A Unique Tour of the Yale Furniture Study with Patricia Kane & Steve Latta: American Inlaid Furniture

Many of you have expressed the desire to accompany CVSW director Bob Van Dyke on one of his frequent visits to the Yale University Art Gallery’s Hume American Furniture Study Center in West Haven, CT. The Furniture Study is an 18K sq. ft facility that houses over 1300 pieces of furniture, clocks, and wooden objects. Particularly strong in colonial and Federal furniture, mainly from the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, the Furniture Study also contains tool displays that unpack craft processes, as well as a collection of about 200 pieces of contemporary turned-wood and related sculpture.

Building on the overwhelming success of our previous “up close” seminars with Patricia Kane, Friends of American Arts Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Art Gallery, this visit will focus on the Furniture Study’s extensive collection of inlaid furniture. While most of these inlaid pieces date from the American Federal period [c.1790-1820] we will also examine later examples from the late 1800’s. Federal furniture has many distinctive characteristics, one of the most obvious being extensive use of inlays - be it simplest stringing, complex patterned bandings, or intricate pictorial and geometric paterae. To complement Pat’s examination of these pieces she will be joined by inlay expert and furniture maker Steve Latta, who has been making and studying inlaid furniture for decades. We will compare inlays on objects from different regions, consider origins and sources for patterns, and unpack how some were made, as well as examining the furniture’s joinery and construction.

As always, Pat’s extensive knowledge of the historical context and social history of the period, along with the objects’ stylistic and construction aspects - and how they relate to work that preceded and followed – promises an enriching look into this important form of ornamentation.

Sign up today. We are limiting this tour to 10 participants.

As an added bonus, after Pat & Steve’s presentation, CVSW Director Bob Van Dyke and Steve Latta will lead an informal tour of American furniture on view in the Yale Art Gallery downtown.  After lunch (on your own) we will meet in the Gallery lobby at 1:30 and check out more of Yale’s excellent collection.

Hope you can make it.

Tuition: $ 90.00 (over half of the proceeds will be donated to the Yale Art Gallery’s American Decorative Arts Department)

Friday, October 31, 9:00am – 12:00pm

8:45: Meet at the Yale Furniture Study entrance, 900 West Campus Drive, West Haven, CT