Displaying items by tag: historic

After listening to almost two hours of testimony, the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board postponed its decision to extend the historic designation of the Corcoran Gallery of Art to include most of its interior.

Some two dozen individuals attended the hearing on the D.C. Preservation League’s application to amend the building’s historic status. The iconic Beaux Arts building, designed by Ernest Flagg with a later wing by Charles Platt, was first designated historic in 1964. It joined the National Historic Registry in 1992.

All styles eventually go out of fashion. Colonial hoop dresses, Victorian handlebar moustaches, and 1960s shag carpeting all enjoyed great popularity before falling out of favor. Similar cycles of taste have governed the history of furniture design. Going out of Style: 400 Years of Changing Tastes in Furniture, an exhibition presented by the Milwaukee Art Museum, displayed four centuries of major American furniture styles alongside scathing commentary written in the period by designers, architects, and writers.

Their critiques—which range from sarcastic to downright ruthless—reveal powerful opinions that helped drive the ebb and flow of taste from generation to generation. While the harsh assessments of the past may seem unfounded to antiques enthusiasts today, they remind us that most period styles—even the perennial favorites—were out of fashion at one time or another

The crown of the Siamese King offered in 1861 to Napoleon III in the Château de Fontainebleau was stolen in the early hours of Sunday morning, 1 March, along with around 15 other precious artifacts from eastern Asia.

The burglary took place before 6am at the palace 60 kilometers south of Paris. “The thieves were very determined. They knew what they were doing and exactly what they wanted,” the château's president Jean-François Hébert told "The Art Newspaper." The thieves smashed the glass of the display cabinets with chairs and other objects from the Asian collection and, in a crude attempt to cover their tracks, used a fire extinguisher to spread carbonic snow over the site.

During their 30-plus years in the design world, William and Phyllis Taylor, the husband-and-wife team behind the Miami Beach-based firm Taylor & Taylor, have cultivated a lush, tropical aesthetic that has become their signature style. William, a fifth-generation Floridian, creates architecture that forges strong connections between nature and the built environment, while Phyllis, a native New Yorker, designs interiors that complement and respond to the coastal climate and vibrant landscape.

Inspired by the area’s indigenous elements -- both natural and constructed -- the couple believes that Florida is not only a state but a state of mind. Though the Taylors travel widely seeking design inspiration, they always retain their first love -- Florida’s historic architecture -- from breezy seaside bungalows to brightly colored Art Deco hotels and stately Italianate palazzos.

When the doors of the prestigious Winter Antiques Show opened at the Park Avenue Armory on January 23, 2015, David A. Schorsch and Eileen M. Smiles celebrated their fourteenth year of exhibiting with a new, larger booth and for the first time offering historic and aesthetic mineral specimens in addition to fine American antiques. The minerals and native elements (gold, silver and copper) have been selected for their merit as natural works of art and historic associations. Beginning with European royalty and aristocrats and then gilded age American millionaires, mineral collecting has evolved into a worldwide market of connoisseurs for mineral specimens exhibiting a beauty and perfection uniquely created by natures. The minerals on offer will range from tiny diamonds to a large and impressive Rhodochrosite. Held at the historic Park Avenue Armory, The Winter Antiques Show runs through February 1, 2015, www.winterantiquesshow.com

The gallery of David A. Schorsch and Eileen M. Smiles is located at 358 Main Street South in Woodbury, Connecticut. Telephone: 203 263-3131. For additional information please visit the website: www.Schorsch-Smiles.com.

A museum commemorating the artistic community in the Paris neighborhood of Montparnasse has been permanently shuttered by the City of Paris, French art newspaper "Le quotidien de l’art" reported. The Musée du Montparnasse, established in 1996 in an historic building that originally served as the atelier of Russian artist Marie Vassilieff in the early 20th century, first closed its doors following a September 2013 audit ordered by the City of Paris, which owns the museum’s 4,600-square-foot building at 21 avenue du Maine in the 15th arrondissement. The audit deemed the museum not in compliance with the city’s rubric for an institution of its kind for lacking a permanent collection — this despite its founding designation by the city’s cultural affairs bureau as “a location emblematic of the artistic history of Paris.”

When City College student Stephen Somerstein heard Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call for a march to Montgomery in 1965, he wanted to witness what he knew was going to be a historic event.

A budding photographer and picture editor of the school newspaper, Somerstein, then 24, grabbed his camera and headed to the Deep South. Fifty years later, his photographs documenting the Selma-to-Montgomery Civil Rights March are on display in a new exhibition at New-York Historical Society.

George Washington University plans to sell the historic schoolhouse in Georgetown that it took control of this summer as part of a court approved breakup of the financially-troubled Corcoran Gallery of Art. The agreement sent the museum’s art collection to the National Gallery of Art and allowed the university to absorb its College of Art and Design.

The university said it has selected TTR Sotheby’s International Realty to list the historic brick building, known as the Fillmore, and its one acre of property. The initial sale price is $14 million.

On Monday, January 5, 2015, Newport, Rhode Island’s Zoning Board of Review released its 4-1 decision in favor of a controversial visitor center planned for the grounds of The Breakers, a Gilded Age mansion built for the Vanderbilts. Many neighbors, preservationists, and descendants of the Vanderbilts, including the designer Gloria Vanderbilt, have voiced their opposition to the center, stating that it would detract from the integrity of the historic landmark.

The magnificent seaside mansion is owned and operated by the Preservation Society of Newport County, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the area's finest architecture, decorative arts, landscape, and social history.

This evening, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, opened a time capsule removed last month from below the Massachusetts State House. Governor Deval Patrick, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, and Malcolm Rogers, the MFA’s Ann and Graham Gund Director, watched as the contents of the time capsule, originally placed under the State House cornerstone by Governor Samuel Adams, patriot Paul Revere and Colonel William Scollay in 1795, were revealed. The Commonwealth was aware of historic accounts referring to the time capsule’s existence, which was confirmed by engineering firm Simpson Gumpertz & Heger (SGH) during a water infiltration project in summer 2014 under the management of the State’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM). The time capsule had been previously unearthed in 1855, when its contents were documented and cleaned, and additional objects believed to be added.