Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Jenna Bascom
Beth Lipman: Collective Elegy
Museum of Arts and Design, September 24, 2020 to August 15, 2021 For more than twenty years, Beth Lipman has transformed glass, metal, clay, video, and photographs into powerful statements addressing mortality, temporality, identity, and excess. The exhibition brings together a decade of work, and is the first major scholarly assessment of the artist’s career. In these turbulent times, Lipman’s art reminds us of where we came from, the subjectivity of history, and the need for harmony with the larger world. Read more → WATCH Curator lectures, tours, podcasts, and press → 
Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Jenna Bascom
MAD Collects: The Future of Craft Part 1
Museum of Arts and Design, September 6, 2018 to March 31, 2019 MAD Collects: The Future of Craft Part 1 (curated by MAD’s William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator Shannon R. Stratton with Assistant Curators Samantha De Tillio and Barbara Paris Gifford) frames MAD’s collecting mission and recent acquisitions by positioning works by David Harper, Bayne Peterson, Cauleen Smith and other artists within the context of the Museum’s current collections plan. In addition to presenting the history of MAD’s collection, the exhibition will feature statements by artists, critics, and other major figures in the field speculating about the future of craft. Read more → Press → 
Judith Leiber: Crafting a New York Story
Museum of Arts and Design, April 4 to August 6, 2017 Judith Leiber spent sixty-five years in the handbag industry, from an apprentice in Budapest to the owner of an internationally renowned handbag company based in New York City. Judith Leiber: Crafting a New York Story (curated by MAD's Assistant Curator Samantha De Tillio) tells the tale of this illustrious craftswoman, designer, and businesswoman. The exhibition includes handbags that encompass the history of her eponymous company, which Leiber founded in 1963 at the age of forty-two, through 2004, when she designed her last handbag. Although biographical in nature, the exhibition also explores the gendered significance of the handbag in twentieth-century Western culture, and the centrality of immigrant entrepreneurship in the fabric of New York. Read more → Press → 
Photo by Samantha De Tillio
Sarah Zapata @ Marimekko
Marimekko Flagship Storefront X MAD, September 16 to 28, 2016 In conjunction with Textile Month in New York, Marimekko asked me to curate their storefront windows. I commissioned visual artist Sarah Zapata to create an installation, which she did, exploring themes central to her work: time-based labor practices, traditionally feminine imagery, the fetishized, and the handmade. Press → 
Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Butcher Walsh
Eye for Design
Museum of Arts and Design, June 7 to September 18, 2016 Eye for Design (curated by MAD's Assistant Curator Samantha De Tillio and Windgate Research and Collections Curator Elissa Auther) explores the unique graphic identity created by the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in the 1960s and 1970s through its imaginatively designed exhibition catalogues and related ephemera. Read more → Press → 
Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Benoit Pailley
NYC Makers: The MAD Biennial
Museum of Arts and Design, July 1 to October 12, 2014 The first exhibition to be organized under the leadership of MAD’s then director Glenn Adamson, NYC Makers (curated by Jake Yuzna, former MAD Director of Public Programs, and project managed by Samantha De Tillio) showcases the work of 100 makers—highly inventive artisans, artists, and designers who create objects or environments through exquisite workmanship and skill. Read more → 
Photo by Samantha De Tillio
Artistic Furniture of the Gilded Age: George A. Schastey
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 15, 2015 to June 5, 2016 Artistic Furniture of the Gilded Age (curated by Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts Nonnie Frelinghuysen and Nicholas Vincent, with research contributions by Samantha De Tillio) reveals the most sumptuous moment in late nineteenth-century America—a period known as the Gilded Age—through the work of some of the most noted design firms at the time, particularly New York–based cabinetmaker and interior decorator George A. Schastey (American, 1839–1894). Read more → 
Photo courtesy of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site
Remember the Ladies: Women of the Hudson River School
Thomas Cole National Historic Site, 2010 Remember the Ladies (co-curated by Nancy Siegel, Associate Professor of Art History at Towson University and Jennifer Krieger, Managing Partner of Hawthorne Fine Art, with exhibition support by Samantha De Tillio) is the first known exhibition in the United States to focus solely on the women artists associated with the 19th-century landscape painting movement. Read more → |
Indonesian Napkin Holder, 1984, Betty Woodman. Glazed earthenware; wheel-thrown, slab-built, altered, Museum of Arts and Design, New York; gift of Caren and Walter Forbes, 1997
Craft Front & Center
Museum of Arts and Design, May 22, 2021 to Feb 13, 2022 Craft was once at the margins of the art world, but no longer. Today it is front and center in art galleries, museums, and fairs, widely recognized for its expressive potential and cultural significance. Assembled from the eclectic richness of MAD’s permanent collection, Craft Front & Center (curated by MAD's curatorial team: Elissa Auther, Samantha De Tillio, Barbara Paris Gifford, Alida Jekabson, Christian Larsen, and Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy) brings together more than 100 iconic and lesser-known works to highlight key thematic touchpoints in craft’s history that have brought us to this moment. Challenging traditional thinking of craft as separate from fine art, the exhibition reveals the field's deep engagement in art’s major movements, such as abstract expressionism, pop art, and post modernism, while also launching its own revolutions, particularly the elevation of women and people of color as significant artists. Read More → 
Courtesy Site: Brooklyn Gallery; photo by Gabriel Cosma
Craft in Contemporary Art
SITE: Brooklyn Gallery, Spring 2020 Craft in Contemporary Art is a submission-based exhibition juried and installed by Samantha De Tillio that explores the use of traditional craft materials within contemporary art. The exhibition considers a wide range of materials and processes employed by artists from across the globe. Installation images → 
Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Jenna Bascom
The Burke Prize 2018: The Future of Craft Part 2
Museum of Arts and Design, October 3, 2018 to March 17, 2019 The Burke Prize 2018 (curated by MAD's Assistant Curator Samantha De Tillio and Assistant Manager of Curatorial Affairs, Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy) celebrates the inaugural year of the Burke Prize, an annual award that reinforces the Museum of Arts and Design’s commitment to celebrating the next generation of artists working in and advancing the disciplines that shaped the American studio craft movement. The exhibition will include a selection of works by the finalists of the prize, whose emergent voices are pushing the field forward in dynamic ways and providing a glimpse into the expansive future of contemporary craft. Read more → Press →  Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Jenna Bascom
Crochet Coral Reef: TOXIC SEAS
by Margaret and Christine Wertheim and the Institute For Figuring Museum of Arts and Design, September 15, 2016 to January 22, 2017 Mixing crocheted yarn with plastic trash, the work fuses mathematics, marine biology, feminist art practices, and craft to produce large-scale coralline landscapes, both beautiful and blighted. At once figurative, collaborative, worldly, and dispersed, the “Crochet Coral Reef” offers a tender response to the dual calamities facing marine life: climate change and plastic trash. Crochet Coral Reef: TOXIC SEAS, a unique presentation (curated by MAD's Assistant Curator Samantha De Tillio) that focuses on climate change and ocean health Read more → Press → 
Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Butcher Walsh
Wendell Castle Remastered
Museum of Arts and Design, October 20, 2015 to February 28, 2016 Wendell Castle Remastered (curated by MAD's former Senior Curator Ronald T. Labaco and Samantha De Tillio) was the first museum exhibition to examine the digitally crafted works of Wendell Castle, acclaimed figure of the American art furniture movement. A master furniture maker, designer, sculptor, and educator, Castle is now in the sixth decade of a prolific career that began in 1958—one that parallels the emergence and growth of the American studio craft movement. Read more → Press → 
Photo courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design
In Memoriam: Marvin Lipofsky
Museum of Arts and Design, February 1 to 26, 2016 Marvin Lipofsky (1938–2016) was a pioneer of the American studio glass movement. As a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Lipofsky participated in artist Harvey Littleton’s history-making glass workshops in a homemade hot shop on Littleton’s farm. After graduating in 1964, he went on to establish glass programs at the University of California, Berkeley and, in 1967, at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts). Read more → 
Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Gulshan Kirat
Re: Collection
Museum of Arts and Design, April 1 to September 7, 2014 MAD celebrates the fifth anniversary of its move to 2 Columbus Circle with the special exhibition Re: Collection (curated by MAD's former Chief Curator David McFadden with former Senior Curator Ronald T. Labaco and Curatorial Assistant Samantha De Tillio). The exhibition will survey Chief Curator Emeritus David McFadden’s sixteen years at MAD through objects acquired during his tenure. Read more → 
Photo by Samantha De Tillio
Artistic Furniture of the Gilded Age: Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 15, 2015 to permanent The centerpiece of the three-part exhibition Artistic Furniture of the Gilded Age (curated by Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts Nonnie Frelinghuysen and Nicholas Vincent, with research contributions by Samantha De Tillio) is the opulent Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room from the New York City house commissioned by art collector and philanthropist Arabella Worsham (later Huntington; ca. 1850–1924). Read more →  Photo courtesy of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site
The Botanical Watercolors of Emily Cole
Thomas Cole National Historic Site, 2010 In 2010, Samantha De Tillio and Joanna Frang organized an exhibition exploring the botanical watercolors and ceramic paintings of Thomas Cole's daughter Emily. |
Still from “Flux” (2019-20) by Abigail Reynolds. Courtesy the artist.
Glass in Flux
Program series, Museum of Arts and Design March to December 2021 Glass in Flux is a year-long glass-based series organized on the occasion of Glass, Meet the Future Film Festival. Co-curated by Collection Curator Samantha De Tillio and Associate Curator of Public Programs Lydia Brawner, the project spotlights artists working with and thinking about glass in innovative ways--including in tandem with more ephemeral practices including performance, video, and process-based art--through a series of virtual conversations hosted by De Tillio. Schedule: March 29: Abigail Reynolds March 31: Romina Gonzales, Caroline Landau, Madeline Rile Smith, and Bre'Annah Stampley April 26: Jennifer Hand and Fumi Amao May 13: Beth Lipman June 23: Deborah Czerezko More soon! WATCH past programs here → 
Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Jenna Bascom
Burke Prize 2019
Museum of Arts and Design, October 3, 2019 to April 12, 2020 Burke Prize 2019 (curated by MAD's Assistant Curator Samantha De Tillio and Assistant Manager of Curatorial Affairs, Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy), is an exhibition of works from the 2019 finalists for the Museum's Burke Prize, awarded to a contemporary artist under the age of forty-five working in glass, fiber, clay, metal, and/or wood. Selected by a jury of professionals in the fields of art, craft, and design, the finalists represent emerging voices expanding the disciplines at the core of American studio craft movement whose highly accomplished work demonstrates a strong use of materials, innovative processes, and conceptual rigor and relevance. Read more → 
Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Jenna Bascom
Derrick Adams: Sanctuary
Museum of Arts and Design, January 25 to August 12, 2018 Derrick Adams: Sanctuary (guest curated by Dexter Wimberly, Executive Director of Aljira, Newark, NJ with institutional support by MAD's Assistant Curator Samantha De Tillio) is an exhibition of large-scale sculpture, and mixed-media collage and assemblage on wood panels that reimagine safe destinations for the black American traveler during the mid-twentieth century. The body of work was inspired by The Negro Motorist Green Book, an annual guidebook for black American road-trippers published by New York postal worker Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1966, during the Jim Crow era in America. Read more → Press → 
Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Jenna Bascom
Unpacking the Green Book: Travel and Segregation in Jim Crow America
Museum of Arts and Design, March 1 to April 8, 2018 The Green Book was a travel guide that helped black road-trippers avoid the dangers, injustices, and racial violence of segregation during the Jim Crow era in America. In an age of sundown towns, segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement, The Green Book became an indispensable tool for safe navigation. Unpacking the Green Book: Travel and Segregation in Jim Crow America (curated by MAD's Assistant Curator Samantha De Tillio) explores the book's history in an interactive project space, which includes a library and reading area; digitized copies of The Green Book; interactive maps that explore travel destinations included in it; and multiple film excerpts from upcoming documentary projects. Read more → Press → 
Photo courtesy UrbanGlass
Aaron Pexa: The Spoils of Annwn
UrbanGlass, May 24 to July 30, 2017 Since 2013, Aaron Pexa has been making multimedia work that manifests curiosity and a sense of bewilderment through surrealist glass scenes, combined with spoken-word soundtracks and original scores, all of which reframe everyday objects with fantastical narratives and opportunities for storytelling. Aaron Pexa: The Spoils of Annwn (curated by Samantha De Tillio) combines the artist's earlier video work, light sculptures, and ceramics with commissioned poetry exploring the medieval folklore and werifesteria at the center of this body of work. Read more → Press → 
Courtesy the Museum of Arts and Design; photo by Butcher Walsh
Japanese Kōgei | Future Forward
Museum of Arts and Design, October 20, 2015 to February 7, 2016 Kōgei is a genre of traditional art that may be roughly translated as "artisan crafts"—a means of highly skilled artistic expression, both in form and decoration, that is associated with specific regions and peoples in Japan. The subject is steeped in tradition and rooted in upholding conventional cultural ideals and aesthetics through the mastery of specialized techniques and materials. The exhibition was curated by Yūji Akimoto, former director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, and organized at the Museum of Arts and Design by former Senior Curator Ronald T. Labaco and Samantha De Tillio. Read more → Press →  Photo by Samantha De Tillio
Middle Eastern and Asian Influences in Louis C. Tiffany’s Design Drawings
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 2012 to May 2013 The 1870's was a time of redefinition in American culture. The Industrial Revolution changed the way Americans lived,and design reform changed the way American culture looked. In their search for good design, many artists, including members of the Aesthetic Movement, whose mantra “art for art’s sake” encouraged beauty over practicality, turned to the arts of Japan, China, and the Middle East for inspiration. Read more → 
Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Arts and Crafts Collection Reinstallation
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Spring 2013 to ongoing In 2013 the decorative arts staff of the American Wing undertook the reinstallation of the Arts and Crafts gallery with research and writing contributed by Samantha De Tillio. 
Photo courtesy of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site
Historic wallpaper from the collection of Michael Levinson
Thomas Cole National Historic Site, 2010 Research support provided by Samantha De Tillio. |
