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EMERGING SCHOLARS LECTURES

The Decorative Arts Trust underwrites a variety of lectures by young scholars at its own symposia as well as outside conferences:

  • At each Trust symposium, a speaker is recognized as the Sweeney lecturer, an endowed presentation named in honor of the late longtime Trust Governor and Winterthur curator John A. H. Sweeney.
  • At one symposium per year, a speaker or panel is recognized as the Zimmermann lecturer(s), an endowed opportunity named in honor of the talented early-20th-century designer and craftswoman Marie Zimmermann.
  • During Colonial Williamsburg’s annual Antiques Forum, The Historic New Orleans Collection’s Antiques Forum, the Delaware Antiques Show, and the Philadelphia Art and Antiques Show, the Trust sponsors young scholar presentations based on recent research on the decorative arts.

2024 Recipients

2023 Recipients
2022 Recipients
2021 Recipients
2020 Recipients
2019 Recipients
  • Emerging Scholars Colloquium in New York:
  • John A. H. Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lectures:
    • Spring Symposium in Annapolis: Seized Possessions: Reconstructing Maryland’s First Governor’s Mansion Michelle Fitzgerald, Assistant Curator, Homewood Museum, John Hopkins University
    • Fall Symposium in the Berkshires: “Glass That Decorates”: The History, Designers, and Stained Glass of the Church Glass and Decorating Company of New York Amber Wingerson, Curatorial Assistant, Cape Ann Museum
  • Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lecture:
  • Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Carolyn and Mike McNamara Young Scholars Lectures:
  • Preservation Society of Newport County Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
    • Private Collection, Public Museum: Interpreting a Collector’s House Taylor Bye, MA Public History, University of Missouri-Kansas City
    • Stitching Politics: Antislavery Needlework in the Antebellum United States Mariah Gruner, PhD candidate, American Studies, Boston University
    • A Picturesque Paradise: Kingstone and Early 19th-Century Landscape Design  Jenn Robinson, MSc Architectural Conservation, University of Edinburgh
    • Venture Cargo: 18th-Century Newport Furniture Exports to the West Indies Emilio Ruiz, Former Curator of National Museum of Decorative Arts, Cuba
    • “Direct from England”: Peter Morton of Hartford, CT, and the English Ceramic Trade Dan Sousa, Assistant Curator, Historic Deerfield
    • “To Gratify the Eye with Color”: Newport Leaded Glass and the Aesthetic Movement Lea Stephenson, PhD candidate Art History, University of Delaware
  • Wilton Colonial Revival Revisited Symposium, Young Scholar Lecture:
    • Reproductions and the Southern Colonial Revival Erica Lome, PhD candidate, American Civilization, University of Delaware
  • Delaware Antiques Show Lecture, Young Scholars Lectures:
    • Midcentury Modernism at Winterthur Carrie Grief, Tiffany & Co. Foundation Curatorial Intern, Metropolitan Museum of Art
    • Reuniting the Unfinished: The 1857 Harrison Album Quilt Emily Whitted, MA candidate, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • New Orleans Antiques Forum, Young Scholar Lecture:
    • Praising Canes: American Folk Art Walking Sticks Lea Lane, Curatorial Assistant, Cincinnati Art Museum
2018 Recipients
  • Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
    • Dinnerware for the Masses: Viktor Schreckengost’s Dinnerware Designs from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s
      Catherine Acosta, History of Design and Curatorial Studies, Parsons School of Design
    • Making Sense of Carmontelle’s Chairs
      Margot Bernstein, Art History, Columbia University
    • The Shop of Robert Stewart: Work and Wealth in the Antebellum Natchez Furniture Trade
      Candice Candeto, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
    • William Roberts’s “Excursion over the Mountains”: Landscapes “by the Pencil of a Virginian”
      Katie McKinney, Assistant Curator of Maps and Prints, Colonial Williamsburg
    • History in Stoneware: Depictions of the British Slave Trade on an 18th-Century English Punch Bowl
      Daniel Sousa, Peggy N. Gerry-Anne K. Groves Curatorial Intern, Historic Deerfield
  • John A. H. Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lectures:
  • Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lectures:
  • Colonial Williamsburg, Antiques Forum, Carolyn and Mike McNamara Young Scholars Lectures:
    • “To Please the most Tasty”: Thomas B. Campbell and Silver for the Great Wagon Road
      Emily Campbell, Architectural Preservation Assistant, Colonial Williamsburg
    • Unpacking Jacob Frymire’s Portrait of Amelia Lauck
      Annabeth Hayes, Director of Preservation, Heritage Foundation of Franklin and Williamson County
    • Big Wheel Keep on Turning: The Measure of Life through Johann Ludwig Eberhardt’s Odometer
      Lea Lane, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Decorative Arts and Design, Cincinnati Art Museum
    • Southern Collecting in the Post-Civil War Era: A Case Study of Barbara Fritchie’s Desk and Bookcase
      Trent Rhodes, MA, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • Philadelphia Antiques & Art Show:
    • Buying and Selling Philadelphia: The Story of the Legendary 1929 Reifsnyder Sale
      Emelie Gevalt, PhD, Art History, University of Delaware
  • Delaware Antiques Show Lecture, Young Scholars Lectures:
    • Truths of the Trade: Collecting, Researching, and Exhibiting an Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World Cabinet
      R.J. Lara, Alexandra Rosenberg, Winterthur Program Lecture in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
    • “The Very Quintessence of Fashion”: George Wyon, Composition Ornament, and Design Books at Winterthur
      Elizabeth Humphrey, Winterthur Program Lecture in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
  • New Orleans Antiques Forum Young Scholar Lecture:
    • Making Clothing Work: Garments for Life in the Deep South, 1750-1865
      Tyler Putnam, General Education Manager, Museum of the American Revolution
2017 Recipients
  • Emerging Scholars Colloquium:
    • “Conformable to that of the water”: Cultural Confluence in the Decorative Arts of Early Kentucky
      Daniel Ackerman, Department of Art History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    • Revisiting Taunton: Making and Collecting the Chests of Robert Crosman
      Emilie Gevalt, Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, University of Delaware
    • Inspiring Interiors: England in the Time of Casanova
      Courtney Harris, Cultural Research Fellow, Art of Europe, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
    • High Style in the Lower Chesapeake: The Cabinetmakers of Edenton, 1745-1785
      Joseph Litts, Department of History, Clemson University
    • The Authority of Handicraft in the Age of Synthetics: Modern Weaving in the United States, 1930s-1950s
      Sarah Mills, Department of Art History, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
  • John A. H. Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lectures:
    • Savannah: Following the Ten Commandments: The Tablet Samplers of Mary Smallwood and Sarah Jones
      Jenny Garwood, Curatorial Associate, The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts
    • Hartford: Thistles & Crowns: The Painted Chests of the Connecticut Shore
      Benjamin W. Colman, Associate Curator, Detroit Institute of Arts
  • Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lectures:
    • Hartford Symposium: A Story of Sunshine and Shadow: Elizabeth H. Colt and the Crafting of the Colt Legacy in Hartford
      Willie Granston, Ph.D. student, History of Art & Architecture, Boston University
  • Colonial Williamsburg, Antiques Forum, Young Scholars Lectures:
    • More than Just a Pretty Face: Reconsidering John Hesselius
      Janine Yorimoto Boldt, PhD, The College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA
    • Dr. Who? Apothe-What? The Birth of the Modern Pharmacy through the Lens of an 18th-Century Apothecary Chest
      Torren Gatson, PhD, Middle Tennessee University, Mufreesboro, TN
    • A Vessel of Memory: Thomas Chandler’s Eastern Shore Landscape
      Katherine Carson Hughes, Historic Charleston Foundation, Curatorial Research Assistant, Charleston, SC
    • Unpacking the Past: The Clothespress of Maria Carter Beverley
      Alexander Wilson, Ashley Whittaker Design, Design Assistant, New York, NY
2016 Recipients
  • Fall 2016 Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lecture:
    • ‘Wel Don’ Chests and Pine Boxes: The Material Culture of Shenandoah County, 1800-1850
      Sarah Thomas, PhD Candidate, Department of History, College of William & Mary
  • Spring 2016 Zimmermann Emerging Scholars Lectures:
    Presentations by recent MESDA Summer Institute alumnae
    • Family Matters: The Rope and Tassel Inlay School
      Amber Clawson, Director, Historical Association of Catawba County
    • Sacred or Secular: The Life of a Mahogany Stretcher Table in Charleston
      April Strader-Bullin, Director of Museum Programs, MESDA
    • “Inferior to None in the Western Country”: Early Stoneware Pottery Traditions in Maysville, Kentucky
      Brenda Hornsby Heindl, Ceramics Department Head, Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates
  • Spring 2016 Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lecture:
    • Much of Artistic Merit Still to Discover: MESDA’s Next Fifty Years
      Daniel Ackermann, Associate Curator, MESDA
  • Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Decorative Arts Trust Young Scholars Lectures:
    • From Dining Room to Auction Block: The Mysteries of Governor Al(l)ston’s Sideboard
      Laura Conte, Visitor Services Coordinator, O. Winston Link Museum
    • “Don’t Cry for Me, America”: A Charleston Silk on Silk Embroidery with Watercolor
      Mark Farnsworth, Director, Historic Bethania
    • The Smiths: A Case Study of Family Portraiture in the Early Republic
      Katie McKinney, Sotheby’s Auctions, Department of American Furniture, Decorative Arts, and Folk Art
  •  
2015 Recipients
  • Fall 2015 Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lecture:
    • Parlor Games: Decorative Arts and the McLellan House, 1801-2015
      Diana Jocelyn Greenwold, Curatorial Fellow, Portland Museum of Art
  • Fall 2015 Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lecture:
    • Tiffany Ecclesiastical Works in the Summer Churches of Maine
      Josh Probert, Independent Historical Consultant, Salt Lake City, UT
  • Spring 2015 Sweeney Emerging Scholar Lecture:
    • The Noble Splendor of the Armeria de Dos Aquas: A Spanish Renaissance Armory at the Art Institute of Chicago
      Jonathan Tavares, Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Foundation Curatorial Fellow, Medieval to Modern European Painting & Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago
  • Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, Decorative Arts Trust Young Scholars Lectures:
    • Smoothing the Transition: The Life and Planes of William Little
      Nathan Jones, Masters Candidate, History, Texas State University
    • “That Penetrating and sidelong Gaze”: Revealing Identity and Place in Alexander Bradford’s Portrait of James Batterton
      Catherine Carlisle, Assistant Cataloguer, Charlton Hall Auctions
    • Fit for a President: The Material World of William Dallam
      Grant Quertermous, Assistant Curator, James Madison’s Montpelier

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