Autumn Winter 2013 Preview

Autumn /Winter 12 www.antiquesandfineart.com Patrick Bell / Edwin Hild P.O. Box 718, New Hope, PA 18938-0718 By Appointment 215-297-0200 Email: info@oldehope.com %XHIBITING AT THE 0HILADELPHIA !NTIQUES 3HOW !PRIL 0ENNSYLVANIA #ONVENTION #ENTER Exhibiting at the 50th Annual Delaware Antiques Show, Wilmington, DE, Nov. 7–10, 2013; The 60th Annual Winter Antiques Show, Park Ave. Armory, New York City, Jan. 23–Feb. 2, 2014. A Rare and Important Hooked Rug attributed to Magdalena Briner Eby (1832–1915) Perry County, PA, c.1890. 45" x 115" Cleaned and mounted and in exceptional condition. Of the numerous rugs att. to Magdalena Briner Eby this is the largest and most striking example known. 115 E. 72nd St., New York, NY Visit us online at OldeHope.com o you know which two university art museums are the largest in the country? I didn’t until I worked with Fred Baker on his article, A University Collects: The Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin (pages 184–193). Based on square-footage, this museum comes in second only to the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin (which boasts 180,000 square feet to the Chazen’s 176,000). The Chazen Museum has been building a comprehensive art collection for nearly two decades, transferring art from around the campus to one central location and acquiring works from private donations. The beneficiary of an encyclopedic variety of gifts, its collections range from Russian art and Japanese woodblock prints to American paintings. In 1936, John Steuart Curry was appointed the university’s artist-in-residence; a program established at the University of Wisconsin and the first of its kind. Curry’s Our Good Earth (1941), illustrated on this issue’s cover and in Baker’s article, is an iconic image in the museum’s collection that originally hung in the office of the dean of the agricultural school. Among the visitor reactions to the now famous 1913 Armory show was a sense of discovery, bewilderment, and disgust. Originally billed as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, held at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan, the show presented avant-garde works the likes of which had never before been seen by the American public at large and engendered heated discussions about what art was and where it was heading. While some were outraged at what they saw as “wanton perversity,” with Henry Matisse being burned in effigy for his Blue Nude (1907), others responded with excitement to the cutting-edge works by European and American artists. In her article about The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution , at the New-York Historical Society (pages 150–159), Megan Fort relays the stories behind the original show and the art within. Take a look at the works illustrated in the article or better still, if you have the opportunity, visit the exhibition, and think about what your reaction might have been to seeing works by people like Marcel Duchamp and Constantin Brancusi, at a time when the art of John Singer Sargent was the norm. Each person’s reaction to fine art, folk art, furniture, and decorative arts of course varies. Some collectors are drawn to certain material because it belongs to a period they admire or because it fits with other pieces they own. Others rely on their visceral response to an object. The collector featured in this issue’s Lifestyle (pages 128–139) acquires a piece, she says, when it “takes my breath away.” Working with antiques dealers and select auction houses over a fifty-year period, she buys based on instinct, and the result is a collection of “choice” material, displayed in a house designed to show each piece at its best. Enjoy the issue and the discoveries within. Johanna McBrien johanna@afapublishing.com Photography by Ellen McDermott FROM THE EDIT O R D