Evelyn Kiefer

Appraisal Services: I am a qualified and experienced appraiser of fine and decorative arts, antiques and personal property. I attended the Appraisal Studies Program at New York University and frequently attend appraisal conferences and seminars with the Appraisers Association of America. I appraise items for insurance, estate, charitable donation, and resale purposes. I prepare appraisals according to USPAP (Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice). My appraisals always include the following: inspection, research, valuation, and documentation (a printed, bound report).

For $50 per item I will research and value your antique or fine art for fair market value. My research and valuation will be documented in a brief letter. Please send me one more good photos, including a photo of any marks or signatures. Please include measurements height, width, depth or diameter. Also, please include any other relevant information, such as how you acquired the piece. Please include your payment with your request. I accept checks, money orders and Paypal (please email me if you would like me to send you a Paypal invoice).

Fletcher Benton Alphabet Red - 1989

Painted Steel Constuction

Ford Road, Entrance CWRU School of Law

Dissertation Proposal Fall 2006

The Birth and Death of the American Dining Room: An Evolution from the Colonial Hall to Frank Lloyd Wright's Dining Rooms and Beyond

Introduction

This dissertation will explore the rise and fall of the American dining room. In 17th –century American homes the dining room had not yet separated from the kitchen and was not yet an independent space of its own. In the 20th-century the dining room once again began to merge with the kitchen and living room, ceasing to play a prominent role as an independent room. In between these two stages of development – that is through the 18th and 19th-century – the dining room was one of the principal venues for artistry and design innovation in the American home.

http://www.realneo.us/a-chapter-on-the-nineteeth-century-dining-room

The Nineteenth Century Dining Room: Gender, Refinement, and Grandeur

This chapter will focus on how the dining room evolved in American architecture and culture after the first quarter of the 19th-century through careful study of the dining rooms of six homes; The Mark Twain House, Knoll/Lyndhurst, The Breakers, Biltmore, The Mount and Chateau Sur Mer. The owners of these homes were cultured and wealthy Americans who were not restricted financially in the way that they designed and decorated their homes. They were typically highly literate people who were conscious of trends in America and abroad, and often world travelers aware of architectural examples in Europe. Most of the homes that I have chosen remain close to their original state and are maintained by historic preservation societies such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation. There are numerous titles applied to decades of the 19th-century -- The Victorian Period, The Gilded Age, The Brown Decades, The Mauve Decades -- in order to develop new multidisciplinary critical assessments of the architecture and the decorative arts of this period I intend to limit my use of these terms. These terms are more useful in studies that take a strict chronological viewpoint.

The John and Mildred Putnam Sculpture Collection began with a gift from the Mildred Andrews Fund to commission Snow Fence by Gene Kangas. Further gifts followed, and in 1981 Mildred Andrews Putnam established a permanent endowment at the university for the acquisition of sculpture. Since 1981 more than thirty two works have been purchased or commissioned for the collection.

The goal of the Putnam Collection is to enrich the visual and educational environment of the Case Western Reserve University campus and of University Circle by developing awareness and understanding of the variety and vitality of the work of our regional artists.

The John and Mildred Putnam Sculpture Collection is accessible by two routes. The North Campus Tour (numbers 1-19) begins in the Kelvin Smith Library and ends in Thwing Center. The South Campus Tour (numbers 20-32) includes more indoor sculptures and covers a larger area of campus. This route begins in the lobby of Baker Building and ends at the School of Dentistry. To visit the entire collection, begin with the North Campus Tour and continue with South Campus Tour.

I am a Ph.D. student in the Art History Department of Case Western Reserve University. I have completed my course work (2 semesters), chosen an area of concentration (American decorative arts, architecture and design) prepared a bibliography, passed my qualifying exams and presented my dissertation proposal. I am currently working on chapter 4, which is about the 19th-century dining room.

This dissertation: “The Birth and Death of the American Dining Room: An Evolution from the Colonial Hall to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Dining Rooms and Beyond” will contextualizes the rise and fall of the American dining room. In 17th –century American homes the dining room had not yet separated from the kitchen and was not yet an independent space of its own. In the 20th-century the dining room once again began to merge with the kitchen and living room, ceasing to play a prominent role as an independent room. In between these two stages of development – that is through the 18th and 19th-century – the dining room was one of the principal venues for artistry and design innovation in the American home.