Artistic Authorities: Events Featuring Experts, Connoisseurs & Enthusiasts of the Art World

By Troy Segal

From curators to collectors, from scholars to shop owners, these experts in the fine and decorative arts provide education, inspiration — or, at the very least, a good old vicarious thrill.

Putting On A Show: East 10th Street between Broadway and University Place is chock-a-block with antique furniture stores, which are throwing open their doors for an open-house evening, Sept. 10 … The event should whet your appetite for an even bigger display, the New York Art Antique & Jewelry Show, Sept. 17-21, within the historic confines of the Park Avenue Armory. Sept. 18 features a day of lectures on design and decorating sponsored by the New York School of Interior Design.

Name That Tune: Learn about the inner workings of a 19th-century piano, made in New York and once a necessity in every parlor, as described by musical instrument conservator and author Stewart Pollens, at the Merchant House Museum, Sept. 30.

Above: Georges Seurat (French,1859–1891), Circus Sideshow, 1887–88. Oil on canvas; 39 1/4 x 59 in. (99.7 x 149.9 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Bequest of Stephen C. Clark, 1960 (61.101.17)

Art Lovers: Throughout the 20th century, the name “Clark” was synonymous with the word “collector”—it represented two brothers, rival art aficionados, who each built impressive portfolios of painting and sculpture (one of which formed the basis of the Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts). Learn more about these aesthetic siblings at a Metropolitan Museum of Art lecture, Oct. 8 … That same day, at the Met: Philippe de Montebello, longstanding director of the museum (and now its Director Emeritus), discusses a few of his favorite things in sculpture and painting.

Colorful Couturier: The life of Elsa Schiaparelli (above) was as offbeat and original as her clothing designs, which rivaled Chanel’s in prestige and desirability in the 1930s. Biographer Meryle Secrest relates the scandalous stories behind the stiches, Oct. 14, at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Avatars of Art Deco: Study the designs of three pre-World War I French architects — Henri Sauvage, Auguste Perret, and Robert Mallet-Stevens — whose groundbreaking buildings offered early examples of le style moderne (aka Art Deco) in this illustrated lecture, co-sponsored by the Beaux Arts Alliance and the Art Deco Society, Nov. 17.