ROD BLACKBURN TO TALK ON DUTCH COLONIAL HOMES IN AMERICA AT ALBANY INSTITUTE OF HISTORY & ART

ALBANY, NY—Noted ethnologist and architectural historian Roderic H. Blackburn and photographer Geoffrey Gross will present a slide talk on their new book, Dutch Colonial Homes in America (Rizzoli, 2002) at the Albany Institute of History & Art on Sunday, December 8, 2002 at 1:30 pm.  The free program, which will be followed by a book-signing, will be a highlight of the final day of the current exhibition, MATTERS OF TASTE: Food and Drink in Seventeenth Century Dutch Art and Life.

Dutch Colonial Homes in America is a lavishly illustrated book (200 full-color photographs) that provides an unprecedented look at twenty-eight houses plus eleven barns and other structures, built in the 17^th and 18^th century by Dutch colonists in the northeastern United States, especially upstate New York along the Hudson Valley.

This authoritative work by eminent experts in the field explores these homes in their broader social context by focusing on the historical and religious forces of the times.   In addition to Blackburn and Gross, contributors to Dutch Colonial Homes in America include Susan Piatt, interior designer, home furnishings editor and photo stylist; and Harrison Frederick Meeske, author of The Hudson Valley Dutch and Their Houses.  The book is the first to investigate the meaning of the home and its aesthetics for the Dutch in America, and also the first to look at these homes as a form of art and craft, and the influence of the Dutch and their buildings on the development of American houses.