OPENING REMARKS BY Kenneth J. Myers, Ph.D., Byron & Dorothy Gerson Curator of American Art; Head, Department of American Art

“Art on the Edge: Framing American PaintingS from Colonial to Modern”

KEYNOTE TALK / POWERPOINT BY TRACY GILL

followed by Q&A with Simeon Lagodich

Frame historian Tracy Gill, co-founder of New York’s Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames, discussed the evolution of frame styles over two centuries of American art. Drawing on examples from DIA’s collection, Gill surveyed changing tastes from 17th-century painted frames and gilded hand-carved fancies to innovative 19th-century trends and opulent models from the Gilded Age. She discussed the artist-designed frames on James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s “Arrangement in Gray: Portrait of the Painter” and the monumental landscapes of Frederic Church, as well as the elegant frames designed by architect Stanford White to house paintings owned by Detroit collector Charles Freer. Finally, Gill explored the early 20th-century transition to handcraftsmanship, when American Impressionist painters were inspired to commission custom frames from Arts and Crafts artisans, and the progression to deceptively simple surrounds conceived by modernists such as Florine Stettheimer, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O’Keeffe, who pushed the boundaries of their canvases and rejected traditional gilded frames in favor of pared-down profiles finished in white, silver, and hand-painted or textured wood. Through this talk, attendees joined Gill in looking not just at the paintings, but the art around the art — the art of the frame.