Theodate Pope: Pioneer Twentieth-Century Architect. Lecture by Prof. James O'Gorman

As part of the LMMM’s Lecture Series, “Defying Expectations: Independent American Women of the Early 1900s,” Professor James O’Gorman will present a lecture on pioneer architect Theodate Pope. Ms. Pope belongs to that small group of “First American Women Architects” who, at the end of the nineteenth-century, slowly broke into the “old boy” drafting rooms or worked on their own. A graduate of Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, self-trained and comfortable economically, Ms. Pope produced a small but choice body of work between the beginning of the twentieth century and the Depression. This talk will examine a few of her architectural projects: two houses, Hill-Stead and Highfield, and two schools: Westover, and Avon Old Farms,. Prof. O’Gorman puts them in relation to the architecture of the time.

James F. O’Gorman is the Grace Slack McNeil Professor Emeritus of the History of American Art at Wellesley College. He holds B. Arch. and M. Arch. degrees as well as a Ph.D. in Art History from Harvard. He is a Fellow and former President of the Society of Architectural Historians and Life Fellow of the Athenaeum of Philadelphia. A two-time recipient of the Henry-Russell Hitchcock Award of the Victorian Society of America and of the annual book award from Historic New England, he has held two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships and a Mellon Emeritus Fellowship among other research grants. He has lectured widely on nineteenth-century American architecture in this country, England, and Italy. Among his many publications are monographs on Frank Furness, H. H. Richardson, and New Haven’s Henry Austin, a book on Richardson, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright, and a collection of essays on Theodate Pope’s Hill-Stead. His ABC of Architecture is an academic best-seller.

2012 programs are made possible in part by generous contributions from LMMM’s Distinguished Benefactors: Xerox Foundation, Klaff’s, Maurice Goodman Foundation and Mrs. Cynthia C. Brown.

For lecture information and reservations, contact: info@lockwoodmathewsmansion.com 203-838-9799 ext. 4. Admission: $30 for non-members, $25 for members.  The admission includes the lecture, a light lunch, and a tour of the first floor of the mansion or a curatorial tour of the exhibit, Epic Voyage: The Extraordinary Life of Helen Churchill Candee. RSVP by July 8. Lunch courtesy of:  Michael Gilmartin of Outdoor Cookers.