Dinner & Lecture Series Fee
Members $50 per lecture
Non-Members $65 per lecture
 

Registration
You may register electronically here or call the office,
 313.831.1250, for payment by cash or check. 
Pre-registration is required.
Walk-ins are not possible due to dinner preparation.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls
Speaker Dr. Martin Eidelberg,
Professor Emeritus of Art History, Rutgers University
Whereas Louis C. Tiffany always put forward his name alone as the
designer and guiding force of his firm, the discovery of letters written at
the turn of the century by Clara Driscoll reveals a very different
picture. It was Driscoll and her staff (the so-called Tiffany Girls) who
were actually responsible for executing many of the leaded windows, and
she and her colleagues designed and executed most of the leaded-glass
lamps and many of the so-called fancy goods made by Tiffany
Studios. Her newly discovered letters pinpoint specific works that can be
attributed to her, shed light on many of the intermediate stages in the
complex design process, and highlight the collaborative nature of much
of the work at Tiffany Studios. Perhaps most intriguing of all, this new
information brings into question the role that Tiffany himself played in
the design process.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012
The Great Transition: Detroit Architecture between the World Wars
Speaker John Gallagher,
Staff Writer and Architecture Critic for the Detroit Free Press
Detroit architecture in the 1920s and ’30s saw a transition away from the
historicism of pre-war years toward a mix of romantic Mediterranean
revival, Art Deco, and mid-century modernism. John Gallagher outlines
this two-decade period in Detroit architecture with images of several
buildings, including both familiar landmarks and not-so-familiar gems.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Myth, Controversy, and Modern Art:
Reconsidering the 1913 Armory Show
Speaker Kimberly Orcutt,
Curator of American Art, New-York Historical Society
The N-YHS is planning a major exhibition celebrating the centenary of
the 1913 Armory Show. The original exhibition, organized by American
artists at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York, introduced the
American public to European avant-garde painting and sculpture. The
show generated a public controversy never seen before in the United
States, and it inspired debates that continue to shape how we think about
modern art.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Artist and the Scarab: Marie Zimmermann and the Egyptian Revival
Speaker Joseph Cunningham,
Ph.D., Curatorial Director of American Decorative Art, 1900 Foundation
Marie Zimmermann (1878-1972) was among the most eclectic and
innovative designers of jewelry and metalwork in the early twentieth
century. Her creations in gold, silver, bronze, copper, and iron, which
were shown in 1920s exhibitions at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts
and which are included in the collection of the Edsel and Eleanor Ford
House, explore a wide range of approaches to design. Because of the
radically diverse and challenging nature of her work, Zimmermann’s
oeuvre has received little scholarly attention until the recent book The
Jewelry and Metalwork of Marie Zimmermann (New Haven Press 2011). The
book’s coauthor, Joseph Cunningham, will discuss Marie Zimmermann’s
explorations of the Egyptian revival style across all aspects of her work,
including jewelry and a wide range of metalwork and her most famous
work the Egyptian Box, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum
of Art. Egyptian and its revival motifs played a central role in design
both in America and abroad from about 1870 through the 1930s, due in
large measure to the opening of the Suez Canal, attention to Egyptian
styles in the design press, and pattern books including those by Owen
Jones and Christopher Dresser. The string of excavations continually
renewed the public’s appetite for all things Egyptian, the taste for which
was developed in New York by the quick and determined development of
Classical Collections at the Metropolitan and Brooklyn Museums of Art.

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