: "I'm Mr Wallpaper," Richard Nylander says impishly.
His wife, Jane, adds cheerfully, "It's remarkable how many people
ask me about wallpaper. They can't tell us apart, I guess." Her
husband of 33 years is seated by her side on a rumpled sofa in
Historic New England's collections and conservation center in
Haverhill, Mass.
The Bacall and Bogart of the preservation field are the president
emerita and senior curator of Historic New England, the
95-year-old Boston-based trust formerly known as the Society for
the Preservation of New England Antiquities. Historic New England
manages 35 historic houses from Connecticut to Maine and
maintains a collection of more than 120,000 New England
artifacts.
Together (they are rarely apart), the Nylanders have devoted more
than 80 years to the study of New England architecture,
decorative arts and social history. Their accomplishments include
dozens of articles and exhibitions, seven books in multiple
editions and scores of professional affiliations. Teaching
appointments and lecture engagements have taken the Nylanders
around the world. In the South Pacific, they briefly pondered the
material cultural of cannibalism, surely a test to Jane's
longstanding conviction that food, clothing and shelter explain
the past.
