selected lectures, presentations & demonstrations

Beginning with dedicated frame exhibitions in Santa Monica and Laguna Beach in 1996, principals of Gill & Lagodich have lectured on the subject of period frame history, fabrication, and restoration; presented walk-through gallery talks, docent and professional educator training, and conducted hands-on period frame clinics for selected museum, institutional, and private groups, as well as national arts and appraisal conferences.

Tracy Gill and Simeon Lagodich organized, curated frames, and wrote exhibition catalogues for four frame shows that traveled to bicoastal galleries, colleges, university, and two museums.

We can visit your institution or invite you to visit us. Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames will open our showroom and studios on request for educational purposes, including powerpoint lectures on frame history, gallery/restoration studio tours and hands-on demonstrations in gilding and frame restoration. Students from Pratt University, FIT Restoration Program, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, New York School of Interior Design, Museum associates and private art collector groups are among those who have participated on-site at G&L. 

APPEARANCES ARE LISTED BELOW IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.

note: we are currently updating our list of past presentations, please check back soon for more additions.

INITIATIVES IN ART & CULTURE

Crafting the Dream

IAC’s 29th Annual American Art Conference
May 8 – 9, 2025

Heritage Auctions

The Transformative Power of the Frame in American Art

PANEL DISCUSSION: Tracy Gill (co-founder, Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames, New York City [est. 1991], frame historian, lecturer, and consultant to museums and private collections); Stephanie Temma Hier (Canadian artist, based in New York, whose work merges oil painting and ceramic sculpture through the use of unconventional, often elaborate framing); Jennifer Thompson (The Gloria and Jack Drosdick Curator of European Painting and Sculpture and Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art); moderator: Suzanne Smeaton (pioneer in the study and scholarship of America period frames, advisor to public and private clients,  curator and co-curator of frame exhibitions at major museums, and member, Board of Directors, Appraiser’s Association of America)

Crafting Modernism: The Prendergast Dreamwold Frame

Tracy Gill, PowerPoint lecture: “At the turn of the twentieth century, Charles and Maurice Prendergast launched a radical transformation in the design and craft of the American frame. Repurposing the techniques of traditional early European frame construction and gilding—also noting the craftsmanship and motifs inherent in American Folk Art—they created a new visual vocabulary: a modern reordering of historical forms into a new vernacular of American frames. Spearheaded by Charles Prendergast, the movement in American “picture frame reform” took hold in Boston, inspiring collaboration between artists hand-crafting frames for themselves and other artists. “Individualized” frames were conceived and created at the same time as a canvas to ensure harmony between painting and frame, with particular attention to tonalities of gilding and hand-carved profiles that would not overshadow a picture. As Prendergast’s first significant commission, the featured “Dreamwold” trophy frame (1903) represents an inflection point between the Gilded Age to the modern in American frame making.”

Tracy Gill, Gill & Lagodich; Marty O’Brien, O’Brien Art Foundation;  Dr. Lisa Koenigsberg, IAC founder and president.

Tracy Gill, co-founder of Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames, New York City (established in 1991) which provides custom framing services and curatorial expertise to museums and private collectors. For over 35 years she has collected, studied, restored, sold, and curated period frames for exhibitions. A frame historian, she has also been the curator—and author of accompanying catalogues—for period frame exhibitions including “One Hundred Years on the Edge: The Frame in America 1820 to 1920” (1996), “Frames of Reference: From Object to Subject” (2000), “The American Frame: From Origin to Originality” (2003), and “Beaux Arts & Crafts: Masterpieces of American Frame Design 1890 –1920” (2011). Among her other publications is “American Period Frame Connoisseurship in the Twenty-First Century” in American Art: Collecting and Connoisseurship (2020).

DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS

OPENING REMARKS BY Kenneth J. Myers, Ph.D., Byron & Dorothy Gerson Curator of American Art; Head, Department of American Art

“Art on the Edge: Framing American PaintingS from Colonial to Modern”

KEYNOTE TALK / POWERPOINT BY TRACY GILL

followed by Q&A with Simeon Lagodich

Frame historian Tracy Gill, co-founder of New York’s Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames, discussed the evolution of frame styles over two centuries of American art.  Drawing on examples from DIA’s collection, Gill surveyed changing tastes from 17th-century painted frames and gilded hand-carved fancies to innovative 19th-century trends and opulent models from the Gilded Age. She discussed the artist-designed frames on James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s “Arrangement in Gray: Portrait of the Painter” and the monumental landscapes of Frederic Church, as well as the elegant frames designed by architect Stanford White to house paintings owned by Detroit collector Charles Freer. Finally, Gill explored the early 20th-century transition to handcraftsmanship, when American Impressionist painters were inspired to commission custom frames from Arts and Crafts artisans, and the progression to deceptively simple surrounds conceived by modernists such as Florine Stettheimer, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O’Keeffe, who pushed the boundaries of their canvases and rejected traditional gilded frames in favor of pared-down profiles finished in white, silver, and hand-painted or textured wood.  Through this talk, attendees joined Gill in looking not just at the paintings, but the art around the art — the art of the frame. 

Sanford Gifford, On The Nile, 1872, oil on canvas, 17 × 31 inches, framed by Gill & Lagodich for the Detroit Institute of Arts, c. 1870s American period frame, rare design.

HIGH MUSEUM OF ART

“FRAME IT UP! CHANGING FASHIONS OF AMERICAN FRAMES 18TH TO 20TH-CENTURY”

LIVE (ZOOM) EVENT WITH STEPHANIE HEYDT, TRACY GILL, AND SIMEON LAGODICH.

An evening devoted to American frames and their fascinating history. This virtual event explored the changing styles of frame fashion from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. This special focus comes at the conclusion of a multiyear special initiative to examine and upgrade frames for the High’s collection. Stephanie Heydt, Margaret and Terry Stent Curator of American Art, was in conversation with frame historians Simeon Lagodich and Tracy Gill, founders of Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frame Gallery, New York. The evening included a presentation on American frame history, a tour of the High’s American art collection, and a Q&A session to field questions about the “art around the art”—the art of the frame.

WATCH OUR TALK ON YOUTUBE, CLICK ON “FRAME IT UP” TITLE SLIDE IMAGE BELOW

HIGH MUSEUM OF ART →

Painters, Patrons, and Architects:

Thomas Wilmer Dewing and the Gilded Age

Seminar with Linda Merrill, Stephanie Heydt,

Tracy Gill, and Simeon Lagodich


Stephanie Heydt, the High's Margaret and Terry Stent Curator of American Art; Linda Merrill, Senior Lecturer of Art History at Emory University; and frame historians Tracy Gill and Simeon Lagodich, Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames, NYC, examine themes around the High’s recent acquisition A Reading, by the late nineteenth-century painter Thomas Wilmer Dewing.  The conversation will focus on the relationship between Dewing and his most important patron, Charles Lang Freer, as well as on his collaborations with the celebrated architect Stanford White, who designed exquisite frames for Dewing’s work, including the one for A Reading.  

The seminar will offer special gallery access, followed by lunch. Space is limited; reserve your tickets today!  Take advantage of this unparalleled opportunity for a behind-the-scenes look at the High’s American art collection while the Museum is closed to the public.  Support for Painters, Patrons, and Architects: Thomas Wilmer Dewing and the Gilded Age is provided by The Sara Giles Moore Foundation. Reserve tickets online or by calling the Box Office at 404-733-5000. For more information, please contact Erin Dowdy at 404-733-4527.

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DENVER ART MUSEUM

"A LOOK AROUND: FRAMING THE WEST

AT THE PETRIE INSTITUTE OF WESTERN AMERICAN ART"

Powerpoint by Tracy Gill, followed by discussion of framing for the Petrie Institute with Simeon Lagodich and Thomas Brent Smith, Director.

FLORENCE GRISWOLD MUSEUM

"What Goes Around...

Investigations into the Framing of American Art" 

A Special Training Day for Docents and Educators

Supported by the Sanderson Docent Fund

Keynote Lectures:

"American Frames Survey: Colonial to Modernist", Tracy Gill

"Impressionists' Frames", Susan Larkin, Independent Curator and Guest Curator for exhibition on the work of Matilda Browne.

Museum Frame Walks & Talks with Simeon Lagodich, Tracy Gill;  museum director, Jeffrey AndersEn & curator, Amy Kurtz Lansing.

Frame Gilding & Restoration Demonstrations, Yozo Suzuki, master gilder, Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames

The Metropolitan Museum of Art →

The William Cullen Bryant Fellows 

Private PRESENTATION & AMERICAN WING GALLERY WALK

american frames behind-the-scenes with a focus on exemplary period frames in the Metropolitan Museum collection.

Tracy Gill, powerpoint, "American frames: Colonial to Modernism".  Followed by extensive museum gallery walk and frames talk with Simeon Lagodich, Sylvia Yount, Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator in Charge of the American Wing, and Elizabeth kornhauser, alice pratt brown curator of american paintings and sculpture.

The Birmingham Museum of Art

A BETTER FRAME OF MIND

Hosted by the Birmingham Museum Friends of American Art 

Opening remarks by Gail Andrews, R. Hugh Daniel Director and Graham C. Boettcher, Chief Curator, Hulsey Curator American Art

KEYNOTE  TALK / POWERPOINT BY TRACY GILL

"AMERICAN FRAMES: COLONIAL TO MODERNIST"

FOLLOWED BY Q&A WITH SIMEON LAGODICH

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

MUSEUM SPOTLIGHT PROGRAM: AMERICAN ART

FOCUSING ON 18TH- TO 20TH-CENTURY FRAME STYLES AND CHANGING TASTES IN AMERICAN ART EXEMPLIFIED BY DIVERSE EXAMPLES FROM THE VMFA'S IMPRESSIVE COLLECTION of period frames including original artist frames and 24 paintings framed by Gill & lagodich

"AMERICAN FRAMES: COLONIAL TO MODERNIST"

Powerpoint lecture by Tracy Gill

Q&A with Simeon Lagodich

followed by Gallery Walk & Talk with Sylvia Yount, Chief Curator and Louise B. and J. Harwood cochrane Curator of American Art

ROCKWELL MUSEUM OF WESTERN ART

Silver Dollar Society, Annual Recognition Event

FUND RAISING INITIATIVE FOR REFRAMING THE MUSEUM'S IMPORTANT AMERICAN LANDSCAPE, ALBERT BIERSTADT'S "MOUNT WHITNEY", 1877, OIL ON CANVAS, 69" X 117"

"REFRAMING AN AMERICAN MASTERPIECE"

OVERVIEW OF AMERICAN FRAME HISTORY AND TRADITIONAL FABRICATION METHODS

Powerpoint lecture by Tracy Gill

Q&A with Simeon Lagodich and G&L studio director, Eric Tollefson. 

Note: for details about the year-long process of this important framing project see Past Projects "Reframing  'Mount Whitney'"

Initiatives in Art and Culture

17TH ANNUAL AMERICAN ART CONFERENCE

Graduate Center — City University of New York

"DEFINING AMERICA: PLACE, IDENTITY, IDEA"

TWO-DAY CONFERENCE EXPLORING AND CELEBRATING THREE CENTURIES OF THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN IDEALS AND OUR SENSE OF PLACE AND SELF AS MANIFEST IN THE NATION'S ART.

PANEL DISCUSSION WITH JOHN DRISCOLL, ART SCHOLAR & PRESIDENT, DRISCOLL BABCOCK GALLERIES; ROBIN JAFFEE FRANK, CHIEF CURATOR,WADSWORTH ANTHENEUM MUSEUM OF ART; TRACY GILL, FRAME SCHOLAR & CO-OWNER GILL & LAGODICH FINE PERIOD FRAMES & RESTORATION; AND SARAH ANSCHUTZ HUNT, DIRECTOR, THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF WESTERN ART — THE ANSCHUTZ COLLECTION.  JAMES W. TOTTIS, MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, MODERATOR.

Milwaukee Art Museum

CONSERVATION/FRAME SYMPOSIUM

“Join a group of curators, conservators, and framers to examine and discuss frames in art. Presenters include Tracy Gill and Simeon Lagodich (Gill & Lagodich Fine Period Frames) and Elizabeth Kennedy (Terra Foundation for American Art).”

"DETECTING AMERICAN FRAMES: IDENTIFYING CLUES FROM STYLE, FABRICATION, ART, & INTERIORS"

POWERPOINT LECTURE BY TRACY GILL

Q&A, MUSEUM GALLERY WALK WITH SIMEON LAGODICH

HIGH MUSEUM OF ART

"BEAUX ARTS AND CRAFTS: MASTERPIECES OF AMERICAN FRAME DESIGN 1890 – 1920"

(FRAMES FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF EDGAR O. SMITH)

PATRONS' OVERVIEW, PRESS CONFERENCE, AND GALLERY TALKS IN CONJUNCTION WITH EXHIBITION OPENING