Press Releases
December 1, 2011 - Charleston Art & Antiques Forum Under New Leadership - By Charleston Mercury Staff
Charleston Art & Antiques Forum Under New Leadership
BY CHARLESTON MERCURY STAFF
America's Palette is the theme for the 15th annual Charleston Art & Antiques Forum, to be held this coming March 14-17. The prestigious event has a new director in Marion Simons Letts, a native of Charleston possessing impressive educational background and bountiful work experience in the world of fine arts. She is excited to be building on its success over the past 14 years. The Forum has added many new features as well as main- taining its reliably prominent roster of specialists giving a full spectrum of enlightening tours and presentations on fine and decorative arts with historical perspective.
Four years ago, we profiled Marion Letts who noted that "an architecture degree from Virginia gave me a sense of proportion which helps a person evaluate antiques and fine art." A few years after UVA, she was enrolled at Sotheby's American Arts Course, a year-long graduate-level program in American fine and decorative arts. Now, she is perfectly suited for the Forum and its pursuit of enlightenment in refinement.
This year's keynote address is the purview of Patrick Baty, of Papers and Paints, LLC, Architectural Paint Specialist By Appointment to Her Majesty The Queen. Mr. Baty will present The Paint Detective, or a Tale of Two Bridges on the evening of March 14 with a welcoming reception following. Proprietor of the firm of his father founded in 1960, historic color specialist Patrick Baty is credited with sparking the interest in historically accurate paint colors with his introduction in the 1980s of a color range based on a Scottish house- painter's sample cards. He has since become one of the most sought-after paint archeologist experts in the field. His projects include Windsor Castle,Buckingham Palace, Blenheim Palace, 10 Downing Street, Sir John Soane's Museum, Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, Apsley House, The Royal Albert Hall and London's Tower bridge. Here in the U.S. he has consulted on numerous historic properties including Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, period rooms in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Colonial Williamsburg, and Tryon Palace, New Bern, North Carolina.
Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, American Decorative Arts Curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and author of "Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection" as well as numerous books on Louis Comfort Tiffany, will guide a special walking tour: The Religion of Beauty: The Art of Louis Comfort Tiffany as well as give a lecture on Tiffany's devotion to nature as a strong theme in his work. Eliot Bostwick Davis, John Moor Cabot Chair, Art of the Americas, at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston will present A World Imagined: The Art of the American Wing at The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The strong talent pool continues. Antiquarian and designer Ralph O. Harvard III will lead the walking tour A Stroll Down Church Street, featuring many private interiors, providing historical insight as only this inimitable historian is able. J. Graham Long, curator at The Charleston Museum and Margaret B. Pritchard, curator of prints, maps and wallpapers at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation together will lead a walking tour: Off the Wall in Charleston, exam- ining wallpaper samples from Colonial Williamsburg and The Charleston Museum.Andrea Wulf, acclaimed biographer and author of "The Brother Gardeners" which won a Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries Annual Literature Award in 2010, will speak on Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature and the Shaping of the American Nation. Michael Quinn, president at James Madison's Montpelier, will speak on the restoration of Montpelier and James Madison's legacy.
Of special interest this year will be David Houston's presentation From the Ground Up, Creating a New Museum, as Mr. Houston is director of curatorial studies at the newly opened Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, founded by Alice L. Walton.For the first time, an intimate and exclusive pre-Forum tour, Charleston in Perspective, is being offered by Creative Expeditions with Liz Tucker. This optional tour will set the stage for the Forum's cultural immersion and includes many "must-see" highlights of the Lowcountry. On March 17 is another inaugural tour for the Forum: Landscape Legacy. In partnership with the Charleston Horticultural Society, this special afternoon walking tour of public and private Charleston gardens will emphasize Charleston's significant botanical history and influence, and will be followed by a light reception at the Confederate Home.
Complementing the many private receptions throughout them four-day Forum will be perform- ances given by talented young musicians from the Charleston School of the Arts, a county-wide magnet school established in 1995 that continues to receive the highest and most prestigious nat- ional awards for the creative talents and academic achievements of its students. Their instrumental selections will showcase the colors of music throughout the ages, from classical to jazz.
Throughout the years, The Charleston Art & Antiques Forum has fostered a cultural environ- ment that ensures Charleston's place as a bastion of cultural arts. In addition to providing its varied and complex palette of distinguished arts scholars, proceeds benefit arts education and preservation programs in South Carolina. The Historical Courtroom of The Confederate Home at 23 Chalmers Street is the location for the lectures. In the past, years, hosts sites have been The School of the Arts at the College of Charleston, as well as The Gibbes Museum of Art.
The Charleston Art & Antiques Forum is a 501(c)(3) organization benefitting arts education and preservation programs in South Carolina. This year's Forum will benefit Drayton Hall's Historic Collections Fund.