Enfilade

From the Cooper Hewitt:

Rachel Jacobs | A Dictionary of Ornament: Highlights from Cooper Hewitt’s Print Collection
Online (via Zoom), 24 October 2024, 1.00pm ET

Title page and Frieze Designs, plate 7 from IIe Cahier d’Ornements et Frises (2nd Book of Ornaments and Friezes), 1777; Jacques Juillet after Henri Sallembier, published by Le Père et Avaulez (Paris); etching and engraving in red ink on laid paper (Cooper Hewitt).

Join Cooper Hewitt for an illustrated talk exploring the Decloux collection of ornament and architecture prints. The museum is home to the premier collection of ornament prints in the United States, consisting of over 13,000 European prints from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The lecture will include highlights from the collection by some of the most celebrated artists and designers of the period, as well a discovery of more hidden treasures by many forgotten or lesser-known artists and printmakers.

Ornament prints were produced with the purpose of illustrating designs, patterns, or motifs of decorative ornament for use by craftsman and applicable to all aspects of applied arts from ceramic vases to furniture, from wall paneling to wrought-iron gates. This illustrated talk will introduce the Decloux collection of ornament and architecture prints by exploring the language of ornament. How do these printmakers and publishers describe and title their works? What are the most common terms and motifs found in this broad genre and why? And how do these two-dimensional intaglio prints translate to real three-dimensional objects and interiors?

The talk is free with registration. It will also be recorded and posted on Cooper Hewitt’s YouTube channel within two weeks.

Rachel Jacobs is an independent curator specializing in French 17th-and 18th-century books and prints, based in Toronto, Canada. Since 2021, she is the Remote Senior Research Cataloguer for the Decloux collection of ornament and architecture prints in the Department of Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She was previously Curator of Books and Manuscripts at Waddesdon Manor (Rothschild Collections) National Trust in England, where she continues to work remotely part-time. She has curated several exhibitions at Waddesdon Manor including most recently Alice’s Wonderlands: Life, Collections, and Legacy of Alice de Rothschild (1847–1922) (2022–23, co-curated).

Caitlin Condell is the associate curator and head of the Department of Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, where she oversees a collection of nearly 147,000 works on paper dating from the 14th century to the present. She has organized and contributed to numerous exhibitions and publications. Prior to joining the Smithsonian, Condell held positions at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and The Museum of Modern Art.