Winter Antiques Show Announces Simply Shaker

WINTER ANTIQUES SHOW ANNOUNCES SIMPLY SHAKER: A LECTURE SERIES FROM the Shaker Museum and Library of Old Chatham, New YOrk

JANUARY 2008 --  The Winter Antiques Show announces  that The Shaker Museum and Library in Old Chatham, New York,  home to the largest and best documented collection of Shaker material in the world, will offer “Simply Shaker: A Lecture Series” coordinated with the Museum’s loan exhibition, An Eye Toward Perfection, at the 54^th annual Winter Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory, January 18-27. The lectures, which are included with show admission, include presentations on Shaker oval boxes, a press conference detailing plans for the Mount Lebanon Shaker Village, and an in-depth tour of the loan exhibition An Eye Toward Perfection: The Shaker Museum and Library is the first major exhibition of a Shaker collection in New York City in more than a decade and includes some of the best extant objects that demonstrate the Shaker principles of faith, community, industry and design.  Images from the exhibition are available.  The exhibition was designed by Stephen Saitas and is sponsored by Chubb Personal Insurance for a twelfth consecutive year. 

Shaker designs are widely admired for their simplicity, innovative joinery, quality, and functionality – embodying the “form follows function” principle long before it was associated with modern architecture and industrial design of the 20^th century.  Whether sacred or temporal, everything created by Shakers was done with the understanding that it reflected a commitment to earthly perfection.  Shakers made furniture for their own use, as well as for sale to the general public.

The Shaker Museum and Library’s collection was amassed by John S. Williams, Sr., who began collecting in the 1940s by traveling to America’s remaining Shaker communities in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine and acquiring examples of their arts, industries, domestic life, spiritual artifacts and manuscripts. His goal was to preserve the breadth and depth of the Shaker story, which is one of the most compelling religious and social movements in America.  Shakers were members of a Protestant monastic sect who lived together in communal villages. They carefully documented their domestic, economic and spiritual life in community journals, account books, and personal diaries that commented freely on their relationships with “the World.” John Williams turned his private collection into a public museum in 1950.  The collection has been featured in major exhibitions across the country, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1986), Paine Webber Art Gallery (1999) and the Seattle Art Museum (2000).

Simply Shaker:  A Lecture Series

All lectures are held in the Tiffany Room at the Park Avenue Armory, and are complimentary with show admission.

Monday, January 21

2:30 p.m.

Points and Swallowtails: Anatomy of the Shaker Oval Boxes

Boxes were made in a half-dozen Shaker villages since the late eighteenth century. While the Shakers’ desire for uniformity in all things dictated that all Shaker boxes be similar in appearance, the boxes have many subtle differences that reveal where, when, and by whom they were made. Good, better, and best examples will be discussed for the collector and connoisseur.   Presenter: Jerry V. Grant, Director of Research, Shaker Museum and Library         

Tuesday, January 22

2:30 p.m.

Press Conference

Mount Lebanon Shaker Village: An Expanded Vision for the Shaker Museum and Library

Mount Lebanon Shaker Village is the most historically significant of all Shaker villages. The Shaker Museum and Library will restore, rebuild, and re-use part of the site as i
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