The Decorative Arts Trust is a non-profit organization created for the study and preservation of the decorative arts through an exchange of information, lectures and seminars.

• Membership is open to all who share a deep interest in decorative arts subjects.
• Memberships are fully tax deductible.
• Memberships run from January 1 to December 31 of each year. Renewal notices are mailed in late November.

Membership Benefits

• Advance notice to Symposiums (two per year)
• Featuring the best decorative arts experts
• Travel to locations around America and offshore (the Getty Museum, Monticello, Bermuda, Historic Deerfield, Annapolis, Charleston, Boston)
• Exclusive, behind-the-scenes visits to private properties
  
  
• Advance notice to Study Trip Abroad (one per year)
  • Searching for connections to American decorative arts
  • Meeting experts for lectures and collection tours
  • In an attempt to understand the transfer of design and style in the decorative arts, the Trust offers one study trip abroad each year to observe the antecedents of American decorative art and architecture. The study trips have been held in Venice and the Veneto looking at Palladian architecture, Holland, Scotland, Ireland, and England.
    
    
• V.I.P. Antiques Weekend in NYC

  Traditionally, the third week of January has become Americana Antiques Week in New York, with several major American auctions, many well-respected Americana antiques shows, various museum exhibits of American decorative arts, as well as opportunities to hear lectures by leading experts on various pertinent topics. The Decorative Arts Trust offers a weekend meeting organized around these many opportunities

• Newsletter

  The newsletter provides detailed information on meetings, reports on museums and collections, scholarly opportunities, news on people in the decorative arts field, schedules of upcoming events, book reviews, articles on collecting and research.

• Lecturers Registry is available to members

  Lecturers are listed in our Lecturers Registry in chronological order of our last 41 symposiums. It lists each speaker with his or her lecture title, address and telephone number. The Registry is cross-indexed by lecture subject, i.e. furniture, metals, textiles, etc., and by the lecturer's name. It is most helpful in finding speakers for local meetings and experts for collection concerns.

• Scholarships

  Through the Dewey Lee Curtis Scholarship Fund, the Trust awards graduate students majoring in a field related to American decorative arts are able to attend Trust symposiums throughout the country. The Fund supports a minimum of two scholars for each symposium. Through this Fund and the donations of members, the Trust also provides one continuing studies scholarship each year awarded to a person actively working in the field of American decorative arts. It alternates between the Winterthur Winter Institute, The Historic Deerfield Summer Fellowship Program in Early American History and Material Culture, The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts Summer Institute and the Attingham Summer School.

• Special Services

  Other programs include finding the appropriate museum, house museum or historical society for members who wish to donate American decorative arts from their own collection.

Click here for application form.

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