–“American Grand Opera: Mid-19th Century Art and Design”

A variety of names such as "High Victorian," "Gilded Age," "General Grant," and "Nightmare" have been given to American architecture, furniture, and design from the period of 1850-1880. Combining elements from English, German, French and other sources, architects, as for example Detlef Lienau, Richard Morris Hunt, Frank Furness, Alfred B. Mullett, Leon Marcotte, Herter Brothers, and others, created a distinctive American idiom filled with bravado akin to the grand finale in the most popular music of the time, the Grand Opera.

Richard Guy Wilson, Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History, author, and TV commentator will talk about the elegance and daring of mid-19th century American art, architecture and design.

Born in Los Angeles--the home of everything new--Wilson grew up in a Rudolph Schindler house, designed for his parents.  He received his undergraduate training at the University of Colorado and MA and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan.  He holds the Commonwealth Professor's Chair in Architectural History at the University of Virginia and is a renowned expert in architecture, design and art of the 18th to 20th centuries both in America and abroad. He was a visiting fellow at Cambridge University, England, in 2007. 

Wilson has received several academic honors, including the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 1986 he became an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He has served as an advisor and commentator for several television programs on PBS and A&E, most significantly over sixty-seven segments of America's Castles.

He has been the curator for several major museum exhibitions and is the author and co-author of 16 books that feature American and modern architecture including: Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, The Colonial Revival House, and Harbor Hill: Portrait of House, among others as well as studies on McKim, Mead & White and Thomas Jefferson's design of the University of Virginia.

For lecture information and reservations contact:

info@lockwoodmathewsmansion.com

203-838-9799 ext. 17

Admission: $25 non-members $20 members. The admission includes the lecture, a light lunch and a tour of the first floor of the mansion.

Lunch:  Courtesy of Bull's Head Market