Philadelphia Antiques Show 2018

members in 2003 on an exhibition that celebrated the gift of Gerald and Virginia Gordon’s collection of Rookwood Pottery dating from the late 19th and early 20th century. Elisabeth Agro: While creating the Center American Art and endowing five curatorial positions in the American Art Department, Robert L. McNeil, Jr. had the foresight to support the collection into the 21st century by dedicating to American modern and contemporary crafts and decorative arts. He named this curatorship for his wife, Nancy M. McNeil, one of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show founders, and. I was the inaugural hire in 2006. It will surprise many to learn that I too am trained in the history of decorative arts. In fact, my area of specialization in graduate school was sixteenth-century Italian and seventeenth-century English metalwork, glass, and ceramics. Prior to coming to Philadelphia, I was a curator of decorative arts for ten years at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, where the collections ran from ancient to present day, and included American, European, and non- western materials! Technically, my current position at the PMA covers all American media from 1876 to the present day. There is much collegiality within American Decorative Arts, which means there is a friendly overlap in our interests and work. Modern and contemporary craft is a vibrant field, where inference, influence, and transference are fluid and borderless. This is to say that I also work with artists and artwork made outside of the confines of the United States. In my early days at the Museum, I established partnerships across departments in order to take a broader, more international view of contemporary decorative arts—a must for anyone in this field of study. These key partnerships were integral in facilitating Interactions in Clay: Contemporary Explorations of the Collection. This 2010 exhibition commissioned four contemporary artists to create new work in clay inspired by the collections and architecture of the Museum, to be displayed in unexpected settings such as period rooms and pillared halls. My world view and collaboration with colleagues coalesced in Craft Spoken Here, an exhibition presented in 2012 which situated highlights of our collection from 1960 to the present in an international context, representing work from the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Building on this commitment, contemporary Korean art, craft and design has engrossed me for the past three years as I prepare for a future large- scale exhibition. Always eager to acquire im- portant objects to fill gaps in the craft collection, I am most often occupied with collection building “The Fox and the Grapes” High Chest of Drawers and Dressing Table Philadelphia, 1765-1775; Mahogany, tulip poplar, white cedar, yellow pine; brass. High chest: Gift of Mrs. Henry V. Greenough, 1957. Dressing table: Purchased with funds contributed by Leslie A. Miller and Richard B. Worley, Kathy and Ted Fernberger, The Ballinger Bequest, Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest,, Mrs. J. Maxwell Moran, Lyn M. Ross, The Carey Bequest, an anonymous donor, Sarah Miller Coulson, Donna C. and Morris W. Stroud II, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Vogel III, Dr. and Mrs. Robert E. Booth, Jr., Dr. Salvatore M. Valenti, Peggy Cooke, Hannah L. Henderson, George M. and Linda H. Kaufman, Lawrence H. and Julie C. Berger, Sis Grenald, Hollie and Jamie Holt, David and Margaret Langfitt, Richard Wood Snowden, and other generous individuals, the Lynford Starr Bequest for American Decorative Art, the Lea Fund, the E. Beatty Acquisition Fund, the Saul/ O’Keefe Fund for American Furniture Acquisition, the Center for American Art Fund, and with funds from the proceeds of the sale of deaccessioned works of art, 2012 W 109 W