Born in a farmhouse in Wisconsin, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe is celebrated for her paintings of flowers –although factually recorded, they are so large, seen so close up, and so sumptuously colored that they verge on abstraction. She loved the vast American Southwest region where she found solitude as well as inspiration for the colors and picturesque shapes of the rocky landscape depicted in her paintings. Visit the two adobe homes in New Mexico of an artist described as a “loner.” Join Dr. Janetta Rebold Benton for this richly illustrated PowerPoint lecture tracing O’Keeffe’s life story, examining her creative process and sources of inspiration, as well as her complicated relationship with the gallerist and photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

Beginning in the 1930s, a concerted effort began in France to rescue the centuries-old tradition of tapestry-making from economic collapse. This talk charts the revival of tapestry as a compelling modern art medium in France during and after the second world war, consider the trans-Atlantic nature of the revival, and follow the bumpy path towards recognition of tapestry as an original mode of artistic expression – a story still unfolding today.

Beginning in the 1930s, a concerted effort began in France to rescue the centuries-old tradition of tapestry-making from economic collapse. This talk charts the revival of tapestry as a compelling modern art medium in France during and after the second world war, consider the trans-Atlantic nature of the revival, and follow the bumpy path towards recognition of tapestry as an original mode of artistic expression – a story still unfolding today.

H. Richard Dietrich III will discuss decorative arts, showcasing highlights from the Dietrich American Foundation over its history, paying particular attention to furniture and also items related to the China trade, with an exhibition opening in June at the Lyman Allyn Museum of Art in New London, called China from China: Porcelain and Stories of Early American Trade. The foundation was established in 1963 and focuses on 18th and early 19th century American fine and decorative art, with a range of collecting areas, including furniture, silver, ceramics, paintings, books and manuscripts, as well as whale trade related art and artifacts. The foundation works with museums and cultural institutions to support their collections primarily through loans of objects, with the Philadelphia Museum of Art as its closest partner.

Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.

Mellissa Huber,  Associate Curator, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This behind-the-scenes look at the recent Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition Women Dressing Women explores the considerable impact of fashion created by and for women tracing a historical and conceptual lineage across over one-hundred years of design. Women’s progress in fashion is charted through the critical premises of Anonymity, Visibility, Agency, and Absence/Omission, celebrating the work of well known, forgotten, and emerging designers alike—all drawn from the incredible permanent collection of The Costume Institute.

Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.

Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com

Picture: Melissa Huber

James Haag,
Managing Director, Verdura

Fulco di Verdura, a Sicilian Duke, will forever be associated with Coco Chanel, Cole Porter, Greta Garbo, Babe Paley, Tallulah Bankhead, and scores of legendary twentieth-century women who preferred style over status.

The presentation will trace Verdura’s design legacy from turn-of-the-century Sicily and 1920s Paris to 1930s Hollywood and the unfolding café society style revolution in 1940s and 1950s New York.

Verdura’s women of style will be profiled, as well as the enduring mark his work has left on modern fine jewelry design.

As a special treat, Jim will provide an intimate glimpse into Verdura’s role in the styling of the television show, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, for which they loaned over 100 iconic pieces, including vintage jewelry owned by the original swans.

Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.

Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com

Picture:VINTAGE GOLD AND DIAMOND "FEATHER HEADDRESS" TIARA

VERDURA, 1957

Verdura Museum Collection

Yellow gold and platinum tiara designed as a feather headdress, composed of 36 leaves, half diamond with gold veins and have gold with diamond veins, set with 1,223 diamonds.

Dr Rebecca Tilles, Senior Project Manager of Exhibitions at L'Ecole School of Jewelry Arts

Lecture on Zoom

Guests Welcome: There is no charge for lectures on zoom.
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com

Marjorie Merriweather Post in her Icon Room at Tregaron, Washington, D.C., 1950

Philip Hook, Board Member and Senior Director of Impressionist & Modern art in Sotheby’s London

Philip Hook takes the lid off the world of art dealing to reveal the brilliance, cunning, greed and daring of its practitioners. In a richly anecdotal narrative he describes the rise and occasional fall of the extraordinary men and women who over the centuries have made it their business to sell art to kings, merchants, nobles, entrepreneurs and museums.

From its beginnings in Antwerp, where paintings were sometimes sold by weight, to the rich hauteur of the contemporary gallery in London, Paris and New York, art dealing has been about identifying what is intangible but infinitely desirable, and then finding clients for whom it is irresistible. Those who have purveyed art for a living range from tailors, spies and the occasional anarchist to scholars, aristocrats, merchants and connoisseurs, each variously motivated by greed, belief in their own vision of art and its history, or simply the will to win.

Guests Welcome: There is no charge for lectures on zoom.
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com

Lecture on Zoom

Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com

Philip D Zimmerman, Author, Museum and Decorative Arts Consultant

An interest in early American furniture--has been constant throughout my career.  My book on the furniture and other collections of two important houses (1771 and 1774) owned by the Historic Odessa Foundation in Odessa, Delaware.  Each house retains many original furnishings and was actively preserved at a very early date.  The resulting connections between objects and interpretive possibilities are extraordinary and have already spawned several smaller publications.  Other furniture topics, notably the work of William Savery of Philadelphia, occupy my time and energy.

Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.

Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com

Philip Dodd, is an author and classically-trained architect who graduated from the Prince of Wales Institute of Architecture in London. His firm, Philip James Dodd Bespoke Residential Design LLC is now based in America with an office in Greenwich.

The Gilded Age, also referred to as the American Renaissance, is an era associated with unparalleled growth, technological advancement, prosperity, and cultural change. Spanning from the 1880s to the1930s it marks the first time that the titans of American finance and industry had more wealth than their European counterparts. As the center of this dynamic economy, New York City attracted immigrant workers and millionaires alike. It was not be enough for the self-appointed elite to just build their own grand chateaux’s and palazzo’s along Fifth Avenue, as collectively they dreamed of creating a new metropolis to rival the great cultural capitals of London, Paris and Rome. To fluent their newly acquired wealth they needed an architecture dripping in embellishment and historical reference. Enter the Beaux-Arts

For this special event hosted by The Greenwich Decorative Arts Society, Author Phillip James Dodd will discuss the five homes featured in his book – The Samuel Tilden Mansion (now The National Arts Club), the Joseph De Lamar Mansion (now the Polish Consulate), The Frick Collection, and the Otto Kahn and James Burdens (which now combine as the Convent of the Sacred Heart); as well as the patrons and architects that designed them; and collectively their influences on the television adaptation of The Gilded Age.

Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.

Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com

Danielle Kisluk Grosheide,
Henry R. Kravis Curator, Dept. Of Sculpture and Decorative Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Based on the publication with the same name, the speaker will discuss a number of artworks currently on display at the Met spanning three centuries of creativity. Providing a peek into daily lives across Europe, the featured pieces include furniture, tableware, useful items, articles of personal adornment as well as objects meant for display. Each work, either a masterpiece by a renowned maker or a less familiar article by a talented amateur, has its own fascinating story to tell.

Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.

Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com

Flower
French (Vincennes), mid-18th century
Soft-paste porcelain, 1-1/4 x 2-15/16 c 2-3/4 in.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art:
Bequest of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 2019
(2019.283.61)

Jessica Glasscock, Author, Historian, Researcher, Professor at Parsons School of Design

Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.

Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com

Jacqueline Bouvier on her wedding day, with Jack Kennedy on the left slightly out of frame] [1953 Sept. 12]

Credit line: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Toni Frissell Photograph Collection, [reproduction number, LOT 15412]

Nancy Virts co-founder and Alan Stein, President and Director of Architecture Tanglewood Conservatories

Tanglewood Conservatories

Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.

Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com

Mark Letzer, former President and CEO of the Maryland Center for History and Culture

Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.

Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com

Cream Jug - Mark Letzer Family Collection