Q&A: Brock Jobe and Margaret Pritchard

After the Decorative Arts Trust announced a new Publishing Grant program, Antiques and The Arts Weekly chatted with Brock Jobe, president of the Trust’s Board of Governors and professor emeritus of American Decorative Arts at Winterthur, and Margaret Pritchard, vice president of the Board of Governors, chair of the Publishing Advisory Committee and retired deputy chief curator at Colonial Williamsburg, about this initiative.

The Decorative Arts Trust (the Trust) established a new publishing grant program in December 2023 to “invigorate scholarship and broaden appreciation of material culture.” Is this a response to decreased interest or appreciation in material culture scholarship?

MP: I don’t think that there is decreased interest in decorative arts or material culture at all, but it’s become harder for scholars and institutions to secure funding for publications. This was evidenced by the high number of grant applications seeking publication funding that the Trust received over the past several years through the other grant programs we offer. Over the past decade, we have seen fewer and fewer exhibition and collection catalogs in our field.

BJ: Colleagues from many disciplines continue to study and write about the field, but opportunities to publish their findings have shrunk. The Trust believes in the importance of scholarship and seeks to do all it can to stimulate research and provide outlets for future publications, both online and in print.

Can you pinpoint the main reasons why the field of material culture scholarship has evolved or changed?

BJ: Storytelling is at the heart of material culture scholarship: which stories we tell, what points we emphasize and what approaches we choose to take vary over time. In the decorative arts world of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, much attention focused on the individuals who made what were often considered the “best” objects of a given era. In the field of American furniture, regional studies predominated, and many of these focused on products made between 1640 and 1840.

MP: Yes, the years following World War II witnessed the emergence of the “professional” museum employee. Scholars of this generation began a deeper study of individual objects, attempting to use construction and stylistic details in order to determine their origins. The primary focus was on aesthetics, and that was represented in the publications that came out during that time.

BJ: Over the past 40 years, the range of topics has expanded enormously. Studies of Nineteenth, Twentieth and Twenty-First Century objects have dramatically increased. Utilitarian objects have attracted broad interest, as have their cultural or ecological impact.

MP: I agree. By the mid-1970s, a more historically based approach to the decorative arts emerged, looking beyond the physical attributes of structures and objects and exploring who used them and how they functioned within the household. Nuances of regional styles and construction techniques resulted in a much more complete picture of past cultural idiosyncrasies, and publications increasingly focused on what these objects revealed about the people that used them.

BJ: And new questions continue to arise, which spawn research deserving to be published. It is an exciting time for the field and the Trust. The opportunity to bring fresh and engaging interpretations before the public is one that the organization enthusiastically endorses, but we also intend to support more “traditional” scholarship focused on the design and craftsmanship of decorative arts across time and place.

What kinds of publishing grants will be given?

MP: The Trust will allocate funding to two separate grant lines within the publishing program. Publishing Grants for Dissertations and First-Time Authors focus specifically on book-length academic publications based on completed dissertations or by first-time authors publishing a scholarly work that increases the awareness and appreciation of important areas of material culture research. We also offer Publishing Grants for Collections, Exhibitions and Conferences to support books and catalogs related to these areas.

What are some of the criteria the Trust looks for among grant submissions?

MP: The Trust aims to help colleagues publish books that advance the study of American decorative arts and material culture, focusing on objects made or used in an American context. In addition to three-dimensional objects, we are also seeking proposals that focus on decorative painting, prints, maps and wallpaper as well as the interiors for which objects were designed or in which they were placed. With interest in printed books as well as digital publications, the program will respond to the needs of the field with an expectation that some portion of the content of in-print books will have a level of digital accessibility.

The Decorative Arts Trust previously awarded a Failey Grant to Preservation Long Island for Elias Pelletreau: Long Island Silversmith and Entrepreneur, 1726-1810.

Will there be an advisory committee to select grant recipients?

MP: The Trust established an advisory committee to oversee the review of applications. The group includes members of the Board of Governors as well as ex-officio members, including museum professionals and academics with broad experience in publishing.

You’ve recently announced the Trust’s inaugural recipients. Can you tell us why and how these projects made the cut?

MP: The four recipients represent exciting projects that offer new object research across a variety of cultures, time periods, geographies and materials. The decisions were difficult, but committee members selected publishing projects from The Hispanic Society Museum and Library; the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the Collections, Exhibitions, and Conferences category. Dr Joseph H. Larnerd from Drexel University was chosen for the First-Time Author Grant. Their diverse topics and plans for associated digital outreach and programming are sure to attract and inspire a broad audience.

What is the deadline for the next round of grant proposal submissions?

MP: The deadline for the next round is March 31, 2025. We encourage all readers to share this deadline with emerging and established art historians and curatorial colleagues. Independent scholars are welcome to apply and need not be affiliated with a museum or like organization. Submission details can be found at www.decorativeartstrust.org/publishing.

—Madelia Hickman Ring