October 2006

Fall Study Tour

VSSF Event

Members

J. Stewart Johnson, 1925-2006
VSA's Founding President

It is with sadness, and a sense of history, that we learned recently of the passing of the Victoria Society in America's founding president, J. Stewart Johnson, who died on May 12th from complications of a stroke suffered a week earlier at his home in Orient, NY.

Mr. Johnson was first and last a VSA stalwart.  He was present at the very genesis of the Society in the Summer of 1965, when, in a Glasgow (UK) pub along with Margot Gayle and Caroline Karpinski, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner appealed to his American visitors to protect America's 19th century heritage.  Accordingly, he attended Margot Gayle's now famous 1966 kitchen meeting in Greenwich Village (at which the Victorian Society in America was organized), becoming chair of the early planning meetings.  It naturally fell to Mr. Johnson to preside over the first ever annual meeting of the Society held at the Grolier Club in New York, and he remained President of the Society until 1969 before continuing a career as curator of design and architecture at several major museums. However, he never forgot his VSA roots, and was actively supporting the Victorian Society Scholarship Fundraising Tea as recently as November 2005.

Born in Baltimore, August 31, 1925, Mr. Johnson graduated from Swarthmore College (1949) and worked in trade publishing until 1962. He received his M.A. from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture in 1964, attended the Attingham Summer School in 1965, and went on to hold curatorial positions at The Newark Museum (1964-68), The Brooklyn Museum (1968-73), the Corning Museum of Glass (1973-74), the Cooper-Hewitt Museum (1975-76), and the Museum of Modern Art (1976-86). From 1991 until his retirement in 2004, he was Consultant for Design and Architecture in the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He also served as a consultant and taught at Boston University and the Fashion Institute of Technology graduate programs (1986-90).  Mr. Johnson was also a former president of the American Friends of the Attingham Summer School (‘80-83).

During the course of his career, Mr. Johnson organized major retrospective exhibitions on Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann (2004) and Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1995) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Eileen Gray (1979) at the Museum of Modern Art, as well as other exhibitions such as "Alvar Aalto, Furniture and Glass" (1984) and "Marcel Breuer, Furniture and Interiors" (1981) at the Museum of Modern Art. Two of these exhibitions, Aalto and Ruhlmann, won the International Association of Art Critics, U.S. Chapter, award for Best Museum Exhibition, Architecture and Design. In conjunction with the Aalto exhibition, Mr. Johnson made two films, "Making Aalto's Furniture" (1984) and "A Walk Around Aalto" (1986).

He also wrote a number of books on twentieth-century design, including American Modern, 1925-1940: Design for a New Age (2000), Alvar Aalto: Furniture and Glass (1984), The Modern American Poster (1983), and Eileen Gray, Designer (1979), and contributed a number of articles to exhibition catalogues.

With thanks to the American Friends of Attingham for biographical notes.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL LIST OF PAST PRESIDENTS

RICHARD GUY WILSON

Esteemed VSA member and director of the Newport Summer School, Richard Guy Wilson,  is often consulted about stories in the news.

Below he comments about the Jefferson rotunda fire in the latest issue of the University of Virginia newspaper.

Article: The Cavalier Daily

See also: VSA Interview

  Contributing Members

We are extremely grateful to our contributing members for their generous support:

James Buttrick, Boston, MA
William Dane, Newark, NJ
Steve Forbes, New York, NY
Robert Furhoff, Chicago, IL
Richard Hayes, Staten Island, NY
Lois A. Howlin, Davidsonville, MD
Michael J. Lewis, Philadelphia PA
Fred and Charlotte Ross, Essex Fells, NY
Lizbeth A. Shearer, Rancho Mirage, CA
Marjorie and Jim White, Birmingham, AL

Thank you.

Business Members
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Member Organizations

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Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt
Until December 31, 2006

Owing to overwhelming popularity and critical acclaim, Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt has been extended until December 31, 2006.

The exhibition tells the story of Napoleon’s ill-fated bid to add Egypt to the growing French empire, and how the British ultimately thwarted this plan. The major battles and characters are depicted in various prints and commemorative medals representing both the British and French perspectives. Fascinating archival letters, documents, and official bulletins, signed by Napoleon and some of his most important generals, will reveal both the grand sweep of the military endeavor as well as intriguing glimpses of the daily life and activities of the soldiers. Of particular interest are documents—countersigned by Napoleon—relating to the interaction between local Arab officials and the French occupying forces.

The astonishing range and precision of the Description plates was captured by Napoleon’s savants—167 physicians, engineers, economists, mathematicians, zoologists, botanists, archeologists, translators, journalists, and artists who accompanied the army. Their task was to catalogue all of Egypt’s wonders, from the architectural ruins of a still mysterious ancient civilization (some no longer extant) to indigenous flora and fauna. The resulting body of work took roughly twenty years and 2,000 skilled draftsmen and typographers to complete.

Dahesh Museum

Picture: Charles-Louis-Fleury Panckoucke, French, 1780-1844 | Monuments of Egypt, ca. 1821-24 | Private collection

Florence Griswold Museum
The Home of American Impressionism
www.flogris.org/index.html

Thanks in large measure to "Miss Florence", what is known today as the Florence Griswold Museum has, for more than a century, been the home of the Lyme Art Colony, America's center of Impressionism.

Imbued with the spirit of a remarkable woman, VSA member organization, the Florence Griswold Museum is a historic place that fosters authentic American art.

New York Metropolitan Chapter

The New York Metropolitan Chapter joined a parade of preservation groups, including the Landmarks Conservancy, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Municipal Art Society, Society for the Architecture of the City, and the Union Square Community Coalition, to speak up for landmark designation of a building, where the Vanderbilts, Belmonts and Whitneys came to buy polo ponies and racehorses.

Preservation advocates, East Village neighbors and elected officials last week urged the Landmarks Preservation Commission to grant protection to the former horse showroom on E. 13th St. that last served as a studio for the artist Frank Stella.

See: 'The Villager' news story.

Ed Gordon | New England Chapter

Ed Gordon, VSA board member and President of the New England Chapter, conducted a walking tour of Prospect Hill and Union Square, in Somerville, MA on Sept. 16th.

Ed highlighted the Victorian ornamentation found on residences throughout the neighborhood, including stained-glass windows, fine wood-turned details, gingerbread porches and gardens.

The tour visited the site of a strategic military installation during the siege of Boston in the mid-1770s and meandered the streets of Prospect Hill, passing by grand mansions and charming cottages, and culminating in the nationally listed Bow Street Historic District of Union Square.

See: 'The Somerville Journal' news story.

See: 'New York Observer' news story.

"COME RIDE WITH ME"    
THE STORY OF BICYCLES IN VICTORIAN TIMES
Monday, October 16, 2006 – 8:00 PM
      Montclair Women's Club, 82 Union Street, Montclair, NJ
Refreshments Served
Members – Free       Guest Fee $10.00       Annual Membership $25.00

- An event of the N. New Jersey Chapter -

Gary Sanderson is an active Wheelman who enjoys riding long distances on his high wheel bicycle from the 1880s: he just completed riding from Boston to New York City to publicize the first ride around the world in 1894 by Annie Londonderry, a Jewish mother from Boston. His program, illustrated with slides and a real antique bicycle, will show how the bicycle developed, and discuss the impact of bicycles on the Victorian social order of the day.

See flyer.

Miscellany

See also the VSA news page

And finally..

And finally your staff of one at the email newsletter has now officially handed over the reigns of the VSA office.  Many thanks to kind words sent by board and regular members alike. They are much appreciated.

I shall be editing this email newsletter for the foreseeable future so I look forward to visiting you virtually every month.

Let us know what you think of the e-newsletter and what you like to see in it.

UNTIL NEXT TIME
visit us on the web at www.victoriansociety.org

The Victorian Society in America
205 S. Camac Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
info@victoriansociety.org

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Third party material used for scholarly purposes only.