50th Annual Delaware Show

Gerald Ward, Senior Consulting Curator and The Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture Emeritus at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Gerry embodies the eloquence, generosity, and wit of the award’s namesake. Jane Nylander, Historic New England President Emerita, praises Gerry’s service as “a meticulous scholar whose high standards, integrity, and sense of humor have greatly enriched our understanding of American history and decorative arts.” Patricia Kane, Friends of American Arts Curator of American Decorative Arts at Yale University Art Gallery, defines Gerry’s “special gift” as a “deep understanding of American history” that appears throughout his writings on a broad range of topics pertaining to American material culture. A 1971 graduate of Harvard, Gerry earned his Ph.D. in American Studies from Boston University. He has organized exhibitions on subjects as diverse as colonial American silver, Dale Chihuly, and contemporary studio furniture and crafts. Among his numerous publications are Silver in American Life (1979), American Case Furniture in the Mabel Brady Garvan and Other Collections at Yale University (1988), The Maker’s Hand: American Studio Furniture, 1940–1990 (2003), and Silver of the Americas, 1600–2000 (2008). Gerry has also played an essential role in the current project Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture, which unites Winterthur with elevenMassachusetts organizations to promote the craft history of the Bay State. In addition, in November 2012, he was elected a State Representative for NewHampshire, serving District 28 in RockinghamCounty. This presentation is sponsored in part by the Society of Winterthur Fellows and Freeman’s. — 17 —