NEW YORK CITY - Susan Weber Soros, founder and director of the
Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design
and Culture, has announced the recipients of the seventh annual
Iris Foundation Awards for Outstanding Contributions to the
Decorative Arts.
This year's awardees are Helene David-Weill, Simon Jervis and Dr
Thomas P. Campbell. A special award from Bard College, the
Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters, will also be
presented by Leon Botstein, president of Bard College. The
Kellogg Award, which recognizes significant contributions by an
individual to the nation's artistic and literary heritage, will
be given to Henry Luce III, the former chairman and CEO of Henry
Luce Foundation. The Iris and Kellogg awards will be presented at
a luncheon at the St Regis Hotel in New York City on April 10.
Dr Soros noted that "This year's awardees have demonstrated their
long-term commitment to the decorative arts as both an
intellectual pursuit and a lifetime passion."
David-Weill is the president of the Union Central des Arts
Decoratifs. She sits on the board of several important
educational institutions that support the arts, including the
Parsons School of Design, the New School for Social Research and
the Bard Graduate Center. Her involvement in the management and
operation of several esteemed arts organizations demonstrates her
tireless commitment to the field of the decorative arts.
Jervis studied classics and the history of art at Cambridge.
After two years at Leicester Museum and Art Gallery he joined the
department of furniture and woodwork at the Victoria and Albert
Museum in 1966 as an assistant keeper, rising to become curator
of the furniture and woodwork collection in 1989. In 1990, he
became director and Marlay Curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge, and in 1995, he was appointed director of historic
buildings of the National Trust.
Campbell is associate curator in the European sculpture and
decorative arts (ESDA) department at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, where he is responsible for all curatorial aspects of the
ESDA textile collection, which consists of approximately 17,000
European textiles from 1500 to 1900. He is also supervising
curator of the Antonio Ratti Textile Center, the study and
storage facility in which the Metropolitan's encyclopedic
collection of 35,000 textiles is housed.
Henry Luce III was elected chairman and CEO of the Henry Luce
Foundation, Inc in 1990, where he had been president and CEO
since 1958. He retired in June 2002. The work of the foundation
includes the interdisciplinary exploration of higher education;
scholarship in American art; increased understanding between Asia
and the United States; the study of religion and theology;
opportunities for women in science and engineering; and
environmental and public policy programs.
