Independent scholar Eve M. Kahn, former Antiques Columnist at The New York Times, writes about art, architecture, and design for the Times among other publications. She is biographer of artist Mary Rogers Williams (1857-1907) and writer Zoe Anderson Norris (1860-1914).
Published Work
Forever Seeing New Beauties:
The Forgotten Impressionist
Mary Rogers Williams, 1857–1907
Revolutionary artist Mary Rogers Williams (1857—1907), a baker's daughter from Hartford, Connecticut, biked and hiked from the Arctic Circle to Naples, exhibited from Paris to Indianapolis, trained at the Art Students League, chafed against art world rules that favored men, wrote thousands of pages about her travels and work, taught at Smith College for nearly two decades, but sadly ended up obscure. The book reproduces her unpublished artworks that capture pensive gowned women, Norwegian slopes reflected in icy waters, saw-tooth rooflines on French chateaus, and incense hazes in Italian chapels, and it offers a vivid portrayal of an adventurer, defying her era's expectations. Awards from Connecticut League of History Organizations, Connecticut Center for the Book, Sarton Women’s Book Award.
Review
of Forever Seeing New Beauties
“Eve Kahn has created a vivid portrait of an artist who was too self-effacing to paint one of herself. Grounded in New England pastoralism, European decadence, art salon politicking, and misogynistic backstabbing, the story of Mary Rogers Williams is one of significant toughness.”
Julie Lasky, journalist, author, and critic
Selected Articles
African-American Artists’ Muse: Hettie Anderson (1873-1938)
A Pilot and Holocaust Survivors Bound by the Fabric of War are Reunited in Brooklyn
There Are People Who Pay Thousands for the Empty Pill Bottles of Dead Celebrities
Edith Varian Cockcroft (1881-1962): Traveling to see what is around the corner
Annie Traquair Lang (1885-1918): A portrait takes shape
Chinese art collectors highlight family stories
Experience
Historian/Journalist
Antiques columnist for The New York Times (weekly, 2008-2016), regular contributor to Times sections (Design, Arts, etc. since 1987); hundreds of articles published in, among other outlets, The Magazine Antiques (advisory board), Apollo, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal (Architecture Critic, 1991–1995)
Contributing Editor and/or
Staff Book Reviewer
House Beautiful (2006–2009), I.D. (International Design, 2002–2009), ICON (World Monuments Fund’s quarterly, 2003–2008), Style 1900 (2000–2008), Interiors (1998–2001), Traditional Building and Period Homes (1988–2012)
Based in Budapest, 1995–99
Education
Harvard University
A.B. in Romance Languages and Literatures, 1984; Magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. Semester at Sorbonne, full scholarship
Awards
Victorian Society New York, Advocacy Award, 2023
For 2019 biography of Mary Rogers Williams: Award of Merit, Connecticut League of History Organizations; Connecticut Center for the Book, Finalist, Spirit of Connecticut Award; Sarton Women’s Book Award
Society of American Archivists, J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award, 2012
National Endowment for the Arts, Design Arts Grant, 1988, for Hallowed Ground: Lost Cemeteries of Queens
Exhibit about widespread destruction and occasional preservation of tiny family-owned graveyards, shown at the Municipal Art Society and Queens Historical Society
Book
Forever Seeing New Beauties: The Forgotten Impressionist Mary Rogers Williams, 1857-1907, Wesleyan University Press, 2019. Winner, Sarton Women’s Book Award, prizes from Connecticut Center for the Book and Connecticut League of History Organizations. Reviewed positively in publications including Vogue.
Miscellany
Board Memberships
Grolier Club (chair Special Functions committee), Art Glass Forum | New York (president, 2019-21), Victorian Society New York (vice-president), Poster House (advisor), Historic Districts Council (advisor), Lotus Garden (co-president), Friends of the Erben Organ (advisor), CUNY’s Women Writing Women’s Lives (steering committee)
Curator/Editor/Essayist/Exhibition Advisor
2023: To Fight for the Poor with My Pen: Zoe Anderson Norris, Queen of Bohemia, exhibition at Grolier Club; 2018: “The Women Makers,” Modern Americana (Rizzoli); “Zsolnay, Galileo Chini, Rick Owens,” 30 for 30 (Jason Jacques Gallery); 2016: Foreword, Robert Winthrop Chanler: Discovering the Fantastic (Monacelli Press); 2014: ‘Forever Seeing New Beauties’: The Art of Mary Rogers Williams, 1857-1907, Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Conn.; 2009: Exhibit texts, Zsolnay Art Pottery (Forbes Galleries), How They Lived: Photos of Hungarian Jewish Life (92nd Street Y); 2007: I.D. magazine, ornament theme issue (Folio 2007 gold medal, editorial excellence, B2B design magazines); 2006: Zsolnay Art Pottery: The Gyugyi Collection (Helikon) 2002: Chrysler Design Awards (Magazine Works); 2001: Graphic Design History (Allworth Press); Budapest 1900-2000, Parliament House of Hungary; 1997: Budapest Then and Now (Budapest Business Journal)
Juror
I.D. Annual Design Review (2004–2009), ICA&CA Ross Awards (2004), Alliance for Downtown N.Y. (1996), justice-theme garden in L.A. (1995), Harvard Graduate School of Design studio (1994), American Institute of Architects (AIA)/CT awards (1993)
Symposium Panelist/Lecturer
Park Avenue Armory, Landmark West!, Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, Museum at Eldridge Street, etc. (2023-2024): “Zoe Anderson Norris, Queen of Bohemia”; Preservation Society of Newport County, University Club, Landmark West!, College Art Association (2021-2022): “Hettie Anderson (1873-1938), Artists’ Model and Enigma”; 2019-2022: lectures re Mary Rogers Williams book at venues including Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Arts Club, Edith Wharton’s The Mount, Preservation Society of Newport County; Sharon (CT) Historical Society (2020): “On the Trail of Artist Alethea Hill Platt (1860-1932)”; Poster House (2018): “Nazi Poster Thieves”; Harmony Hall, Sloatsburg, NY (2018): “Edith Varian Cockcroft Rediscovered”; Brooklyn Historical Society (2015): “Collecting Stories of African American Civil War Soldiers”; Historic Northampton, Mass. (2015): “The Mysterious Lathrop Sisters”; Florence Griswold Museum (Old Lyme, Conn.), Brooklyn Historical Society, Smith College (2014): “The Impressionist in the Boathouse: How I Rediscovered the 19th-Century Painter Mary Rogers Williams”; Vizcaya Museum, Miami (2014): “Robert Winthrop Chanler”; School of Visual Arts/Design Criticism: guest lecturer (2011, 2010); ICA&A: “Adventures in Restoration” (2010), “Bronx Zoo Lion House Restoration” (2008), “From the Offices” (2005), “Of Our Time: Changing Attitudes in Historic Preservation” (2004); Portsmouth (N.H.) Music Hall (2008): “Reimagining an American Treasure”; Museum of the City of New York (2007): “The Bungalows of Rockaway”; HDC: “The Bungalows of Rockaway” (2012); “Evolution of Sickness: New York Hospital Architecture” (2006), “Dead in New York: Cemetery Preservation” (2005), “Working with the Press” (2004)
Fluent in French, working knowledge of Spanish and Hungarian