Excerpt
Minnesota and Dacotah: In Letters Descriptive of a Tour Through the North-West, in the Autumn of 1856

MEMBERS

Pauline C. Metcalf
Honoree of the 2005 Victorian Society Scholarship Fund Tea

Pauline C. Metcalf is an architectural historian and an interior designer. She is a contributing author and the editor of Ogden Codman and the Decoration of Houses (David R. Godine, 1988), and contributed an essay on the interiors of David Adler and his sister, Frances Elkins, to David Adler, Architect:  The Elements of Style (Yale University Press, 2002). She has written articles for many publications, including The Magazine Antiques, House & Garden, and Old-House Journal.

She has lectured extensively on late 19^th- and early 20^th-century interiors, and on the influence of women on interior design and collecting, and she has also been instrumental in the restoration of The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home in Lenox, Massachusetts. Currently Pauline is working on a book about the life and work of interior decorator Syrie Maugham, which will be published by Acanthus Press in 2006.

Pauline has a master’s degree in historic preservation from Columbia University School of Architecture and has served on the boards of various preservation organizations, including the Preservation Society of Newport County, R.I. She has served on the Rhode Island School of Design’s Board of Trustees since 1989 and is a member of the RISD’s Institutional Advancement Committee.

Among her many accomplishments, Pauline lectures and leads tours for the Victorian Society of America Summer School in Newport. She has served as President of the Metropolitan chapter of the VSA, and currently sits on its Education Committee. Her dedication and support of the Victorian Society Summer Schools, the Victorian Society Scholarship Fund, and the preservation of Victorian art and architecture over the years has been incalculable.

VSA Fall Tour 2005 | private house tour
photo: Patricia Pixley

Dr. Ian Dungavell (UK)

VSA member and Director of the UK Victorian Society, Dr. Ian Dungavell, is currently touring America to explore the role of communities in saving their heritage.  He is among more than 100 beneficiaries of this year's Winston Churchill memorial trust awards, a UK scheme designed to create a better understanding of the lives of people and cultures overseas. His web site is:  http://www.dungavell.net/

Meanwhile, the UK Victorian Society continues the restoration of its offices, a house in Bedford Park, London, designed in 1880 by E. J. May.  There is a web log where you can follow the  progress at:  http://1priorygardens.blogspot.com/

An impromptu gathering of VSA Alumni at the Creamery, Newport, RI
[L-R: Howard Pugh, Ed Mohylowski, Jane Karotkin, Dominique Hawkins, Thomas McGehee, Jeff Mansell, Donna Perkosky, Jane Severance, Jan Lupton, C.Dudley Brown, Dan Visnich]

ANTIQUE PHOTOGRAPHIC JEWELRY
Tokens of Affection and Regard
Published by West Companies Inc.

The definitive book on 19th century photo-jewelry is to be released October 27, 2005, at The Daguerreian Society Annual Conference, in The George Eastman House, at the opening of the Southworth & Hawes exhibition, in Rochester, New York.

Tokens was researched and written by VSA member Larry J. West and Patricia A. Abbott, with contributing experts Joyce Jonas (for jewelry); Grant Romer (for daguerreotypes), and Joan Severa (for fashion and costume).

Tokens is a  sumptuously photographed book, tracing the historic development of photography & jewelry in the Victorian period.   It also reviews the largest photographic galleries of the 1840-1865 period, explaining how they operated: assembly, marketing, and pricing----in one of the most competitive markets of the day.                                                                         

Based on over 10 years of research, Tokens contains 256 pages, with nearly 300 illustrations contributed by over three dozen private and institutional sources, from the U.S and overseas. Most of the illustrations are previously unpublished. 

MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS

“A Brass Menagerie: Metalwork of the Aesthetic Movement”
MWPAI Exhibition Explores Innovative and Expressive Brass Furniture and Accessories

 

From October 2 at the VSA member organization:
Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Museum of Art in Utica, New York. 

 
A groundbreaking exhibition that explores the phenomenal popularity of innovative and expressive brass and mixed-metal furniture and accessories that became ubiquitous in fashionable 1880s American interiors.

The 77 objects in “A Brass Menagerie,” from the MWPAI collection as well as borrowed from 13 private and five other museum collections from across the United States, illustrate the rage for the Japanese style and the reform concepts that swept through all aspects of art during the Gilded Age.  This is the first time most of the objects will be publicly exhibited.

“A Brass Menagerie” includes impressive chandeliers, an array of tables, lighting, sconces, upholstered furniture, and door hardware.  Many of the pioneering manufactures of the materials, such as The Charles Parker Co. and Bradley & Hubbard Manufacturing Co. (both once located in Meriden, CT) are represented in the exhibition by numerous objects showing the range and diversity of their products. 

For more visit: http://www.mwpai.org/

An American Landmark now a VSA member
TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON

Ask any architect, architectural historian, or critic and they'll tell you: Trinity Church is a masterpiece of American architecture. And it has been considered so since its dedication in 1877, when it heralded the signature "Richardsonian Romanesque" style of its celebrated designer, and presented a bold, fresh new face and feeling for ecclesiastical architecture in America.
 

We are pleased to welcome to the Society  Kathy Acerbo-Bachmann, Director of Art & Architecture Programs at Trinity Church, as their representative. She is keen to share the the benefits of VSA membership and we in turn are pleased to publicize their work in saving the church. Visit their fine web site that features history, preservation and a slide-show tour.

http://www.trinityboston.org/arc.asp

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See also:
2005 Book Award Winner-Victorian Boston Today: Twelve Walking Tours
by Edward W. Gordon (Foreword), Mary Melvin Petronella (Editor)

Philadelphia Chapter 12th Night Celebration

The Philadelphia Chapter's Twelfth Night party will be a high Victorian tea enjoyed in front of a roaring fire in Library Lounge. of the Union League of Philadelphia, which  has spent millions of dollars restoring the exterior and interior of their building at Broad and Samson Streets, restoring it to its 1863 appearance.

Jane Banik, the award winning interior designer of the renovation of the Victorian rooms,  will give a special guided tour and offer insights into the problems she faced and how she solved them.  The tours are usually only available to League members so this is a special opportunity for the Chapter.  A unique opportunity to see how the restoration was completed and enjoy a fabulous catered Victorian tea.

Dwelling Place
A Plantation Epic

• Erskine Clarke

An intimate view of plantation family life from the “big house” and from the slave cabins.  Published some thirty years ago, Robert Manson Myers’s Children of Pride: The True Story of Georgia and the Civil War won the National Book Award in history and went on to become a classic reference on America’s slaveholding South.

Now reprinted by VSA supporter,  the Yale University Press.  See: Dwelling Place

Victoria Mansion
Portland, ME
A Dickens Christmas

Now in its 21^st year, Christmas at Victoria Mansion has become a time-honored tradition of the Portland holiday season, and the beginning of the city’s Victorian Christmas celebration.

Each year area designers, decorators, and florists volunteer their time and talent to transform the Mansion from a summer palace by the sea, to a Christmas wonderland with beautiful holiday decorations and arrangements. Our theme this year – A Dickens Christmas – celebrates one of the most famous authors of the nineteenth century Charles Dickens! Remembered as the “Father of Christmas” for breathing life back into this holiday during the Victorian era with his wonderful stories, Charles Dickens’ influence on the celebration of Christmas is still felt today.

http://www.victoriamansion.org/

Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion
Philadelphia, PA
Ebenezer's Christmas

 

Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion is proud to announce "Ebenezer's Christmas", a dinner and silent auction  co-sponsored by the Preservation Alliance on December 2^nd.  Dinner will be served at the historic Cresheim Cottage from 6:30 to 8:00, followed by a Silent Auction at Maxwell Mansion where dessert, coffee, wine and liqueurs will be served. 

Cherry Creek Inn, NY

VSA members Sharon and Lester Sweeting run this delightful bed & breakfast inn in Cherry Creek, NY.  George N. Frost, a well-known race horse breeder and one of Cherry Creek’s founding Fathers built this splendid Italian Villa in the 1860s., now lovingly restored.  Great for Winter being only two miles from Cockaigne Ski Area.

Cherry Creek Inn
1022 West Road (Cr-68)
Cherry Creek , NY 14723
innkeeper@cherrycreekinn.net
716-296-5105

MISCELLANY

Arts & Crafts

The Indianapolis Museum of Art is holding a major exhibition of International Arts & Crafts, following the exhibition in London. The exhibition will run from September 25, 2005, through January 22, 2006. For details http://www.indy.org/page/whattodo/8133705.html

Following on from this, the International Arts & Crafts exhibition will move to de Young Museum in San Francisco March 18 through June 18, 2006. For details http://www.thinker.org/deyoung/index.asp

 

The Neue Galerie New York has an exhibition opening on October 21^st, ‘Egon Schiele: The Ronald S. Lauder and Serge Sabarsky Collections’. For details www.neuegalerie.org

 

The Norton Simon Museum of Art Pasadena, is holding an exhibition ‘An Assortment of Beauties, Japanese Woodblock Prints Collected by Frank Lloyd Wright, running until January 9^th 2006. For further details www.nortonsimon.org

 

The Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington is holding an exhibition English Arts & Crafts Pottery from the Cary D Stevens Collection, running from October 29^th 2005, until January 22^nd 2006.  http://www.delart.org/

 

Dates have been published for next years Arts & Crafts Antique Show and Conference at the Grove Park Inn, Asheville. The Conference runs from February 17^th to February 19^th. For details http://www.arts-craftsconference.com/

 

Waking Dreams: The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites from the Delaware Art Museum (Delaware Art Museum, 2005) will be on view at: Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum in San Antonio (October 1 - January 1, 2006), Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota (January 28 - April 2, 2006), Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa (April 22 - July 2, 2006), Frick Art and Historical Center in Pittsburgh (July 29 - October 8, 2006), the Cincinnati Art Museum (Oct 28, 2006-January 7, 2007), Saint Louis Art Museum (February 3 - April 15, 2006), and the San Diego Museum of Art (May 5 - July 15, 2007). For details http://www.delart.org/
 

Overbeck Pottery of the Arts & Crafts Movement runs until 8^th January 2006 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. For further information http://www.ima-art.org/

 

American Art Pottery from St. Louis Collections, runs until 30^th November. For details visit the Saint Louis Art Museum http://www.slam.org/

 

The Potter’s Eye: New Perspectives on North Carolina’s Pottery Tradition, running from November until 19^th March 2006. For details visit North Carolina Museum of Art http://ncartmuseum.org/

 

Crosscurrents: Art, Craft and Design in North Carolina running from 25^th September until 8^th January 2006 at the North Carolina Museum of Art http://ncartmuseum.org/

 

Carnival Glass until 25^th September; Tiffany Art Glass for the public until 12^th January 2006

The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art http://www.morsemuseum.org/

 

Tiffany Jewels running from September 18^th until 31^st December - Boston Museum of Fine Arts http://www.mfa.org/

 

Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower running from December until 15^th January 2006, Price Tower Arts Center www.pricetower.org

 

Extraordinary Every Day: The Bauhaus at the Busch-Reisinger until 31^st December at The Busch-Reisinger Museum http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/busch/

WEBSITE OF THE MONTH

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THE NYPL DIGITAL GALLERY
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/index.cfm

The New York Public Library Digital Gallery provides access to over 363,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.

The Curator's choice is "Classic 6:" New York City Apartment Building Living, 1880s-1910 - more than 1,300 digital images depict elevation views and floor plans for middle and upper class apartment buildings from New York City's pre-World War I residential building boom.

My favorite is the collection of over 16,000 pictures of New York City filed by street address.  But there are many, many other, varied and interesting collections.  Highly recommended.

PREVIOUS WEB SITES OF THE MONTH

Remembering Founders

George Vaux, Kristina Butvydas (Exec. Dir.) and Richard H. Howland (President)
Attending a Victorian ball at the Philadelphia Athenaeum, October 1981.
 

Society of Architectural Historians
2005 Book Award Winners

 The VSA has a reciprocal arrangement with the SAH in publishing our respective Book Awards. Here are the SAH awards for 2005.

2005 Alice Davis Hitchcock Award
Sand, Jordan, House and Home in Modern Japan: Architecture, Domestic Space, and Bourgeois Culture, 1880 – 1930, Harvard University Asia Center, 2003

 2005 Spiro Kostof Award (2 awards)
Campanella, Thomas, Republic of Shade, Yale University Press, May 2003

Peterson, Jon, The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840-1917, Johns Hopkins University Press, August 2003  

 2005 Antoinette Forrester Downing Award
Stipe, Robert E., ed., A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century, University of North Carolina Press, July 2003 

 2005 Philip Johnson Award
Soros, Susan and Arbuthnott, Catherine, Thomas Jeckyll, Yale University Press, September 2003

2005 Founders’ Award
Lasansky, D. Medina, “Urban Editing, Historic Preservation, and Political Rhetoric: The Fascist Redesign of San Gimignano”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 63, Number 3. September 2004