New York: Asia Week New York, in partnership with The Winter Show, presents Art and the Great Expositions: The Worldwide Web of Taste, 1876-1904. The discussion takes place on Saturday, January 25th at 3:00 p.m. in the historic Board of Officers Room at the Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue, New York.
Art and the Great Expositions: The World Wide Web of Taste, 1876–1904 will assess the long-term aesthetic impact that World Fairs had on American decorative art and painting during the Gilded Age and on early twentieth century decorative arts and paintings, including the part played by Japanese art and crafts. With a focus on works displayed in Philadelphia, Paris, Chicago, and St. Louis, the distinguished experts on the panel–moderated by Dessa Goddard, U.S. Head of the Asian Art Group, Senior Vice President of Bonhams–will discuss the influence of Paris on American painting, the impact of Japanese arts and crafts on American decorative arts, especially Tiffany, and how the expositions served as a background for the transformation in 19th century painting.
About the Distinguished Experts:
Annette Blaugrund, former director (and first woman director) of the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts (1997-2007), has published and lectured widely on diverse subjects in American art and culture. Before that she was the Andrew W. Mellon senior curator at the New-York Historical Society and a curator at the Brooklyn Museum and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She has written sixteen books about American art including some about the Tenth Street Studio Building, the 1889 world’s fair in Paris, and John James Audubon. In 1992 she was named a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, and in 2008 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Design, among other honors. She holds a PhD. in art history from Columbia University (1987) where for six years she taught a seminar on American art (1996-2001). From 2012 to 2023, she was Consulting Curator at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, NY, and currently is co-curator of the exhibition, Shifting Shorelines: Art, Industry, and Ecology Along the Hudson River, on view at Columbia University’s Wallach Art Gallery through January 12.
Joe Earle, Bonhams Global Senior Consultant for Japanese Art, has worked in the East Asian art field for the last 50 years. He has held leadership positions in Asian art departments at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and was Director of Japan Society Gallery in New York from 2007 to 2012. Joe has organized more than two dozen exhibitions in Britain, Japan, Italy, and the United States and written, translated, or edited books and catalogs on aspects of Japanese culture ranging from contemporary art and design through to samurai sword-fittings, netsuke, bamboo art, flower-arrangement bronzes, lacquer, and the art of the Meiji era.
Medill Harvey is the Ruth Bigelow Wriston Curator of American Decorative Arts and Manager of the Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She oversees the collections of American silver, jewelry, and other metalwork, as well as mid-nineteenth-century furniture. Medill joined the staff of the American Wing to direct research for the exhibition Art and The Empire City (2000). She is co-author of Early American Silver in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2013) and a contributing author for American Silver in the Art Institute of Chicago (2016). She contributed to The Met’s 2011 and 2009 reinstallations of the American silver and jewelry collections and the exhibition Silversmiths to the Nation (2007). She is also a co-author and a consulting curator for Modern Gothic: The Inventive Furniture of Kimbel and Cabus, 1863-82 (2021), an exhibition and catalogue produced by the Brooklyn Museum. Medill’s most recent exhibition and accompanying publication is Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co., which was presented at The Met in 2024.
Mark D. Mitchell is the Holcombe T. Green Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. He completed his doctorate at Princeton University in 2002 and previously worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Academy Museum, Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, and Princeton University Art Museum. His research interests in American art extend from the colonial period to the later twentieth century in all media, with depth in landscape and still life painting. His recent publication and exhibition is The Dance of Life: Figure and Imagination in American Art 1876-1917, held at the Yale University Art Gallery between September 6, 2024 and January 5, 2025.
Dessa Goddard is U.S. Head of the Asian Art Group, Senior Vice President and Head, Business Strategy for Chinese Paintings, and Senior Specialist for Chinese Art. She oversees all the specialists and consultants in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Himalayan, Indian and Southeast Asian Art in North America. Dessa spearheads consignment acquisitions for Bonhams’ auctions in New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. Considered one of North America’s leading experts in Chinese art, Ms. Goddard was the Chairman of Asia Week New York from 2021-23. She travels and lectures throughout the United States and appears regularly on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. Her recent research focuses on the growth of philanthropy and urban culture, with a specific eye to the history of Asian Art collecting in America.
For ticket information, visit asiaweekny.com or www.thewintershow.org
About Asia Week New York
Asia Week New York is a nine-day celebration, bringing together top-tier international Asian art galleries, the six major auction houses, and numerous museums and Asian cultural institutions. It features simultaneous gallery open houses, Asian art auctions, museum exhibitions, lectures, and special events. Participants from Great Britain, Hong Kong, Japan, Switzerland, 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.
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 more than 70 of the world’s leading experts in the fine and decorative arts. 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 120 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):
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, (American, Dublin 1848-1907), Victory, Bronze Gilt, 1892–1903; this cast, 1914 or after (by 1916) 38 x 9 1/2 x 18 1/2 in., (96.5 x 24.1 x 47 cm)
The Magnolia Vase Tiffany & Co 1893 Gift of Mrs. Winthrop Atwill, 1899, The Metropolitan Museum Accession no. 99.2.jpg
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American (active England), 1834–1903), Arrangement in Black (The Lady in the Yellow Buskin) c. 1883
Photo credits for the above images: The Metropolitan Museum of Art