During American Art Week 2025!
Crafting the Dream
IAC’s 29th Annual American Art Conference
May 8 – 9, 2025
Heritage Auctions
445 Park Ave.
New York, NY
Crafting the Dream, Initiatives in Art and Culture’s 29th annual American Art Conference, takes place May 8 – 9, 2025, at Heritage Auctions in New York City. Since 1996, the Conference has been the premier gathering of those with a keen interest in American Art. Drawing an impressive roster of scholars, curators, and artists, it is at the forefront of critical inquiry in the field.
This year’s conference considers American Art through the twin lenses of “dream” and “craft,” acknowledging an incontrovertible connection between the two. At the same time, the proceedings will be informed by the conviction that just as there is no art without craft, there is no craft without art.
All art, it can be argued, begins with a dream, whether of subject, stylistic approach, medium, or message (or of all of these). Crafting the Dream will examine American Art through the twin lenses of “dream” and “craft,” acknowledging an incontrovertible connection between the two. In so doing, we will derive a deeper, more nuanced understanding of American Art in its many dimensions.
The Conference features an impressive list of presenters including major scholars and celebrated artists, and attendees can expect a compelling and wide-ranging series of talks, panels, and conversations.
Attendees will also attend a private preview and reception for the American Art sale at Heritage Auctions and will receive an invitation to the Gala Opening of the American Art Fair at the landmarked Bohemian National Hall.
We gratefully acknowledge Leadership Funding for Crafting the Dream from O’Brien Art Foundation and Anchor Sponsorship from Heritage Auctions.
We are grateful as well for funding from CollisArt LLC; D. Wigmore Fine Art; James Dicke II; Gill & Lagodich; Kenneth R. Woodcock; the Steven Alan Bennett Foundation; and anonymous donors (as of March 27, 2025).
We are deeply grateful for the media sponsorship provided by The Magazine ANTIQUES, and American Fine Art Magazine.
Program agenda
Thursday, May 8, 2025
Formal sessions takek place at Heritage Auctions, 445 Park. Ave, New York, NY (between 56th and 57th Streets). Program subject to change.
| 8:45 – 9:30 a.m. | Registration and continental breakfast | |
| 9:30 – 9:45 a.m. | Introduction Lisa Koenigsberg (President / Founder, Initiatives in Art and Culture) |
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| 9:45 – 10:30 a.m. | Julien Levy: Life, Gallery Artists and Practice, Legacy Marie Difilippantonio (Director and archivist, Jean and Julien Levy Foundation) |
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| 10:35 – 11:35 a.m. | Dada and Surrealisms in Life and Letters: A Conversation Mary Ann Caws (Distinguished Professor Emerita in Comparative Literature, English, and French, CUNY Graduate Center) with Jonathan P. Eburne (Professor of Comparative Literature, English, and French and Francophone Studies, The Pennsylvania State University) |
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| 11:40 a.m. – 12:25 p.m. | Twisted and Crumpled, Glazed and Bisque: George Ohr, Potter from Biloxi, Mississippi and the Useful Rendered “Useless.” Larry List (New York-based writer and independent curator) and Eugene Hecht (collector of the pottery of George Ohr and lead author, George Ohr: The Greatest Art Potter on Earth ([2013]) |
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| 12:25 – 1:25 p.m. | Luncheon (on your own) |
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| 1:25 – 2:10 p.m. | Meaning in Materiality: Joseph Cornell’s Constructions Erika Doss (Distinguished Chair, Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas) |
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| 2:15 – 3:15 p.m. | Mosaic as a Medium for Women and the Modern: Hildreth Meière and Jeanne Reynal Jennifer Samet (New York City-based art historian, curator, and writer; faculty member, The New York Studio School and Senior Director, Eric Firestone Gallery) and Kathleen Skolnik (adjunct faculty member, Department of Art, Roosevelt University). |
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| 3:15 – 3:30 p.m. | Break | |
| 3:30 – 4:15 p.m. | Sargent Claude Johnson: Modern Representation of the Black Figure Jacqueline Francis (Dean of Humanities and Sciences and professor, History of Art and Visual Culture, California College of the Arts) |
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| 4:20 – 5:15 p.m. | Revisioning Through Installation: Exploring Multiple Approaches to the Display of American Art Stephanie Sparling Willams (Andrew W. Mellon Curator of American Art, Brooklyn Museum); Dakota Hoska (Curator of Native American Art, National Gallery); moderator: Robert Cozzolino (Minneapolis-based independent curator, art historian, and critic) |
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| 5:15 – 6:30 p.m. | Private reception and preview of the American Art Sale, Heritage Auctions Remarks. Aviva Lehmann (Senior Vice President, Director, American Art, Heritage Auctions) |
Friday, May 9, 2025
Formal sessions take place at Heritage Auctions, 445 Park. Ave, New York, NY (between 56th and 57th Streets). Program subject to change.
| 8:45 – 9:15 a.m. | Registration and continental breakfast | |
| 9:15 – 9:30 a.m. | Introduction Lisa Koenigsberg |
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| 9:30 – 10:15 a.m. | “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of”: Julius LeBlanc Stewart and His Work – A Conversation Jacqueline Francis; Valerie Ann Leeds (independent scholar and curator); James W. Tottis (museum consultant and former Curator of American Art at the Detroit Institute of Arts) |
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| 10:20 – 11:00 a.m. | “To Rekindle the Dream”: New Deal Art: Culture and Crisis in the Great Depression John P. Murphy (Philip and Lynn Straus Curator of Prints and Drawings at The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College) |
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| 11:05 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | George Nakashima and Isamu Noguchi Elisabeth Agro (Nancy M. McNeil Curator of Modern and Contemporary Craft and Decorative Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art) |
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| 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. | Luncheon (on your own) | |
| 1:30 – 2:45 p.m. | The Transformative Power of the Frame in American Art Tracy Gill (co-founder, Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames, New York [est. 1991], frame historian, lecturer, and consultant to museums and private collections); Stephanie Temma Hier (Canadian artist, based in New York, whose work merges oil painting and ceramic sculpture through the use of unconventional, often elaborate framing); Jennifer Thompson (The Gloria and Jack Drosdick Curator of European Painting and Sculpture and Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art; moderator: Suzanne Smeaton (pioneer in the study and scholarship of America period frames, advisor to public and private clients, curator and co-curator of frame exhibitions at major museums, and member, Board of Directors, Appraiser’s Association of America) |
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| 2:50 – 3:35 p.m. | “I would now like to think of other worlds”: Ivan Albright and UFO Culture” Robert Cozzolino |
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| 3:35 – 3:55 p.m. | Break |
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| 3:55 – 4:40 p.m. | Inspired by Dreams: The Drawing Practice of Minnie Evans Katie Jentleson (Senior Curator of American Art and Merrie and Dan Boone Curator of Folk and Self-Taught Art, High Museum of Art, Atlanta) |
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| 4:45 – 5:30 p.m. | Moving Water, Fleeting Light Stephen Hannock (American painter renowned for his atmospheric landscapes) |
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| 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. | Conference participants will be guests of The American Art Fair’s Invitation-Only Gala Preview. |
