Textile and Fashion Historian
Writer, Editor & Publication Consultant
Appraiser of Textiles, Clothing & Archives
Museum Professional
ART
Appraisals
Curatorial Writing
Exhibition Development & Travel
Grant Writing & Editing
PUBLISHING
Writing & Editing
Production Management
Publication Development
Photo Editing & Image Rights
PROJECTS
NEW
Donna Ghelerter, Author and Editor, Marguerita Mergentime: American Textiles, Modern Ideas, West Madison Press, 2017, distributed by ARTBOOK | D.A.P.
Marguerita Mergentime, largely forgotten in the history of American design, is the subject of the new Marguerita Mergentime: American Textiles, Modern Ideas. Essays highlight Mergentime’s life and career, and over 150 images illustrate her designs that brought asymmetry, politics, folk art, typography, and quizzes to the table.
BUY THE BOOK: www.artbook.com SEE: www.margueritamergentime.comART
Researcher & Writer annual Cora Ginsburg LLC catalogue
Appraiser member Appraisers Association of America, private clients and estates, including donations to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and other institutions
Design Researcher private clients
Collections Advisor private clients
PUBLISHING
Author and Editor Marguerita Mergentime: American Textiles, Modern Ideas, West Madison Press, 2017
Copy Editor Aperture magazine, 2015 – ongoing
Copy Editor William Ivey Long: Costume Designs 2007–2016, The Mint Museum, 2017
Copy Editor The Vietnam War: 1945–1975 exhibit, New York Historical Society, 2017
Copy Editor International Center of Photography, Roman Vishniac Rediscovered, 2015
Writer “Marking Cloth” in Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World), 2010
Writer & Image Rights Cynthia Murphy Designs catalogue
ABOUT
ABOUT Textile and fashion historian, appraiser, writer, and editor in New York City • Extensive experience managing exhibition and publishing projects • Excellent writing and editing • Detail-oriented attention • Broad interests in arts and culture
MUSEUM WORK Museum for African Art, Director of Curatorial Affairs • American Museum of Natural History, Curatorial Assistant • Projects for the International Center of Photography, Institute of Contemporary Art, Wright’s Ferry Mansion, Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, among others
GALLERY WORK Cora Ginsburg LLC, Assistant Director for one of the premier galleries in antique textiles and costumes, with clients that include museums and private collectors worldwide
SELECT EXHIBITIONS Museum for African Art: El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa (2011); Dynasty and Divinity: Ife Art in Ancient Nigeria (2010); Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art (2008) • American Museum of Natural History: African Reflections: Art from Northeastern Zaire (1990)
SELECT PUBLICATIONS Museum for African Art: El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa (2011), Desert Jewels: North African Jewelry and Photography from the Xavier Guerrand-Hermès Collection (2008), Grass Roots: African Origins of an American Art (2008) • Projects for International Center of Photography, Roman Vishniac Rediscovered, 2015, and The Walther Collection, The Order of Things, 2015
SELECT WRITINGS Contributor, “Marking Cloth” in Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World), 2010 • Co-author, Wright’s Ferry Mansion, 2005, a two-volume catalogue of the museum’s decorative arts collection • Co-author, “Mr. Expanding Universe: Isamu Noguchi’s Affiliations Across the New York Art World(s) of the 1930s,” in Isamu Noguchi - Sculptural Design, 2001 • Co-founder and co-editor of Pink, 1995-2001, an art journal
TEACHING Adjunct Professor, History of Western Textiles, Fall 2010, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, Master of Arts Program: Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS Certified Member of the Appraisers Association of America, with current USPAP certification • Textile Society of America • Costume Society of America • American Alliance of Museums
EDUCATION M.A., Museum Studies: Costume and Textile History, the Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY), New York City • B.A., English, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
CLIENTS
Allentown Art Museum, Penn.
Cora Ginsburg LLC, New York
International Center of Photography, New York
Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
Cynthia Murphy Designs, New York
Private collectors and estates
Project Row Houses, Houston
Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site, Hyde Park, New York
The Walther Collection, New York
Wright’s Ferry Mansion, Columbia, Penn.
OBSERVATIONS
Standing on chairs is helpful for seeing the horses at the French racetracks. It’s also helpful for getting your fashions noticed. The horse races at Deauville, Longchamp, and other tracks provided the chance to see and be seen within the ideal mingling of money, gambling, fashion, and style. The French fashion industry relied on the exposure that these races provided for their wares, whether you were manufacturing winter furs, seen on the cover of Femina in 1908, or summer frocks worn to the tracks in 1914.
Toile de Jouy fabrics from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries often depict tributes to history, literature, nature, and classical mythology. Grand themes are illustrated—Monuments of Egypt, America Pays Homage to France, Offering to Love, The Arts. Details of ostriches, pyramids, Orpheus, and architectural ruins appear in sharp impressions printed from finely engraved plates on cloth, and used as yardage to decorate walls or be fashioned into bed hangings. Would you choose Love Triumphant with cupids, sheep, sphinxes, and helmeted medallion heads? Perhaps. In Atget’s 1921 photograph a nude prostitute sits on a bench in a room, and we note, with a bit of surprise, that the walls of this particular room are covered in a familiar toile pattern—Jean-Baptiste Huet’s Birds and Squirrels designed in the early years of the previous century.
