2012 Expert Eye Lectures with Book Signings

Loan Exhibition Lecture Series

Lectures are held in the "Tiffany" Room at the Park Avenue Armory. Seating is on a first-come basis and is complimentary with Show admission.



From Down East to the Downtown Gallery:
Some Early Collectors and Dealers in American Folk Art
Friday, January 20, 4:00 p.m.
Elizabeth Stillinger

Elizabeth Stillinger's latest work, A Kind of Archeology, Collecting American Folk Art 1876-1976, is a history of the growth of the folk-art collecting movement in this country from its beginnings in the 1870s to the end of its “classical” period in the 1970s.  This lecture will focus on the the folk art scene of the 1920s and 1930s. particularly on the modernist artists who summered at Ogunquit, Maine, and collected folk art there.  Prominent collectors and members of this scene include Marguerite and William Zorach, Robert Laurent, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Elie and Viola Nadelman, and Isabel Carlton Wilde.

Elizabeth Stillinger began her study of the decorative and folk arts at The Magazine Antiques.  Her previous publications include The ANTIQUES Guide to Decorative Arts in America 1600-1875 (1972), The Antiquers (1980), The American Wing (with Marshall Davidson, 1985), and Historic Deerfield, A Portrait of Early America (1992). Her late husband, William Guthman, was a well-known collector and dealer in military and historical Americana.  



The Way Home: Atmosphere and Object
Saturday, January 21, 2:30 p.m.
Jeffrey Bilhuber

Jeffrey Bilhuber’s innovative approach to contemporary design has earned him commissions from high profile clients in the worlds of the arts, media, and business. In The Way Home: Reflections on American Beauty, Bilhuber takes an intimate look at twelve recent projects that embrace tradition while seamlessly accommodating the way we live today. The rooms in The Way Home are an intimate and genuine view of the lives lived within them as shown in photographs that are evocative, subdued, and deeply personal. Though each is very different, these dwellings—from urban townhouses and lofts, to ocean-front cottages and country estates—glory in personal style, and celebrate comfort. The families who live in each, are cosseted in the very American graciousness that is Jeffrey Bilhuber’s trademark. 

As a designer, Jeffrey Bilhuberunderstands the importance of history while optimistically looking toward the future. His first book, Jeffrey Bilhuber’s Design Basics, is now in its fourth printing. It’s follow up, Defining Luxury:The Qualities of Life at Home, continues a tradition of reaching a broad and diverse market. With almost twenty five years of decorating experience, Bilhuber has been published in more than 100 design books and featured in every major national and international shelter publication.


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Everything You've Always Wanted To Know About Collecting
Fine Art Photography
Saturday, January 21, 4:00 p.m.
Peter Fetterman



Peter Fetterman bought his first photograph almost by accident 32 years ago and it changed his life. Initially a filmmaker and collector, he was one of the pioneer tenants when Bergamot Station,the Santa Monica arts complex where his gallery is located, opened in 1994.  The gallery has one of the largest inventories of classic 20th Century photography in the country with a particular bias towards humanist photography.

In this lecture Mr. Fetterman will discuss the fundamentals of fine art photography, such as the differences of printing types, the facts about editioning, the history of the photography market, what creates the value of a photograph and the current “blue chip” market. This lecture is a fun and entertaining talk for both the new and experienced collector! After the lecture, Mr. Fetterman  will sign copies of his best selling book, Woman: A Celebration, the history of photography seen through his collection of images of women.



Traditional Now: Interiors by David Kleinberg
Sunday, January 22, 4:00 p.m.
David Kleinberg

David Kleinberg is one of the most respected names in interior design.  Over a thirty-year career (including more than fifteen years with the venerable firm of Parish-Hadley), he has created a body of work that is wide-ranging in style yet always modern in sensibility.  A carefully curated mix of antiques, fabrics, textures, finishes, art, and objects is key to the striking rooms he develops.

In Traditonal Now: Interiors by David Kleinberg, Kleinberg presents more than twenty residential interiors, all of which exemplify his distinctive design style.  Kleinberg’s works are carefully calibrated to their occupants, and his commentary offers a fascinating inside look at how he creates his interiors.  He also addresses larger questions of interior design --where do you start? how is the color palette determined? what is the furniture plan? how do you select antique pieces?-- thoughtfully and informatively.  Boldly inspired or quietly nuanced, David Kleinberg’s interiors are above all clean-lined, sophisticated, and eminently relevant to a contemporary audience.


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A “true North Britain:” Messages and Meaning in John Shearer’s Furniture
Monday, January 23, 2:30 p.m.
Elizabeth A. Davison

John Shearer worked as a carpenter and joiner ca. 1790 to 1820 in the Southern backcountry making furniture that many have considered eccentric. He left behind no diaries, workbooks, or other documents that normally provide historians with clues into a craftsman’s work habits and customers’ taste. Instead, fifty-four pieces of Shearer furniture survive, many with hidden messages and bold inlay reflecting his continued Loyalist politics. In post-Revolutionary America, why wasn’t Shearer in trouble for his beliefs instead of continuing to find customers for his furniture?  Elizabeth Davison discusses how Shearer’s message-laden furniture is not purely eccentric but reflects a craftsman in tune with his customers and the world around him.

Elizabeth Davison is an independent decorative arts scholar who wrote her master’s thesis on John Shearer while pursuing graduate studies in the Smithsonian/Parsons The New School of Design program in the History of Decorative Arts and Design. Graduating in 2009, she guest-curated the exhibit on John Shearer’s furniture which is currently on display at the DeWitt Wallace Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.



The World of Duncan Phyfe: The Arts of New York, 1800-1847
Wednesday, January 25, 6:00 p.m.
Stuart P. Feld
Elizabeth Feld


The World of Duncan Phyfe: The Arts of New York, 1800-1847  paints a portrait of a moment of great importance in the history of the arts of the United States. With a long and prolific cabinetmaking career in New York, Duncan Phyfe was a tastemaker and one of the main proponents of an indigenously New York type of Neo-Classicism. This lecture and book showcase Phyfe’s work through all of his stylistic phases and make comparisons to his competitors, including Charles-Honoré Lannuier, Thomas Constantine, Michael Allison, J & J.W. Meeks.  A selection of porcelain, metalwork, lighting, paintings, works on paper, and sculpture round out the discussion of this pivotal era.

Stuart P. Feld is the President and Director of Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc.  After six years as a Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Stuart joined Hirschl & Adler Galleries, where he established its pre-eminence in the field of American art of the past. 2012 marks Stuart’s 45^th year at the gallery. He has organized dozens of exhibitions at the gallery during his tenure, many accompanied by extensive publications, and the most recent four which he has collaborated on with his daughter, Liz: Of the Newest Fashion: Masterpieces of American Neo-Classical Decorative Arts (2001), In Pointed Style, The Gothic Revival in America (2006), For Work & For Play: A Selection of American Neo-Classical Furniture (2007), and now The World of Duncan Phyfe, The Arts of New York, 1800-1847 (2011).  Elizabeth Feld is the Managing Director and Director, Decorative Arts, of Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc. 


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Expressions of Innocence and Eloquence: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection of Americana, Volume II
Thursday, January 26, 2:30 p.m.
Jane Katcher
David Schorsch
Paul D'Ambrosio

When Expressions of Innocence and Eloquence was published in 2006, one of the country’s most important collections of American folk art and Americana was brought to the public’s attention for the first time and met with an unprecedented level of interest and approval. This praise inspired the continued research and study of the Jane Katcher Collection and led to a second volume.  Containing nearly 100 recent acquisitions, Expressions of Innocence and Eloquence: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection of Americana,Volume II offers a fascinating array of 18th- and 19th -century Americana, folk art and decorative arts created in New England, New York and Pennsylvania. The book features familiar American folk art traditions—portraits, quilts, weathervanes, boxes, trade signs, miniature portraits, schoolgirl art, furniture, rewards of merit and Shaker objects—as well as objects such as love tokens and friendship albums and a masterpiece of Native American basketry.

Jane Katcher is a retired pediatric radiologist, whose interest in art began early; she started collecting as an adolescent and has never stopped. While living in Washington, DC, she acquired her first pieces of early American textiles and pottery, initiating a decades-long devotion to American folk art and Americana. David A. Schorsch is a nationally recognized antiques dealer and a specialist in various categories of American antiques and folk art. He has been an advisor in the assembly of notable private collections and throughout his career has placed an emphasis on scholarship. He was a co-editor of Expressions of Innocence and Eloquence: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection of Americana (2006) and co-authored its catalog. Paul S. D'Ambrosio is president and chief curator of the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, NY. He has curated numerous exhibitions in the United States and Europe, delivered lectures, and published articles on the subject of American folk art.

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