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What's New: Southern Furniture now online
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Germanic influence
in the Back Country |
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English influence
in the Chesapeake |
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Decorative European
influence in the Low Country |
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The first
major display of Southern furniture in more than 40 years, "Furniture
of the American South" ended in January 2002 at the DeWitt
Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. The exhibit highlighted the cabinetmaking
traditions and diversity of the South's three principal regions
– the Chesapeake, the Low Country and the Back Country. Currently
touring other museums throughout the South, Colonial Williamsburg's
Southern Furniture Collection can now be seen online
and enjoyed by a wide range of people because of the foresight of
a generous couple whose love of antique furniture grew into a public
gift.
Making important museum exhibits widely available
In 1946, Stanley and Polly Stone of Fox Point, Wisconsin, began
collecting decorative arts, a passion they would maintain for the
rest of their lives. The Stones housed their collection in a colonial
revival brick home they named Chipstone, built on a bluff overlooking
Lake Michigan. More than just inspired collectors, the Stones also
had the foresight to establish the Chipstone Foundation, with the
dual purpose of preserving and interpreting their collection and
stimulating research and education in the decorative arts.
Through the creation of fully accessible virtual recreations of
major decorative arts exhibitions from American museums, the Chipstone
Foundation hopes to promote new ways to look at old things, thus
preserving the legacy of Mr. and Mrs. Stone. It is through this
venture that “Furniture of the American South” can now
be seen online as it was originally exhibited at Colonial Williamsburg’s
DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum.
 Award-winning
book provides detailed look at collection
In 1997, Chief Curator and Vice President of Collections and Museums
Ronald Hurst and former Curator of Furniture Jonathan Prown wrote
a comprehensive study of the foundation’s southern collection.
"Southern Furniture, 1680-1830: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection"
was published jointly by Colonial Williamsburg and Harry N. Abrams,
Inc. The book was awarded the 1997 Charles Montgomery Prize, an
annual award presented by the American Decorative Arts Society recognizing
the best publication in the field.
Colonial Williamsburg's "Furniture of the American South"
exhibit will be on display at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte,
N.C., November 22, 2002 through January 26, 2003. The exhibit will
move to the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, N.C., from
February 14, 2003 until June 15, 2003.
The Chipstone "Furniture of the American South" exhibit will be
on display at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, N.C., November
22, 2002 through January 26, 2003. The exhibit will move to the
North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, N.C., from February
14, 2003 until June 15, 2003.
Tour the exhibit online: www.chipstone.org
Mint Museum of Art: www.mintmuseum.org/mma/
North Carolina Museum of History: ncmuseumofhistory.org/
Purchase the book: "Southern
Furniture 1680 - 1830"
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Historic Triangle