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ALL SESSIONS WILL BE HELD IN OCHRE COURT ON THE SALVE CAMPUS. Thursday, September 21RICHARD GUY WILSON, Presiding DR. M. THERESE ANTONE, RSM Session 1 RICHARD GUY WILSON Croquet on the Lawn and Newport's Transformation, 1840-1880 The change in Newport between 1840 and 1880 was described by an observer: "cottages, though unchanged in name became villas, farms were laid out into parks and lawns, and the fields were rapidly covered with shrubs and trees." A new type of cottage and landscape design evolved and Newport became one of the centers for a new sophistication in American life. This new design and its features created by architects from Boston and New York such as William Ralph Emerson and Richard Morris Hunt as well as local designers George Champlin Mason and Dudley Newton will be analyzed along with the lifestyle it personified and engendered.
10:00 10:30 a.m. Introduction by, JOHN SIMONELLI, President, The Victorian Society in America JUDITH HULL Richard Upjohn, Edward King and the Development of Newport Richard Upjohn (1802-1878) assisted the development of Newport as a summer resort through the picturesque houses and churches he designed between 1836 and the Civil War. His Newport work falls into two categories. First, there were specialized designs for houses and churches, such as the well-known residences for the Jones and King families, and others almost unknown commissions. Varied in style, these works reveal the close connections between Upjohn's genteel clients. Second, there were the designs that Upjohn made for Edward King, in his capacity as developer and speculator. Upjohn's work therefore advanced the development of Newport before 1876, by providing settings for some of the first summer residents that advertised the advantages of the island to visitors.
12:00-1:30 p.m. |
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Session III Introduction by WILLIAM VAREIKA of Vareika Art Gallery KEVIN J. AVERY, Associate Curator-American Paintings and Sculpture, Metropolitan Museum of Art The Sacred and the Profane. Seascape and Society at Newport in the Antebellum Era The rise of Newport as a seaside cottage resort in the mid-nineteenth century coincided with the flowering of American landscape painting. Both phenomena were factors of the growth of American cities (especially New York), whose affluent citizens sought as much the fashionable- even glamorous-company of one another as they did the summer refuge of Newport's balmy climate. While the resort?s critics and even some of its promoters bemoaned or raised eyebrows at the social hubbub, landscape painters concertedly suppressed it in images transfixed with the sea and its overtones of the eternal that had so capti- vated the New England divines of Newport's past.
Session IV FRANCIS R. KOWSKY, Buffalo State University Calvert Vaux, Andrew Jackson Downing, and the Rise of the High Victorian Villa Ideal Trained as an architect in London, Vaux came to America in 1850 to be the architectural partner of Andrew Jackson Downing. With Downing-, Vaux desiolned many country houses, including villas at Newport. After Downing's death in 1852, Vaux continued to develop his career as domestic architect and landscape architect. He summarized his early achievements in his 1857 book, Villas and Cottages. In that year, he moved to New York City and joined Ohnsted in the creation of Central Park. The park placed the two men at the head of the nascent American Park movement. Together with his landscape designs, Vaux continued to refine his Romantic notion of the country house through the mid-1880s. This talk will review Vaux's ideas about the modem viua and will give special attention to those dwellings the architect built at Newport.
4:30-6:00 p.m.
7:00 p.m. |
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Friday, September 22Session V Introduction by ELIZABETH DELUDE-DIX PAUL F. MILLER, Curator, Preservation Society of Newport County Shy Sweetness ... The Early Cottage Interiors of Newport Before the enjoyment of leisure in Newport was formally organized around architecturally an-ibi- tious reception rooms, the notion of a romantic country cottage dictated the simple inventories and materials prevalent in the sununer colony's interiors. Early Victorian patrons sought to create settings that were artistic yet casual wherein improvements in comfort did not overshadow the traditional. As a base for bathing, boating, riding or strolling excursions, the Newport cottage had a pastoral quality that was thought to reflect the natural and pure quality of American resort life. 10:00 a.m. Refreshment Break Session VI Introduction by, SIBYL MCCORMAC GROFF, Victorian Society In America ANNA TOBIN D'AMBROSIO, Curator, Munson, Williams, Proctor Institute, Utica, NY Artistry That Transcends Function: The Revival and Reform Designs ofamerican Furniture, 1840-1880 Between 1840 and 1880, the production of American furniture flourished as New York City became the center of the cabinetmaking trade. Artistry that Transcends Function will present a comprehensive examination of the revival and reform styles that graced American interiors of the period. A discussion of the careers of several pre-eminent cabinetmakers, including John Henry Beiter, Charles Baudouine, and E. W. Hutchings, will analyze European antecedents and stylistic adaptation. The complexity of the cabinetmaking trade and its development from mid-sized shops to large factories that retailed specialized forms will also be explored.
12:00 p.m. 12:30 p.m. Conducted by Newport Historical Society Session VII |
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RON ONORATO, University of Rhode Island, Department of Art Buildings and Docurnents: The Career of John Dixon Johnston This talk will focus on the life and career of J.D. Johnston, one of the most prolific of Newport's architects from the 1870s through the 1920s. Starting out as a carpenter, Johnston developed into a builder-architect, a leading businessman and employer, mill owner, civic booster, initiator of Newport's building codes, an inventor and innovator in the construction industry, His work will be revealed using extant buildings, vintage photographs and the arcliive of his drawings and other documents from the collection of the Newport Historical Society. 4:00 p.m. PAUL MILLER, Preservation Society of Newport County
6:30-7:30 p.m. Young Building, Salve Regina University Saturday, September 23Session VIII Introduction by, JOAN YOLJNGKEN ANNIE ROBINSON, Plymouth State and Boston University Age of Innocence: Peabody & Stearns in Newport, 1870-1879 Newport was already an established resort community when Peabody & Stearns came to town in 1870. Young Robert Peabody was fresh from the Ecole des Beaux Arts and ready to begin a career as one of America's leading Gilded Age architects. Building alongside Richard Morris Hunt, H.H. Richardson, and McKim, Mead & White, Peabody & Steams became influential and productive members of the local design community. Their first decade in Newport included commissions for at least nine cottages-several of which still stand- and culminated in the building of the first Breakers (1877-78). This presentation will introduce the early works of this little-studied architectural firm and examine its role in the larger contexts of Newport and American resort architecture. Session IX RICHARD GUY WILSON |
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