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 SMP Silver Salon Forums
 A Curator's Viewpoint
 A word from your moderator
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| Author | Topic: A word from your moderator |
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Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 |
posted 05-03-1999 09:36 PM
  
Why would anyone ask a curator anything? I'm here to find out just that. At The Newark Museum, where I've been the decorative arts curator for nineteen years, we probably have about 1000 pieces of silver, ranging from sets of New Jersey coin teaspoons to exhibition pieces by Tiffany & Co. Although American silver is our most important collection (1690s-1990s), we also have a good deal of English silver, mostly typical things. I have loved silver since I was a kid, but got my first really addictive exposure as an undergraduate at Yale, when I polished a lot of the Garvan Collection (when they still let amateurs do that sort of thing). Collectors and dealers in silver often know more than many curators, largely because they specialize, and curators must by nature, be generalists. There are some exceptions, but few museum curators are specialists only in a single field to the exclusion of others. On the other hand, we've often got a broader cultural context for objects that many specialists--so we may know things that even serious collectors don't. I hope with this forum to be a resource to people; to talk about collecting (of which I've done a lot over the years for Newark); and to share my enthusiasm for what I think is the most beautiful of all materials. Right now I have an exhibition on view, drawn from our collection, called "Needless Necessity: Jewelry and Silver in America." Its premise is the truth that no one has ever needed silver or gold objects--and yet every culture since gold and silver were discovered has created objects of high value and great status out of these materials--even when it doesn't make any practical sense. To me, the use of silver objects in the American home is one of the most fascinating and revealing windows into the American past. So, let's raise the "ask a curator" flag, and see if anybody salutes. IP: Logged |
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