Massachusetts: Four Centuries of Furniture

Thursday, October 17, 2013 – Colonial Inn’s Heritage Room

6:00pm

• Reception and Registration
  

6:30pm

• Welcome
  Randy Schrimsher, President, Decorative Arts Trust
  
• The John A. H. Sweeney Lecture
  Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture
  Brock Jobe, Professor of American Decorative Arts, Winterthur

7:30pm

• Adjourn

Friday, October 18, 2013 – Hotel Ballroom

The Cabinetmaker & the Carver:
Boston Furniture from Private Collections
As part of the Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture collaborative project, the Massachusetts Historical Society presents an exhibition covering several centuries of a rich and varied furniture-making tradition with an emphasis on a selection of important objects from private collections that are rarely seen by the public.

8:30am

• Depart on motor coach from Colonial Inn and travel to Boston

9:30am

• Arrive MA Historical Society. Lectures in reading room.

10:00am

• Welcome from Dennis Fiori, President
• The Cabinetmaker & the Carver
  Gerald W. R. Ward, Senior Consulting Curator and the Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture Emeritus, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
• Visit exhibit: The Cabinetmaker & the Carver: Boston Furniture from Private Collections

11:30am

• Depart Massachusetts Historical Society

12:00pm

• Arrive Somerset Club for lunch

1:30pm

• Beacon Hill collection visits to include the 19th century Nichols House and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts plus private collections

3:30pm

• Depart Beacon Hill by motor coach and continue to the Boston Museum of Fine Art

4:00pm

• Meet Curator of American Decorative Arts, Nonie Gadsden for introduction to Massachusetts Furniture in the Boston Museum and the new Wing of the Americas. And, see Sargent’s Watercolors exhibit

6:00pm

• Fundraiser participants depart Museum

7:00pm

• Depart Museum of Fine Arts and return to Concord

8:00pm

• Arrive at Colonial Inn, Concord

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Delightfully Designed: Massachusetts Decorated Furniture
The Collectors’ Forum at Old Sturbridge Village

9:00am

• Depart by motor coach from Colonial Inn and travel to Old Sturbridge VillageOSV, founded in 1946, is the oldest and largest living history museum in the country and consists of more than 59 original buildings, each carefully researched, restored, and brought to the museum site from towns throughout New England. These provide a context for the 60,000 collection objects on display. The portrayal of the Village, 1790-1840, is grounded in award-winning historical research that includes archaeology, scientific analysis of 19th-century objects and buildings, and painstaking study of letters, diaries, account books, and other documents.

10:00am

• Morning welcome by Jim Donahue, President of Old Sturbridge Village, and Jane Nylander, preeminent decorative arts scholar and OSV Trustee

10:30am

• The Furniture, Family, and Framework of Nathan Lombard
  Brock Jobe, Professor of American Decorative Arts, Winterthur Museum
  Christie Jackson, Curator of Decorative Arts, Old Sturbridge Village
  Clark Pearce, independent scholar and advisor to museums and collectors in American Arts

12:00pm

• Lunch hosted by Norm Abram, noted TV personality, woodworker, and OSV Trustee, speaking informally about the rich traditions of rural cabinetmaking in New England

1:30pm

• Explore the Village, continue to attend the Collectors’ Forum sessions on Working with Lombard’s Furniture, and/or participate in other special programming, and see the Four Centuries exhibit, Delightfully Designed – The Furniture and Life of Nathan Lombard.

4:30pm

• Board motor coach for return trip to Concord stopping at the Old Manse for drinks and toursBuilt in 1770 for patriot minister William Emerson, The Old Manse, a National Historic Landmark, became the center of Concord’s political, literary, and social revolutions over the course of the next century. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne both called the Manse home for a time – and each found inspiration here. Emerson would draft his famous essay “Nature” from an upstairs room, and Hawthorne would write a tribute to the homestead called Mosses from an Old Manse. Hawthorne and his wife, Sophia, started their married life here, and you can still see the poems they wrote to each other, etched on the Manse’s window panes.

6:30pm

• Return to Colonial Inn

Sunday, October 20, 2013

9:00am

• Depart Colonial Inn walking through the historic village of Concord ending at The Concord Museum with lectures in their “barn.”

9:30am

• The Jonathan L. Fairbanks Lecture
  Wondrous Wood: Massachusetts Made Furniture in the 20th-21st Century
  Jonathan L. Fairbanks, Executive Director of the Fuller Crafts Museum

10:15am

• Best Workman in the Shop, Cabinetmaker William Munroe of Concord, 1778-1861
  David Wood, Curator, The Concord Museum

11:30am

• Visit Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture exhibit: The Best Workman in the Shop: William Munroe of Concord, and the exhibit Daniel Chester French: Sculpture from His Concord and Chesterwood Studios.

12:30pm

• Board motor coach and return to Colonial Inn. Symposium ends.

HOTELS:

• Concord’s Colonial Inn
  48 Monument Square, Concord, MA 01742
  Reservations: 1-800-370-9200 or 978-369-9200 **Please note these are the correct numbers for reservations. (There was an error in phone number in printed brochure.)
  The Trust has reserved rooms from Wednesday, October 16, to Monday, October 21, 2013. These rooms and the special rate will be held by the hotel until October 1, 2013. Please make your reservations before this date.
• Best Western Plus (2.89 mi. from Colonial Inn)
  740 Elm Street, Concord, MA 01742
  Phone: 978-369-6100
  Fax: 978-371-1656
  These rooms are being held for us from Tuesday, October 15, to Monday, October 21, 2013. Please book before September 1, 2013.

TRAVEL:

• By Car:      
  • From I-95/Rte. 128: Take I-95/Rte. 128 to Exit 30B direction 2A West. Stay on 2A West, at the 2nd flashing yellow light stay right onto Lexington Road. Sign reads “Concord.”
    Follow this to center of Concord. At the small rotary continue straight. The Inn will be directly in front of you. Free parking behind the Inn.
• Airports:         Logan International Airport (BOS)
• Train:  Amtrak to Boston
• Taxi:
  • From Logan Airport: Airport Transportation 877/965-6426
  • Mike (recommended by Colonial Inn) 781/330-6635
  • Car rentals at Logan Airport