospective is to present around 300 individual works by this architect and universal artist, thereby putting Olbrich's oeuvre into the aesthetic context of Viennese Modernism. The works on loan from public and private collections in Germany, Austria and the USA are to include furniture, textiles, drawings and watercolors.

MODERN FORMS AND LIVING ENVIRONMENTS
Olbrich is one of the most outstanding personalities in architecture and arts and crafts from the period around 1900, and he is closely associated with the development of modern forms and living environments. The hundredth aniversary of his death in 2008 provided an opportunity to devote renewed and in-depth attention to his extremely complex oeuvre, which ranges from architecture to interior decorating and garden design, and from applied arts to the design of industrial forms. An academic symposium held in July of 2008 by Institut Mathildenhöhe opened up new approaches to Olbrich's body of works both for researchers and for the interested public. The findings of the theoretical discourse which resulted, as well as various designs, plans and objects (some of which were discovered only during this process), are to be used to stage a comprehensive Olbrich retrospective. This exhibition will take place in Darmstadt and in Vienna, Olbrich's two main places of work, and will present numerous items from collections in Germany, Austria and the USA.
Olbrich’s body of works, which is exemplary for the turn of the last century, is still quite difficult to comprehend as a whole – despite the brief timeframe within which it was created. It has been 26 years since the last major Olbrich exhibition, which catalog has long since become unavailable. To this day, there exists no comprehensive monograph on the artist. Olbrich is viewed as the central figure of the reform efforts that took place around 1900, and he influenced and shaped the ideas of the generation that followed. Architects of the modern era such as Erich Mendelsohn, Bruno Taut and Le Corbusier took important impulses from the design elements that characterized Olbrich’s oeuvre.
Since many of Olbrich’s works were destroyed by war-related events, and since the documents on the architect’s work ended up being scattered to the most varied locations, the significance of this artist-architect – who died quite young – is not nearly as well anchored in the public mind as, for example, that of his contemporaries Henry van de Velde, Josef Hoffmann and Peter Behrens. Olbrich thus remains a “great unknown” who had an impact which is often underestimated.
Olbrich was a universally creative artist, an architect devoted to the idea, current around 1900, of the melding of art and life. The reconstruction of selected individual projects via original designs, odels, historic photographs, documents and objects allows the impressive richness of his ideas to be portrayed. In terms of architecture’s development during the 20th century, Olbrich’s creative potential is shown in his contributions to construction projects such as the “Gartenstadt” [Garden City] and the “Kleinwohnungsbau” [a complex of small apartments]. An important aspect is the “Lebensreform” [life reform] movement, a formative influence during the period around 1900 which Olbrich sought to support via design that was meant to encompass and harmonize all facets of life. With the presentation of areas of his work which have received only scant attention up to now (such as garden art), and via the examination of certain issues such as the actual way in which the artist collaborated with his producers, this exhibition will also break new ground. The cooperative effort with the Leopold Museum in Vienna, which owns the world’s largest collection of Austrian art around 1900, also makes it possible to show impressively Olbrich’s artistic anchoring in Viennese Modernism using important
works by artists such as Otto Wagner, Koloman Moser and Gustav Klimt.

To learn more about this exhibit, visit the Leopold Museum website.

From a young age William Morris developed an unusually strong sense of place, which he retained throughout his life. He felt compelled to create domestic environments within which he could feel at ease, and responded to the wider environment with striking intensity. His sense of place runs like a thread through each of the many facets of his life: design, creative writing, socialism and conservation work, each of which will be explored in the exhibition.

For more information about this exhibition visit the Blackwell Arts & Crafts House website.

35 Select Exhibitors from the U.S. & Europe offering fine art, furniture, glass, ceramics, decorative arts, photography, sculpture and jewelry and more at the only show and sale of its kind in New England. Representing all major design movements such as Art Nouveau, Arts and Crafts, Art Deco, and Mid-Century Modern, as well as Contemporary art and design.

This intensive master class will approach 19th and 20th century jewelry from a variety of angles. The first two days will consist of morning lectures and afternoon field studies. Lecture topics will range from the social significance of jewelry to the history of major houses such as Tiffany & Co. An authority on precious stones will lecture from a connoisseur's point of view. Field trips will include a private curator-led tour of American jewelry at the Metropolitan Museum's newly renovated American wing and a behind-the-scenes tour of the Van Cleef & Arpels workshop and archives. On the morning of the third day, there will be a walkthrough of the Christie's sale with a Christie's specialist.

Registration is $850 per person.

The Lewis Decorative Arts Collection in among the most significant in U.S. When the expanded Virginia Museum of Fine Arts galleries open May 1, 2010 one of the most significant public collections outside Paris of Art Nouveau and Art Deco decorative arts, spanning the years 1890-1935, will be on view.
Some objects from the collection never exhibited before at VMFA, along with newly acquired works, will be on display.

The Vigrinia Museum of Fine Arts Website

One of the most significant exhibitions ever mounted of works by the master of American glass, Louis Comfort Tiffany, will debut in Paris and then be shown in Montreal and Richmond.

The exhibition will be on view at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Feb. 11–May 2, 2010, and at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond May 29–Aug. 15, 2010.

Conceived by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and organized in collaboration with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Musée du Luxembourg, Tiffany: Color and Light will celebrate the work of the renowned designer who achieved original and spectacular effects in hand-blown glass vessels, leaded glass windows and lamps.

The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement in Britain 1860-1900

Portrait of Mrs. Luke lonides, William Blake Richmond, England, early 20th century. Museum no. E.1062-2003.

April - July 2011

Admission charge will apply

This will be the first international exhibition to explore the unconventional creativity of the Aesthetic Movement in Britain (1860-1900). The well spring of the 'new art' movements of the late 19th century, Aestheticism is now acknowledged for its revolutionary re-negotiation of the relationships between the artist and society, between the 'fine' and design arts, as well as between art and ethics and art and criticism. Aesthetic sensibilities produced some of the most sophisticated and sensuously beautiful artworks of the Western tradition.

Featuring superb artworks from the traditional high art of painting, to fashionable trends in architecture, interior design, domestic furnishings, art photography and new modes of dress, this exhibition traces Aestheticism's evolution from the artistic concerns of a small circle of avant-garde artists and authors to a broad cultural phenomenon.

The exhibition will feature paintings, furniture, ceramics, metalwork, wallpapers, photographs and costumes, as well as architectural and interior designs. Included will be major paintings by Whistler, Rossetti, Leighton, and Burne-Jones. Architecture and interior design will be represented by the works of Edward Godwin, George Aitchison, Philip Webb and Thomas Jeckyll, among others. Art furnishings designed by these and others, including William Morris, Christopher Dresser, Bruce Talbert, Henry Batley, and Walter Crane will showcase not only the designers and manufacturers they worked for, but also new retailers, such as Liberty's.

For more information visit http://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/future_exhibs/aestheticism/index.html