by Paul Van Perniss
The 2024 EAIA Meeting is April 24th thru April 27th 2024!
It’s not too soon to make your hotel reservations here. You can also contact the hotel directly at (855) 235-1675. If you do call, make sure you tell them you’re making a reservation for the EAIA meeting.
The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg underwent significant renovation and expansion between 2017 and 2020. The donor-funded 41.7-million-dollar project broke ground in 2017 and added 65,000-square-feet to the facility’s existing 100,000-square-feet, allowing for a 22% increase in exhibition space. If you haven’t seen the museums since they reopened, you’re in for a real treat. You’ll have plenty of time to explore these two museums contained in the new building during the 2024 Early American Industries Association’s Annual Meeting, which will take place April 24th through April 27th, 2024 in Colonial Williamsburg.
The DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum showcases the best in British and American fine and decorative arts from 1670-1840. The museum was founded with donations from DeWitt Wallace (1889–1981) and his wife Lila Bell Acheson Wallace (1889–1984), who were co-founders of Reader's Digestmagazine. A vast collection (8,000 objects) from 17th, 18th, and early 19th century America is on display at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. The museum features diverse historic collections including furniture, paintings, silver, numismatics, ceramics, tools, textiles, glass, maps, weapons, media, and other objects related to the founding of the United States. This museum is truly amazing!
The second museum is the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, which is the United States' first and the world's oldest continually-operated museum dedicated to the preservation, collection, and exhibition of American folk art. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was an early collector of American folk art and was very influential in elevating folk art from an obscure art form to a highly-regarded form of American art. Her collection of 424 pieces became the basis of a collection that now includes more than 7,000 folk art pieces dating from the 1720s to the present. This museum was funded through an endowment from her widower, John D. Rockefeller Jr., heir to the Standard Oil fortune and co-founder of Colonial Williamsburg.
More information about the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg is available at www.colonialwilliamsburg.org. You’ll have plenty of time to spend time in both of these incredible museums during EAIA’s 2024 Annual Meeting. More information about the meeting will become available on www.eaia.us by January. We sincerely hope you’ll join us for what will be a great meeting!