museum exhibit

Celebrity Guest Curators Celebrate The Shaker Legacy

Filed under: Events, Art

The Hancock Shaker Village, a living history museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts celebrates 50 years as a museum this year. The site served as a Shaker community from 1790 to 1960 and is now a National Historic Landmark with acres of farm and woods as well as housing a collection of original Shaker furniture, art, objects, tools, textiles and other artifacts. The Village has 18 significant historic buildings including the Round Stone Barn as well as a modern Visitor Center. As you wander through the village you can view pieces of Shaker design, check out demonstrations of Shaker craft, visit the gardens and learn about the Shaker way of life.

To celebrate 50 years the museum asked celebrities and other influential types to serve as guest curators answering the question: "If you could pick any Shaker creation that for you, best illustrates the Shakers' enduring influence, what would it be and why?" Guest curators include designer Michael Graves, television host Al Roker, furniture maker Thomas Moser, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and filmmaker Ken Burns. The exhibit runs now through October 31.Tickets are $17 for adults.

[via ArtFix Daily]

Tags: hancock shaker village, museum, museum exhibit, museum exhibition, museums, shaker, shakers

Tiffany Glass Exhibit Opens In Virginia

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events, Art

Fans of Louis Comfort Tiffany's beautiful glass creations will want to visit the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. "Tiffany: Color and Light" opened this weekend and will continue until August 15. The exhibition includes more than 170 works by Louis Comfort Tiffany and his studio. Glass objects, leaded-glass windows, lamps, and other decorative items will be displayed along with oil paintings, watercolors, and mosaics. Fourteen objects in the exhibit come from VMFA's internationally renowned collection. "Our own collection of Tiffany treasures has earned the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts the distinction of being the exclusive U.S. venue for the works of this genius of American Decorative arts," says Director Alex Nyerges.

Louis Comfort Tiffany was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, the founder of Tiffany & Company in New York City. He studied art in New York and in Paris. He established the Tiffany Glass Company, which became Tiffany Studios in 1900 and at one point, Tiffany Studios employed more than 300 artisans, some of them women, to bring Tiffany's designs and ideas to life.

[via Art Daily]

Tags: glass, museum exhibit, museum exhibition, tiffany, virginia museum of fine arts

Katharine Hepburn's Legacy Celebrated With Stamp, Museum Exhibit

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Apparel

Legendary actress and fashion icon Katharine Hepburn has gotten her own stamp. The United States Postal Service's newly-issued commemorative stamp on Katharine Hepburn went on sale last week. The stamp portrait is a publicity photograph from Woman of the Year (MGM, 1942), the comedy that first put Hepburn together with her on and off-screen love interest, Spencer Tracy.

The stamp sets the stage for a renewed focus on Hepburn's legacy. At Kent State University this fall, the KSU Museum will be showcasing an exhibition: "Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen," which opens October 2, 2010 and ends September 4, 2011. The exhibit will display many of the costumes designed for Hepburn in her movies and Broadway shows (including her turn as Coco Chanel). The museum has over 1,000 pieces of her belongings including the performance clothes and spans Hepburn's long career. The exhibit may later tour other museums.

As a video on the project (after the jump) reveals, finding mannequins to wear the clothes was no easy task. In her early years the actress had a waist of just 20 inches and some mannequins had to be carved down to fit the clothing.

[via NY Post]

Tags: exhibits, Katharine Hepburn, museum, museum exhibit, museum exhibition

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Cartier and America Exhibit Extended Until May 9

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Jewelry

You'd think with the nearly 40 pictures in the gallery below that you might have seen everything at the Cartier and America exhibit without ever having to trek to San Francisco. You'd be wrong or rather I was wrong and am very glad I made the journey. Tucked down on the lower level of the Legion of Honor Museum is what could be the most comprehensive collection of Cartier pieces ever gathered. The multi-room exhibit is a love letter to the Cartier brand and its legacy of quality and ingenuity.

The dazzling tiaras and gobstobber diamond rings are no surprise but this exhibit has other surprises in store. The displays go beyond just jewelry, there are also watches, cigarette cases (including one designed to look like an envelope complete with enamel stamp, a gift from Winston Churchill to his son), hairbrushes, tiny mignonette clocks and even a gold version of a lunar landing module. Pieces belonging to some of the women with the wherewithal to own custom Cartier pieces are shown. Doris Duke's diamonds, Elizabeth Taylor's ruby and diamond parure, Grace Kelly's ladylike pieces, Barbara Hutton's famous Cartier tiger pin and Maria Felix's articulated serpent necklace are just some of the showier treasures. In 1968 Felix commissioned the necklace from Cartier Paris. Felix's serpent necklace is truly amazing. It is thicker than a real snake and has a 178 carats of diamonds along the top and a colorful enameled underbelly meant to protect the wearer from the scratch of the stones. Felix also commissioned a detachable double crocodile necklace which is shown in the Cartier exhibit.

Gallery: Cartier and America

Pierre Cartier, wife and daughter, 1926, Library of Congress.

Marjorie Merriweather Post wearing the brooch

Tags: cartier, cartier and america, legion of honor museum, museum exhibit, museum exhibition

Continue reading “Cartier and America Exhibit Extended Until May 9”

Wardrobe Of The Tsars On Display In London

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Travel & Hotels

London's Victoria & Albert Museum is currently hosting a rather decadent exhibition, of luxury lost called the Magnificence of the Tsars. The exhibit spans a period of almost two centuries from the early 1700s focusing on the dress and uniforms of Emperors and the Russian Court with highlights like the elaborate coronation robes of Paul l, Nicholas l and Alexanders l, ll and lll. The exhibit is curated and mounted by the Moscow Kremlin Museums and shows men's Russian fashion as it is rarely seen.

Located near the museum, the five-star Egerton hotel, has put together a V&A Tsars package to coincide with the exhibition. The V&A Tsars package includes a two-night stay, English breakfast, exhibition tickets to the V& A including exclusive access and use of the elegant Members' Lounge, an ice cold vodka martini served in frozen glasses accompanied by caviar blinis one evening of your stay and afternoon Tea one day and a glass of pink champagne. The package starts at £349 per room per night.

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Tags: egerton hotel, EgertonHotel, london, museum exhibit, MuseumExhibit, russia, tsars

Hearst Collection Goes On Display

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Now seems like the perfect time for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) exhibit Hearst the Collector. The exhibit brings together about 150 works from the extensive collection of media magnate William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951). Much of Hearst's collection was sold off during a "liquidity crisis" in the late 1930s. As bankruptcy loomed, his huge collection, spread out over his many residences, was divided in half. Half he got to keep, the rest became an asset for his companies and were sold to keep his empire alive (something some of today's tycoons might want to take note of).

The exhibit at the LACMA runs November 9 through February 1, 2009 and shows Hearst's wide range of collecting interests. He had large collections of armor, silver and Renaissance tapestries as well as paintings by Boucher, Copley, van Dyck, Fragonard, Gérôme, Greuze, Lawrence, Lotto, Reynolds, and Vouet, with sculptures by Canova, Clodion, Marin, Sansovino, and Thorvaldsen. His collection of three hundred Native American textiles also showed a collector who was a bit ahead of his time. The pieces in the exhibit came from Hearst Castle as well from museums around the world. A book of the exhibition, shown at right, sells for $50.

[via Art Daily]

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Tags: hearst, lacma, museum exhibit, MuseumExhibit

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