New York: Asia Week New York, in partnership with The Winter Show, is delighted to present Partners in Life and Art: The Spectacular Collections of the Havemeyer Family featuring noted authorities Alice Frelinghuysen and Thomas Denenberg. The presentation, moderated by Dessa Goddard, chairman of Asia Week New York, will be held on Saturday, January 28 at 3:30pm in the historic Colonel’s Room at the Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue, New York.
“The Havemeyers were a unique partnership among Gilded Age collectors with shared but separate tastes who ultimately built major museum collections in the United States,” says Dessa Goddard. “We will explore their separate evolution as collectors which led to their joint passions as collectors and patrons of Impressionist paintings through Mary Cassatt, and pioneering Louis C. Tiffany and his studio. We will discuss the couple’s interest in both mainstream art and their individual fascination with Chinese and Japanese ceramics, paintings, screens, and prints, and delve into the nature of the relationship between Louisine and her daughter Electra and their approaches toward collecting and the collections that they built, which resulted in richly diverse and seminal collections at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Shelburne Museum in Vermont.”
About the Panel:
Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen is the Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she started as an Andrew Mellon Fellow before joining the curatorial staff. While at The Met, she has curated, published, and lectured widely on a variety of subjects relating to American ceramics, glass, stained glass, late nineteenth-century furniture, and the Gilded Age. Her numerous exhibitions, articles, and publications have centered on the many aspects of the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, including Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall— An Artist’s Country Estate (2006). She has also published on the collectors Louisine and H. O. Havemeyer, notably co-curating with Gary Tinterow in 1993 the landmark exhibition, Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. In 2014, she was awarded the Frederic E. Church Award for contributions to American Culture and in 2016 she was the Clarice Smith Distinguished Scholar Lecture for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Frelinghuysen recently authored The Stained Glass Windows of St. Andrew’s Dune Church, and co-authored Gifts from the Fire: American Ceramics, 1880-1950.
Thomas Denenberg is the John Wilmerding Director of Shelburne Museum. Prior to moving to Vermont in 2011, he served as the Chief Curator and Deputy Director of the Portland Museum of Art, Richard Koopman Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum, and Betsy Main Babcock Curator of American Art at Reynolda House. Tom received a B.A. in history from Bates College and earned his Ph.D. in American Studies from Boston University. He has held fellowships at the Smithsonian and Winterthur and taught at Boston University, Harvard, Wake Forest, Smithsonian, and Winterthur. A frequent lecturer, Denenberg has written extensively on the retrospective culture of New England, including thematic catalogues exploring the work of Winslow Homer, Grandma Moses, and Andrew Wyeth.
Dessa Goddard oversees all company specialists and consultants in the fields of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Himalayan, Indian and Southeast Asian Art in North America at Bonhams and is the Senior North American Chinese Specialist in charge of acquiring consignments for the company's auctions in New York, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. In over 30 years of Dessa's leadership, the US Asian group has achieved record-breaking sales in Chinese, Japanese and Korean Art. Together with Colin Sheaf and London senior management, she played a key role in opening Bonhams expansion into Hong Kong and Asia in 2007. She currently serves as chairman of Asia Week New York. One of North America's leading experts in her field, Dessa speaks Mandarin Chinese and Japanese. She travels and lectures throughout the U.S. on topics in Chinese art and has focused her recent research on the growth of philanthropy and urban culture, with a specific eye to the history of Asian art collecting in America. She regularly appears on PBS's Antiques Roadshow.
For ticket information, visit: www.asiaweekny.com or www.thewintershow.org
About Asia Week New York
The collaboration of top-tier international Asian art galleries, the six major auction houses, Bonhams, Christie’s, Doyle, Heritage Auctions, iGavel, and Sotheby’s, and numerous museums and Asian cultural institutions, Asia Week New York is a week-long celebration filled with a non-stop schedule of simultaneous gallery open houses, Asian art auctions as well as numerous museum exhibitions, lectures, and special events. Participants from Great Britain, India, Italy, Japan, and the United States unveil an extraordinary array of museum-quality treasures from China, India, the Himalayas, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, and Korea.
Asia Week New York Association, Inc. is a 501(c)(6) non-profit trade membership organization registered with the state of New York. For more information visit www.asiaweeknewyork.com @asiaweekny #asiaweekny
About Songtsam, Presenting Sponsor
Continuing as Presenting Sponsor for Asia Week New York is the Songtsam Group, the award-winning luxury boutique hotel collection, and Destination Management Company with fifteen properties located in the Chinese provinces of Tibet and Yunnan. Founded by Baima Duoji, in 2000, the hotel group is the only collection of luxury Tibetan-style retreats found across the Tibetan Plateau that strives to preserve and share the cultures and spirituality of its locale, all the while offering guests sophisticated elegance, refined design, modern amenities, and unobtrusive service in places of natural beauty and cultural interest. For more information, visit www.songtsam.com.
About The Winter Show
The Winter Show, an annual benefit for the East Side House Settlement, is the leading art, antiques, and design fair in America, featuring 69 of the world’s top experts in the fine and decorative arts. Typically, held at the historic Park Avenue Armory in New York City, in January, the fair highlights a dynamic mix of works dating from ancient times through the present day and maintains the highest standards of quality in the art market. Each object at the fair is vetted for authenticity, date, and condition by a committee of 150 experts from the United States and Europe.
All the revenues from the fair’s general admission and the net proceeds from the Opening Night and other special events support East Side House and contribute substantially to its private philanthropic budget. No part of sales made by exhibitors is received by East Side House.
About East Side House
East Side House Settlement is a community-based organization located in the South Bronx. Recognizing education as the key to economic and civic opportunity, East Side House works with schools, community centers, and other partners to bring quality education and resources to individuals in need, helping approximately 14,000 residents of the Bronx and Northern Manhattan improve their lives each year. For more information, please visit: https://www.eastsidehouse.org/
Captions (top to bottom)
Louisine and Henry O. Havemeyer, 1889 (photo credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
An 18th century Chinese Water Pot, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), Qianlong mark and period (1736–95; porcelain with peach-bloom glaze; Dimensions: H. 2 1/4 in. (5.7 cm); Diam. 2 5/8 in. (6.7 cm) (Photo credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Mary Cassatt, Louisine Havemeyer and Her Daughter Electra, 1895. Pastel on wove paper, 24 x 30 1/2 in. Collection of Shelburne Museum, museum purchase. 1996-46. Photography by Bruce Schwarz (Shelburne Museum)