about me...craft & glass scholar, writer, curator, and collections specialist
Samantha De Tillio is a craft scholar, writer, independent curator, and collections specialist with over ten years of experience working in museums, with collections, and public speaking. Her expertise includes American material and visual culture with an emphasis on post-war contemporary craft and glass. Since 2019, De Tillio has been a Contributing Editor of Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly, where, since 2015, she has written regularly on themes of performance, gender, and ecology as it relates to glass. She is currently writing a three-part series on glass and performance that traces the niche genre's development from the mid-twentieth century through today; the first article of which, "Cold and Hot: Performative Art, Craft, and Glass in the Twentieth Century," is in the Summer 2022 issue. From 2013 to 2022, De Tillio was Curator of Collections at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, where she oversaw, researched, and exhibited the permanent collection, and managed the acquisitions program. During that time she curated or project managed over a dozen exhibitions and permanent collection installations; produced and contributed to four exhibition catalogues; and facilitated the accessions of over three hundred artworks. Her projects have included Beth Lipman: Collective Elegy, Burke Prize 2019 & 2018, Craft Front & Center, Wendell Castle Remastered, among others. |
Haystack School of Crafts, 2019
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De Tillio is engaged in ongoing research on the groundbreaking fiber artist Dorian Zachai (1932-2015), the first study of the artist's life and work, which she presented at the 2019 College Art Association conference. She is also managing the artist's archives, and in service of Zachai's legacy, stewarded the accession of ten works by the artist in the permanent collection of MAD.
De Tillio's interests also include the praxis of "crafted lifeways" or the role craft can play in facilitating creative and regenerative lifestyles in harmony with the greater ecosystem, including material literacy, the intersection of art and craft with bioregionalism, and folk and foodways.
Prior to her time at MAD she was Tiffany & Company Foundation Curatorial Fellow in the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she contributed to the reinstallation of the Arts & Crafts galleries, the installation of the Worsham-Rockefeller period room, an exhibition of George Schastey aesthetic furniture, and curated an exhibit of works on paper by Louis C. Tiffany. She has also held various curatorial and research positions at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and the Albany Institute of History and Art, as well as curated independent projects.
De Tillio has lectured widely, including at the College Art Association conference and the Bard Graduate Center; was a visiting artist at the Rochester Institute of Technology; and has juried numerous exhibitions, residencies, and prizes. She has a MA in the History of Decorative Arts from the Smithsonian Associates with George Mason University, and a BA in History from the University at Albany with minors in Ancient Greek and Roman Civilizations, and Spanish; she also studied drawing and painting.
De Tillio is a member of the Public Programming Committee at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn and Board President of R'Ville Stage Creations, a community theater in Upstate New York. She lives in Upstate New York with her husband and son.
De Tillio's interests also include the praxis of "crafted lifeways" or the role craft can play in facilitating creative and regenerative lifestyles in harmony with the greater ecosystem, including material literacy, the intersection of art and craft with bioregionalism, and folk and foodways.
Prior to her time at MAD she was Tiffany & Company Foundation Curatorial Fellow in the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she contributed to the reinstallation of the Arts & Crafts galleries, the installation of the Worsham-Rockefeller period room, an exhibition of George Schastey aesthetic furniture, and curated an exhibit of works on paper by Louis C. Tiffany. She has also held various curatorial and research positions at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, and the Albany Institute of History and Art, as well as curated independent projects.
De Tillio has lectured widely, including at the College Art Association conference and the Bard Graduate Center; was a visiting artist at the Rochester Institute of Technology; and has juried numerous exhibitions, residencies, and prizes. She has a MA in the History of Decorative Arts from the Smithsonian Associates with George Mason University, and a BA in History from the University at Albany with minors in Ancient Greek and Roman Civilizations, and Spanish; she also studied drawing and painting.
De Tillio is a member of the Public Programming Committee at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn and Board President of R'Ville Stage Creations, a community theater in Upstate New York. She lives in Upstate New York with her husband and son.
