Victorian Society in America: Metropolitan Chapter

Metropolitan Chapter of The Victorian Society in America

	Home Page	Arts & Crafts Utopian Colony Focus of Free Lecture Independent curator and museum consultant Cheryl Robertson will discuss Byrdcliffe, a Catskills art colony established in 1902 by Englishman Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and his American wife, Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead on Tuesday, December 7 at 6:00 PM. No reservations are required for this free illlustrated lecture sponsored by the Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America at the Donnell Library, 20 West 53rd Street, New York City. The Whiteheads were devoted to implementing the art, handicraft and communitarian ideas of John Ruskin and William Morris. After their marriage in 1892, the pair first took up residence at Arcady, a Mediterranean villa near Santa Barbara, California. It was an artistic seat meant to be the locus of a “William Morris cult,” one neighbor later recalled. Ten years later the Whiteheads relocated to Woodstock, NY, where they founded Byrdcliffe, an ambitious art-workers’ community and agricultural estate. This lecture will begin with a look at the Arcady experiment but will focus primarily on Byrdcliffe, including a close look at the Whiteheads’ rustic “White Pines” manor house and complementary structures. Robertson specializes in the history of the Arts and Crafts Movement in America. She is the author of an essay in the book Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony, published by Cornell University Press. Back to Calendar VSA Metropolitan Chapter c/o The Neighborhood Preservation Center 232 East 11th Street New York, NY 10003 Email the Metropolitan Chapter - Victorian Society in America.
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Arts & Crafts Utopian Colony Focus of Free Lecture