Ian Wardropper to Speak at Annual Literary Lions Luncheon

Director of The Frick Collection, Ian Wardropper, will serve as guest speaker at the School’s annual Literary Lions Luncheon on Wednesday, October 5. The event, taking place at the Casino Club in Chicago, will feature the Jean Goldman Book Prize, which is awarded to an outstanding publication by a faculty member at the School.

After completing his Ph.D at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, Wardropper was curator and later head of the department of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture and Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago for 19 years, until returning to New York in 2001 as Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Chairman of the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has organized more than 20 exhibitions in his specialized fields of European sculpture, earlier decorative arts, and 20th Century design and decorative arts. Wardropper has taught art history at six universities and published numerous books, catalogues, and articles. His most recent publications include European Sculpture, 1400-1900 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bernini: Sculpting in Clay, Limoges Enamels at The Frick Collection and Director’s Choice: The Frick Collection.

Uniquely qualified to assess the state of American museums today, the role of scholarship, artists and publications in that world, he will speak to the interests of a wide audience.