Date: Fri 05-Jun-1998

Publication: Ant

Author: LAURAB

Quick Words:

Yaleartfriends

Full Text:

Friends Of Art At Yale Celebrate 25th Anniversary

(with cuts)

NEW HAVEN, CONN. -- Seventies attire or black tie was mandatory dress at a May

16 dinner honoring the 25th anniversary of the Friends of American Art at

Yale, a membership organization supporting the activities of the American arts

departments at the gallery.

The founding of the Friends coincided with the 1973 creation of the Mabel

Brady Garvan Galleries of American Art at Yale University Art Gallery. The

10,000-square-foot exhibition space displays portions of Garvan's 10,000-item

collection of American silver, pewter, ceramics, glass, brass, wrought iron,

textiles, prints, paintings, and sculpture.

Gathering for two days of lectures, workshops, luncheons, and general

camaraderie were current and former gallery staff, graduates, and the Friends

themselves, many of them prominent collectors.

Among the speakers were Richard S. Field, Betty Ring, Robin Jaffee Frank,

Theresa Fairbanks-Harris, Bryan Wolf, Helen A. Cooper, Alice and Thomas

Kugelman, Robert Lionetti, David L. Barquist, Marc Simpson, Kevin Stayton,

Patricia E. Kane, Lisa Koenigsberg, Jay Cantor, Joachim Pissarro, Edward S.

Cooke, Jr, Keith Baker, Dawn M. Wilson, and Jules D. Prown.

At Saturday's dinner, Lisa Koenigsberg presented the American Arts Fellows'

gift. Koenigsberg joined New York University after completing doctoral studies

at Yale in 1987.

The celebratory weekend was also the occasion for announcing an endowed

curatorship for American decorative arts. Patricia E. Kane is the first to

hold the Friends of American Arts curator of American decorative arts

position. The announcement was made by Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr, a Friend

since 1977.

To illustrate the growth of its American collections over the past quarter

century, the gallery has marked new acquisitions, displayed throughout the

building, with silver stars.

In the American galleries on the third floor, acquisitions marked with the

silver star can be seen in the self-guided exhibition, "American Arts at Yale:

25 Years of Collecting," on view through August 30.

On the fourth floor, drawings are displayed in "American Arts at Yale: 25

Years of Collecting Drawings," on view through August 16.

On the first floor, "Then and Now and Later: Art Since 1945 at Yale," up

through July 31, features many works by contemporary American artists.

The Yale University Art Gallery is at Chapel and York Street.