Henry Francis Du Pont Winterthur Museum Inc

Programs: Public visitation, membership, and public relations:winterthur hosted 127,570 visitors for tours, educational programs, and special and community events during fy2017. Member households during the year totaled approximately 10,000. 5,783 schoolchildren and college students participated in offerings through the public programs department and in addition we provided programs for regional libraries and also teacher training workshops. Garden programs attracted 5,220 participants at 87 programs and events. Winterthur gave approximately 45,000 guided garden tours. Winterthur welcomed new and returning visitors through the presentation of four academic conferences, an intensive two-week study program, lecture series on decorative arts, life in the american and english country house, costume history, garden topics, winterthur history, and lectures associated with the treasures on trial exhibition. There were also a variety of collection study workshops including furniture and ceramics. There were 81 adult programs with an attendance of 8,315. There were also weekly family programs. This year musical performances had over 1980 people attending. Members of the community learned about winterthur through staff lectures at other institutions and special programs. Winterthur's strong exhibition program continued featuring both scholarly and general audience topics. Special exhibitions focused on the art and science of detecting fakes and forgeries, needlework and embroidery, the decoration of children's rooms, and recent acquisitions reflecting increased diversity of collecting. Accompanying the exhibitions were an extensive lecture series, special presentations by the curators, and events featuring music and food. The institution continued to publicize all offerings locally and nationally, with an increased emphasis on electronic media and the use of social media.

curatorial, conservation, education, library programs: including collection and library materials:the staff in the collections department continues to upgrade and improve our catalogue records and add photography to the online database; to date we have re-catalogued a total of 61,654 objects and added 164,388 digital images to the database. The museum collection, which is used for exhibition, research, and teaching purposes, continues to grow with a total of 114 gifts and 21 purchases. Collections staff continue to research and publish information about the collection. During fy2017 these publications included an article in antiques and fine art and contributions by ann wagner, winterthur's curator of decorative arts, to "american silver in the art institute of chicago", a book published by the art institute of chicago. In addition, collections staff lectured around the country and created several exhibitions, including lasting impressions: the artists of currier & ives, curated by stephanie delamaire; treasures on trial: the art and science of detecting fakes, curated by linda eaton and guest curator colette loll; flowery thoughts: ceramic vases and floral ornament, curated by leslie grigsby; and artificial lighting, curated by ann wagner. Collections staff also welcomed visitors to winterthur for the following conferences in fy2017: embroidery: the language of art; furniture up close: masterworks at winterthur study days; and ceramics up close: hands on study days. The boston furniture archive continues to generate new object records and develop and share innovative documentation processes. The fourth summer of field documentation in the boston area was completed by four interns who catalogued and photographed furniture at the hooper-lee-nichols house of the cambridge historical society, the gibson house museum, and the stetson house of the hanover historical society. They also piloted a new approach to documenting the type of wood present in furniture that focuses on wood anatomy and cellular structures rather than immediate visual identification. Digitization of the decorative arts photographic collection records of boston furniture is under way, as well as updates to the archive's website structure and content. Plans are in progress to move to a mobile-friendly database platform and publish in-depth information on furniture makers as a supplemental resource on the website. This past year 16 graduate students were enrolled in the winterthur program in american material culture (administered with the university of delaware), and 30 graduate students studied in the winterthur/university of delaware program in art conservation. To date there have been 951 graduates of these two programs. Graduates of these master degree programs serve in museums, historic houses, and conservation facilities in north america, europe, and elsewhere. Additionally, winterthur hosted 31 visiting scholars who availed themselves of the library collections to research various material culture and design topics. Charged with collection care, exhibit preparation, instruction of students in the wudpac program and research, outreach and professional engagement, the conservation department has been active in all areas. Exhibit preparation included mounts and installation for several library case exhibits, conservation of objects for treasures on trial, and collecting for the future as well as preparation of collections for gallery rotations and yuletide. Outreach and professional engagement included hosting stressed about pests, an ipm (integrated pest management) workshop for students and area professionals. This event was held in march and was attended by students from both winterthur graduate programs, ud undergraduate art conservation majors, and ud history phd candidates as well as practicing professionals from a wide variety of local institutions. It was cosponsored by winterthur, the university of delaware and tru vue, inc. The ipm working group held its 14th meeting at winterthur in march, in winterthur's brown horticulture center. The meeting brought together around 30 ipm specialists from institutions in the us and internationally. Outreach continued with conservation participation in terrific tuesdays, teacher workshops the crafternoon members program, programing for high school students, seven public conservation clinics and both public and special interest conservation tours. Over 1,000 people toured the conservation labs. Winterthur hosted a mellon foundation funded course on historic book structures for conservators and a two-week introduction to practical conservation program for four undergraduate students from historically black colleges and universities to help promote diversification in the field of conservation. As the first steps to work through a process to define a sustainable, long-term solution for all collection storage at winterthur, dr. Joelle wickens as head of the preventive conservation team with beth parker miller, head of registration, are meeting with all of the various departments throughout winterthur to obtain different perspectives in order to help determine long-term storage needs. This is envisioned as a multiyear project. The registration department is tasked with maintaining paper and digital records related to the museum collection. The department manages paperwork and logistics related to loans to/from winterthur and for exhibits, accessions and deaccessions, object movement and collection inventory, and risk management. In fy2017, the registration department inventoried 15,614 objects, facilitated and documented 19,106 object moves, accessioned 973 museum objects, managed short-term loans to winterthur of 161 objects (59 objects for one special tour, 102 objects for two exhibitions) and long-term loans to winterthur of 1072 objects, and managed short-term loans of 40 objects and long-term loans of 150 objects from winterthur to other institutions. Registration staff work with winterthur's digital asset management team to improve online museum collections data. Catalogue data is now available online for 89,647 museum objects. The mission of the library is to acquire, catalogue, and preserve its collections and make them available to the public. During fy2017, the library added 197 archival lots and 4,658 books and periodicals by purchase and gift, catalogued and updated 2,789 records, and lent 356 books through interlibrary loan. We counted 854 user days in the manuscript and archive collections and 4,261 user days in the printed book and periodical collection. Staff added significantly to our electronic resources with the production of digital collections and staged three exhibitions featuring library resources.

garden program:winterthur maintains a world-renowned 200-acre naturalistic garden that welcomes visitors from all parts of the globe. The collection of rare and historic plants includes magnolias, azaleas, minor bulbs, conifers, and specimen trees. Significant varieties in the collection are tracked or "accessioned" through a records system, which currently includes more than 7500 accessions. In fy2016 we received an imls grant to digitally map and update our plant records. That work continues through 2017. We continued the restoration and enhancement of numerous garden areas including icewell terrace, enchanted woods, and azalea woods. One hundred and seventy rhododendrons were planted throughout the garden. Restoration of ironwork and statuary continues to be a priority with the repurposing of the coach house barn to store garden statuary in a more secure and accessible facility. The latimeria summerhouse in the peony garden was repaired. Planning and design continued for the first exhibit to be held in the garden - follies: architectural whimsy in the garden. This exhibit will consist of six historic and seven constructed follies in the winterthur garden. It will open april 1, 2018 with an option to run for two years. Construction has begun on many of the new follies.

marketing program (expenses $1,323,339)(revenue $526,488):winterthur added one new and renewed one existing licensee that will broaden and deepen awareness of the institution with products tightly tied to the collection and museum offerings. This will bring the total licensees to 30. Retail developed products and strategies that will continue to strengthen the relationship to museum exhibitions and the collections. E-commerce sales and revenue continue to grow. This will continue to increase the visibility and knowledge of winterthur. Publications program (expenses $271,508):in fy2017 winterthur produced six publications, including lasting impressions: the artists of currier & ives (september 2016); the delaware antiques show catalogue (november 2016); abc: a winterthur book for children (november 2016); the spirit of yuletide (november 2016); the du ponts of winterthur (updated edition, january 2017); and the well-dressed window: curtains at winterthur (may 2017, co-published with the monacelli press). The publications office also completed editing and photography for the volume crafting excellence: the furniture of nathan lumbard and his circle and supported the needs of departments campus-wide, including the editing of exhibition labels and supplementary materials. In conjunction with the university of chicago press, the institution continued to publish both print and online issues of the academic journal winterthur portfolio.