This exhibition will explore the life, world and work of Mary Delany, née Mary Granville (1700 – 1788). Though best known for her almost one thousand botanical "paper mosaics" now housed in the British Museum, which she began at the age of 72, Mrs. Delany used her craft activities to cement bonds of friendship and negotiate complex, interlinked social networks throughout a long life passed in artistic, aristocratic, and court circles in Georgian England and Ireland. Mrs. Delany and Her Circle has been co-organized by the Yale Center for British Art and Sir John Soane's Museum.
Information: www.ycba.yale.edu |
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| LOCATION: Exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art, 1000 Chapel Street, New Haven (corner of York Street) |
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The English country house lies at the very heart of England’s history and cultural life. That it continues to be a source of dreams and aspiration owes much to Country Life, which, since it was established in 1897, has featured a different country house in each weekly issue and advertised more in its property pages. In her lecture, architectural historian Mary Miers will explore the architecture and interiors of some of the stunning country houses, in a range of architectural styles spanning seven centuries, brought to life through the photography library of Country Life and illustrated in her new book The English Country House (Rizzoli, 2009). She will show the details of the exquisite interior decoration of these homes, many still privately occupied by descendants of the families that built them, and discuss how most of these houses were built as an expression of status, many interpreting the mainstream architectural trends of the day with their own distinctive provincial character and regional traditions of craftsmanship.
TICKETS: LA and SF $25 members, $35 non-members; NY $30 members, $40 non-members
LA LOCATION: UCLA Faculty Center, 480 Charles E. Young Drive East
SF LOCATION: Metropolitan Club, 640 Sutter Street - Formal Business Attire required, no cell phones
NY LOCATION: The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street (between Park and Madison, north side of block)
A joint program of the Royal Oak Foundation with the Soane Foundation, Rizzoli, English-Speaking Union San Francisco Chapter (SF), National Trust for Scotland Foundation USA (SF), The Decorative Arts and Design Council of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LA), The American Friends of the Attingham Summer School (LA/SF).
Please contact the Royal Oak Foundation for tickets or go online to http://www.royal-oak.org/lecture_heinz.html |
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Join us for an enlightening description of the architectural and social development of this summer resort town, the nexus of wealth and fashion at the end of the nineteenth century. To accommodate their entertaining in “cottages” that ranged from thirty to seventy rooms, Newport’s elite engaged the country’s most accomplished architects. This period is the subject of Mr. Kathrens new book Newport Villas: The Revival Styles 1885-1935 (W.W. Norton, January, 2009); his previous book was The Great Houses of New York.
TICKETS: Free for members of the Soane Foundation and the ICA&CA, $10 for the general public.
Space is limited; Please reserve at 212-730-9646, ext 109 | 1.5 AIA / CES LUs (Theory)
LOCATION: Library at the General Society, 20 West 44th Street, NYC(south side of block, bet. Fifth and Sixth Avenues)
A program is presented by the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America with the Soane Foundation. |
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The 19th-century English Regency style looked to Egyptian and Greco-Roman
antecedents. Showing examples from her book Regency Redux: High Style Interiors:
Napoleonic, Classical Moderne, and Hollywood Regency (Rizzoli, 2008), Eerdmans
will trace this taste from Thomas Hope’s iconic “Egyptian Room” to Oliver
Messel's lavish sets for the 1945 film “Caesar and Cleopatra.”
In collaboration with The Royal Oak Foundation and Sir John Soane’s
Museum Foundation.
TICKETS: $15 in advance. Please purchase through the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show brochure PDF
LOCATION: Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco
 Brochure
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Rosslyn Chapel is one of the most famous medieval chapels in the world, and recently was popularized from its appearance in the book and movie The Da Vinci Code. The chapel was founded in 1446 just outside Edinburgh, Scotland, by Sir William St Clair, first Earl of Caithness and the third and last St Clair Prince of Orkney. Designed to be part of a larger church located near the Castle, the larger building was never completed after Sir William’s death in 1484. It fell into disrepair during the Reformation and it was abandoned as a place of worship. Today, what remain are the extraordinary choir and Lady Chapel—restored at the behest of Queen Victoria—with its elaborate and fanciful decorative carving that has astounded visitors. Indeed, Rosslyn’s symbolism realized in stone has been celebrated in literature and art by Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, and many others. From the so-called Apprentice Pillar with its legend of a jealous murder to over 100 carvings of “Green Men” in and around the Chapel, decorative motifs with Christian, Pre-Christian, Pagan and Arabic symbolism abound. Whether or not carvings look like corn, which was unknown in Europe in the 15th century, or if the 213 patterned stone cubes protruding from the pillars and arches form a musical score are a few of the questions that have been debated by scholars in recent years. The myths surrounding the chapel and St. Clair family, including the link to Freemasonry, the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail, remain romantic legends celebrated in both fiction and film. Helen, Countess of Rosslyn will examine the architectural history of this fascinating and remarkable building, discuss a few of the myths and stories associated with the Chapel and outline the current plans for its $18 million conservation project.
SF TICKETS: $25 members, $25 non-members | Dinner reservations, 415-362-6985 by Oct. 25th.
SF LOCATION: Metropolitan Club, 640 Sutter Street - Formal Business Attire required, no cell phones
A joint program of the Royal Oak Foundation with the Soane Foundation, English-Speaking Union San Francisco Chapter, National Trust for Scotland Foundation USA, The American Friends of the Attingham Summer School.
LA TICKETS: $50 members, $60 non-members - both include lunch
LA LOCATION: Beverly Hills Women’s Club, 1700 Chevy Chase Drive, Beverly Hills
A joint program of the Royal Oak Foundation with the Soane Foundation, Beverly Hills Women’s Club, Virginia Robinson Gardens,
The Decorative Arts and Design Council of Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Please contact the Royal Oak Foundation for tickets or go online to http://www.royal-oak.org/lecture_heinz.html |
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Tim Knox will discuss Sir John Soane, the idiosyncratic eighteenth-century architect of such extraordinary buildings as the Bank of England and the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Soane was a prickly, difficult man, but capable of deep friendships and great generosity. His devotion to architecture and collecting is best commemorated by his former London home — the Sir John Soane Museum. Knox will draw upon Soane’s own archive to paint a fresh picture of this strange, tormented genius of British architecture.
LOCATION: The Boston Athenaeum, 10 ½ Beacon Street, Boston (just down from the State House)
A joint program of the Soane Foundation, the Royal Oak Foundation and The Boston Athenaeum. |
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This exhibition will explore the life, world and work of Mary Delany, née Mary Granville (1700 – 1788). Though best known for her almost one thousand botanical "paper mosaics" now housed in the British Museum, which she began at the age of 72, Mrs. Delany used her craft activities to cement bonds of friendship and negotiate complex, interlinked social networks throughout a long life passed in artistic, aristocratic, and court circles in Georgian England and Ireland. Mrs. Delany and Her Circle has been co-organized by the Yale Center for British Art and Sir John Soane's Museum.
Information: www.ycba.yale.edu |
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| LOCATION: Exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art, 1000 Chapel Street, New Haven (corner of York Street) |
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A Soane Seminar of the “Thoroughly Modern Soane” Richard H. Driehaus Series
Monday, 18 May 2009 – 6:30pm
Please take a look at the Soane Seminars page for details on this next session.
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at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, 101 Newbury Street, Boston
presented by the ROYAL OAK FOUNDATION with co-sponsorship by the SOANE FOUNDATION, the
ICA&CA BOSTON CHAPTER, and THE FRIENDS OF THE ATTINGHAM SUMMER SCHOOL
TICKETS: $25 members | $30 General admission |
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at the Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, New York City
presented by the ROYAL OAK FOUNDATION with co-sponsorship by the SOANE FOUNDATION
Professor Vaughan Hart (B.S., B.Arch., University of Bath; M. Phil., Ph.D., University of Cambridge). Dr. Hart is Professor of the History of Architecture at the University of Bath. He has lectured widely throughout Europe and the United States and is the author of numerous books including Art and Magic in the Court of the Stuarts; St. Paul’s Cathedral; Sir Christopher Wren, Palladio’s Rome; Paper Palaces, Nicholas Hawsksmoor: Rebuilding Ancient Wonders and editor of the treatises of Sebastiano Serlio. His most recent book is Sir John Vanbrugh: Storyteller in Stone, published by Yale University Press. Storyteller in Stone: Sir John Vanbrugh - Sir John Vanbrugh (1664–1726) was a businessman, soldier, playwright, and (despite lacking either training or qualifications) the architect of some of the most important country houses of his era. His first commission was Castle Howard, where he worked with the more experienced Nicholas Hawksmoor. At Blenheim, where Vanbrugh was charged with building a monument to the Duke of Marlborough, he evoked the military triumphs and legend of the Duke in his architecture. Architectural historian Professor Hart examines Vanbrugh’s surviving, destroyed, and unrealized buildings—among them Seaton Delaval and Grimsthorpe—outlining the contemporary political and social events that influenced their design and showing how these strikingly original buildings can be interpreted through reference to classical mythology, Renaissance fortifications, and medieval houses. John Soane called Sir John Vanbrugh "the Shakespeare of architects" as Vanbrugh attempted to celebrate the character and achievements of his patrons through his architecture and ornament, allowing visitors to read the character of the house’s owner through narrative and the iconography of the house.
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at the Library at the General Society, 20 West 44th Street, New York City
presented by the INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE AND CLASSICAL AMERICA (ICA&CA) with co-sponsorship by the SOANE FOUNDATION
John Saladino’s new book, Villa, published by Frances Lincoln (March, 2009), is a master class in interior and garden design by one of the world’s most respected architectural designers at work today. Join the ICA&CA and the Soane for an insightful talk with Mr. Saladino as he discusses how his principles and passions guided the reconstruction and restoration of a 1920s house and its garden. |
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Presented by the Royal Oak Foundation with co-sponsors:
Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation;
The Decorative Arts and Design
Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
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Presented by the Royal Oak Foundation with co-sponsors:
Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation;
English-Speaking Union - San
Francisco Chapter
Tim Knox and his partner, landscape historian Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, live in Malplaquet House in London, a 1740 four-story town house with 20-plus rooms originally built for a wealthy merchant. During the 19th century, the old mansion fell into disrepair, was badly damaged in the Blitz, and was abandoned —serving as the premises of an auto repair shop and a metal foil manufacturer. In 1998, Knox and Longstaffe-Gowan bought the dilapidated property and transformed it into a house of wonder, full of quirky collections that range from a rare double portrait by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, a death mask of Napoleon, and a tile from Beijing’s summer palace, to portraits of nuns, a sedan chair, and massed architectural models. Displayed against a backdrop of original 18th century painted paneling, cabinets groan with shells and natural curiosities, while marble busts peer out from every corner. Mr. Knox will tell of the dramatic rescue and revitalization of Malplaquet House, which now serves as a setting for this modern-day ‘cabinet of curiosities’. |
at the Brown Auditorium, LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles
This event is sponsored by the Decorative Arts and Design Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Tim Knox will discuss Sir John Soane, the idiosyncratic eighteenth-century architect of such extraordinary buildings as the Bank of England and the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Soane was a prickly, difficult man, but capable of deep friendships and great generosity. His devotion to architecture and collecting is best commemorated by his former London home — the Sir John Soane Museum. Knox will draw upon Soane’s own archive to paint a fresh picture of this strange, tormented genius of British architecture. |
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A Soane Seminar of the “Thoroughly Modern Soane” Richard H. Driehaus Series
Tuesday, 13 January 2009 – 6:30pm
Please take a look at the page for details on this next session.
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presented by the SOANE FOUNDAITON with co-sponsor YALE CENTER FOR BRITISH ART
Architectural models have long been used to help resolve structural problems,
and also for presentation, as three-dimensional records, and for decoration.
Referencing the collection of miniature buildings accumulated by the architect
Sir John Soane, Knox will describe the range of collectibles.
Monday, October 20, 6:30 p.m.
Union Club, 101 East 69th Street - Attire: Jackets and ties required for men |
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Soane Museum Director Tim Knox to participate in this upcoming Bard Graduate Center program:
Symposium sponsored by The Bard Graduate Center Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. |
Table, after a design published by Thomas Hope, ca. 1802, courtesy of the Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum |
illuminates Hope’s multiple roles as a designer, patron, and author with a passion for the antique. The exhibition demonstrates his singular contributions to architecture, interior decoration, furniture, metalwork, and costume design in Regency England. This symposium further examines the interpretation of ancient Greece and Rome by architects, designers, and writers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Distinguished scholars will address Thomas Hope’s legacy and related themes, such as the Society of Dilettanti; Percier and Fontaine and the French Empire style; and the drawings of antiquarian and designer C. H. Tatham. Speakers include Barry Bergdoll, John Hardy, Jason Kelly, Tim Knox, Tessa Murdoch, Tania Buckrell Pos, Robin Middleton, and David Watkin. This symposium has been organized by the Department of Exhibition-Related Education at the BGC, in association with the Museum of Arts and Design.
Location: The Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, New York City
Advance registration required: $50 general | $35 seniors and students
For a complete schedule and to register,
please call 212.501.3011 or email Sarah Wilson at wilson@bgc.bard.edu
Bard Graduate Center ▪ 18 West 86th Street ▪ New York City
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Please contact Chas Miller for further up-to-date details…
Wednesday, 22 October - Opening Reception of the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show (SFFAS) benefitting Enterprise for High School Students
Thursday, 23 October:
- Buildings In Miniature, presented by Tim Knox
That afternoon we have a very special visit to the home of Ann and Gordon Getty, one of four sons of J. Paul Getty, are longtime patrons of the arts and sciences. A world-renowned art and antique collection is housed in their San Francisco Pacific Heights mansion, designed by architect Willis Polk in 1913. Through the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, they donate millions to arts organizations around the country and are active in numerous philanthropic endeavors.
In the evening we will enjoy cocktails at the Nob Hill apartment of Scott and Terry Gross which was designed in association with Tom Kligerman of Ike Kligerman Barkley Architects and Ann Getty.
Friday, 24 October:
10:30am - private curator tour with Martin Chapman of the Legion of Honor of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Martin is curator of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture.
Visit to private collection of miniature rooms.
Visit two special design shops: Urban Chateau and Ed Hardy's Venetian villa inspired antique gallery; then we head to Ed Hardy’s new hill-top Italian villa with fantastic views of the city and bay.
Heading south to Palo Alto, we will enjoy cocktails at a family compound near Stanford University, which is the home of Cynthia and John Gunn
Saturday, 25 October:
10:30am - SFFAS Lecture - Lifestyles of the Rich and Roman: Luxury Arts in the Villas of Pompeii and Environs, presented by Kenneth Lapatin, Associate Curator of Antiquities, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Visit to the new building by Herzog & de Meuron of the de Young - Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and across the street to the just opened California Academy of Sciences building by Renzo Piano
Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, we head to Mill Valley for afternoon tea at the home of Paul Wiseman and Richard Snyder, a Craftsman-Mission style cottage built in 1886 as a summer house set in the redwoods and built of redwood.
Cocktails at the Neo-Classical styled offices of Grant K. Gibson Interior Design |
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Soane Patrons' Circle members are a group of supporters that provide donations of $1,000 to $2,000 or more. Participation in the Soane Francisco events has it's own price per person which will include event and lecture tickets, museum admissions, some local transportation, etc. Please contact the Soane office for more details.
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Monday, 27 October 2008, 6:30pm
at the Union Club, 101 East 69th Street - Attire: Jackets and ties required for men
Please go to the Soane Seminars page for more details.
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Tim Knox, Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum, London
Architectural models have long been used to help resolve structural problems,
and also for presentation, as three-dimensional records, and for decoration.
Referencing the collection of miniature buildings accumulated by the architect
Sir John Soane, Knox will describe the range of these collectibles.
In conjunction with Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation.
Thursday, October 23, 10:30 a.m.
San Francicso Fall Antiques Show Brochure |
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Monday, 31 March 2008, 6:00pm - BOOK SIGNING
at The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street
and presented by the
ROYAL OAK FOUNDATION
with co-sponsors
YALE CENTER FOR BRITISH ART
and SIR JOHN SOANE’S MUSEUM FOUNDATION |
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Robert Adam is the only architect whose name appears in the "Oxford English Dictionary" to define a distinctive style, not only of architecture, but also of furniture and interior design. Eileen Harris, the leading authority on Robert Adams's interiors, will speak about the Scottish architect and designer’s masterpieces, including his great country houses and glamorous London town houses. She will illustrate the development of his style of domestic architecture and decoration and focus on color in his interiors, furniture, and fittings. She will feature examples of his early work, such as Syon in London, Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, as well has his later work at Kenwood House in London, Osterely Park in Middlesex,Saltram in Devon, and Culzean Castle, Ayrshire, among others. She will also discuss Headfort, County Meath outside Dublin with its exceptional and colorful suite of five rooms designed by Adam in the 1770s — the remaining example of Adam's work in Ireland and now on the World Monuments Fund Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites.
DR. EILEEN HARRIS (Barnard College; Columbia University) is an independent architectural historian and author of several books on the work of Robert Adam including The Genius of Robert Adam: His Interiors, and most recently The Country House of Robert Adam: From the Archives of Country Life (2007). She is also the author of British Architectural Books before 1780 (1997). She is Honorary Librarian and Consultant to the Adam Project at Sir John Soane’s Museum, London.
Reservations are required
Country Life Article |
Monday, 21 April 2008, 6:00pm
at The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street
and presented by the
ROYAL OAK FOUNDATION
with co-sponsors
SIR JOHN SOANE’S MUSEUM FOUNDATION
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Tim Knox, Director of the Sir John Soane Museum, London and his partner, landscape historian Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, live in Malplaquet House in London, a 1740 four-story town house with 20-plus rooms originally built for a wealthy merchant. During the 19th century, the old mansion fell into disrepair, was badly damaged in the Blitz, and was abandoned —serving as the premises of an auto repair shop and a metal foil manufacturer. In 1998, Knox and Longstaffe-Gowan bought the dilapidated property and transformed it into a house of wonder, full of quirky collections that range from a rare double portrait by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, a death mask of Napoleon, and a tile from Beijing’s summer palace, to portraits of nuns, a sedan chair, and massed architectural models. Displayed against a backdrop of original 18th century painted paneling, cabinets groan with shells and natural curiosities, while marble busts peer out from every corner. Mr. Knox will tell of the dramatic rescue and revitalization of Malplaquet House, which now serves as a setting for this modern-day ‘cabinet of curiosities’.
TIM KNOX (Courtauld Institute, University of London) is the Director of Sir John Soane's Museum at Lincoln's Inn Fields in London, an appointment he received in 2005. Born in Africa, and brought up in Nigeria and Fiji, he studied history of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art of the University of London. He later became Assistant Curator at the Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection and in 1995 joined the National Trust as its Architectural Historian. He was appointed Head Curator of the National Trust in 2002. He was one of the major champions for the Trust's acquisition of Tyntesfield, near Bristol, and was involved in such diverse NT projects as the restoration of Stowe Landscape Gardens, and the acquisition of The Workhouse in Nottinghamshire. He is a Trustee of Stowe House, of the Pilgrim Trust, and of Prehen, his ancestral home in Co. Londonderry, as well as a member of the Advisory Committee for the Palace of Versailles. He regularly writes and lectures on art, architecture and the history of collecting. |
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CLUTTER: a talk by TOD WILLIAMS and BILLIE TSIEN
Monday, 3 March 2008, 6:00pm
at The Union Club, 101 East 69th Street, New York City
Business Attire required
The Soane Foundation, in conjunction with Architectural Record Magazine, presents the 2008 Soane Seminars Thoroughly Modern Soane. Over the course of several sessions, some of the most innovative architects practicing in the early 21st century will discuss their debt to the early 19th-century architecture of Sir John Soane. The investigation is particularly apropos owing to Soane’s well-known use of simple masses, clean lines and forms, and his dramatic manipulation of light and reflective surfaces.
SESSION ONE will feature the architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, acclaimed for the American Folk Art Museum in New York (2001). Their firm was recently selected to design the new museum for the incomparable Barnes Collection, to be built on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. |
January 22nd - Tuesday, 6pm to 8pm - LECTURE
The Union Club, 101 East 69th Street, New York City – Business Attire required.
This event is presented in cooperation with Yale Center for British Art. |
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This lecture will be about the relationship between John Soane (1753-1837) and J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851); near contemporaries who became lifelong friends with a shared passion for architecture. Helen’s talk will draw upon her unparalleled knowledge of the history of Soane’s collections and include an account of the large Forum Romanum for Mr. Soane’s Museum, painted for Soane but then, somewhat mysteriously, rejected by him (pictured above). This important painting, on loan from Tate Britain to the Soane Museum in early 2007, was seen for the first time ever in the building for which it was originally destined.
HELEN DOREY is Deputy Director and Inspectress of Sir John Soane’s Museum, London.
ADVANCED RESERVATIONS REQUIRED: Patron tickets at $75 per person; Regular tickets at $30 per person . Please call 212-223-2012 or email: chas@soanefoundation.com
Check out the “J.M.W. TURNER” exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC until January 6, 2008; which will travel to the Dallas Museum of Art (February 10 through May 18) and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (June 24 through September 21).
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/turnerinfo.shtm
Piranesi as Designer
This exhibition examines the artist's role in the reform of architecture and design from the 18th century to the present. This is the first museum exhibition to show Piranesi's full range and influence as a designer of architecture, elaborate interiors and exquisite furnishings. On view will be etchings, original drawings and prints by Piranesi, as well as a selection of three-dimensional objects. In addition to his better-known architectural projects, Piranesi also designed fantastic chimneypieces, carriage works, furniture, light fixtures and other decorative pieces. The exhibition is co-curated by Dr. Sarah E. Lawrence, director, Master's Program in the history of decorative arts and design, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and John Wilton-Ely, professor emeritus, University of Hull. Please see special museum web site for full details and images on the exhibition http://piranesi.cooperhewitt.org/design
To read a recent New York Times review, check out PDF |
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Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
An Architectural Fantasy;
Rome, c.1755;
Pencil, red chalk, brown ink and ink wash
Adam vol.56/146
On loan for the exhibition by permission of the Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum.
Brought back to Britain by James Adam in 1763 this almost abstract fantasy is close in spirit to the Carcieri series of prints. The free use of the media gives a light and shade that suggests the overwhelming scale of Roman architecture. |
| NOTE: The SOANE MUSEUM is a lender to the exhibition with 5 items. Board Member MARITA O’HARE attended one of the opening receptions and reports “…there was a nice section devoted to Soane. It’s a wonderful, not-to-be-missed, show.” |
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