Join Us!
The 23rd Annual Iris Foundation Awards Luncheon
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Noon until 2:30 pm
Colony Club, Park Avenue, New York City


Bard Graduate Center Founder and Director Susan Weber created the Iris Foundation Awards in 1997 to recognize scholars, patrons, and professionals who have made outstanding contributions to the study and appreciation of the decorative arts, design history, and material culture.

On April 17, 2019, we proudly honor:

Marina Kellen French, Outstanding Patron
Jeffrey Munger, Outstanding Lifetime Achievement
Dr. Laurie Wilkie, Outstanding Mid-Career Scholar
Alessandra Di Castro, Outstanding Dealer

Proceeds benefit the Bard Graduate Center Scholarship Fund.



Individual Tickets: $1,000/$600/$400 ($150 non tax-deductible)


For tables of 10: $4,000/$6,000/$25,000 ($1,500 non tax-deductible), please call Patricia Ann Neely at 212.501.3058.

Can’t attend? Please consider making a fully tax-deductible contribution.

About the Iris Awards 2019 Honorees

Marina Kellen French, Outstanding Patron
An avid supporter of the arts and humanities, both in the United States and abroad, Marina Kellen French is vice president of the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation; president of the Marina Kellen French Foundation; a managing director of the Metropolitan Opera; a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, Carnegie Hall, Hospital for Special Surgery, and the American Academy in Berlin; and a life trustee of the Morgan Library and Museum and WNET Channel 13. In 2014, Ms. Kellen French received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (First Class) of the Federal Republic of Germany for her outstanding work in German-American relations.

Jeffrey Munger, Outstanding Lifetime Achievement
From 2000 to 2017, Jeffrey Munger served as curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he curated a number of exhibitions including Global by Design: Chinese Ceramics from the R. Albuquerque Collection (2016) and Imperial Privilege: Vienna Porcelain of Du Paquier, 1718-44 (2009). His articles have appeared in The French Porcelain Society Journal, Quaderni: Amici di Doccia, and the catalogue for the Met’s exhibition Watteau, Music, and Theatre. Through the Met, he was a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and an exchange curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Munger has served on the faculty of the Cooper Hewitt and Smithsonian Design Museum and is a past president and chairman of the board of the American Ceramic Circle.

Dr. Laurie Wilkie, Outstanding Mid-Career Scholar
Dr. Laurie Wilkie, professor of archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley, explores how nineteenth- and twentieth-century expressions of social difference, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sex, socioeconomics, and politics can be understood through the materiality of everyday life. Her books include The Archaeology of Mothering: An African-American Midwife’s Tale (2003), The Lost Boys of Zeta Psi: A Historical Archaeology of Masculinity in a University Fraternity (2010), and Strung Out on Archaeology (2014). Her current research focuses on the ways black soldiers navigated the racialized landscapes of the western frontier and military life and the ways they deployed material items to express their status as United States citizens.

Alessandra Di Castro, Outstanding Dealer
Alessandra Di Castro hails from a family of highly regarded Italian antique dealers whose eponymous gallery in Rome specializes in Italian decorative and fine arts that evoke the grandeur of Roman classicism throughout history. As a complement to her family’s traditional spheres of interest, she also exhibits twentieth-century Italian avant-garde art and design. The director of Museo Ebraico di Roma (Jewish Museum of Rome) for many years, she was recently named president of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for the Jewish Museum of Rome. She also serves on the boards of the Italian Antique Dealers’ Association and Biennale Internazionale dell’Antiquariato di Firenze. Ms. Di Castro shows annually at TEFAF (New York and Maastricht) and the Masterpiece Fair in London. In partnership with Paris-based Galerie Kugel and Galerie Brimo De Laroussilhe, she holds several exhibitions in New York each year.

2019 Iris Award Sponsors

Mrs. Marina Kellen French

Mr. Andrew S. Gundlach and Mrs. Barbara Gundlach

Mr. David Mann

Ms. Beatrix Medinger and Mr. Gregor Medinger

Ms. Barbara Nessim and Mr. Jules Demchick

Mrs. Deedee Wigmore and Mr. Barrie Wigmore

2019 Iris Award Host Committee

Dr. Colin B. Bailey

Ms. Candace Beinecke and Mr. Rick Beinecke

Mrs. Michele Beiny-Harkins

Mr. Edward Lee Cave

Ms. Nina Diefenbach

Mrs. Nancy Druckman

Mr. Philip D. English

Mr. Tim Ettenheim

Ms. Angela Goding

Ms. Carol B. Grossman

Ms. Agnes Gund

Mrs. Vivian Haime Barg

Mr. Philip Hewat-Jaboor

Ms. Holly Hotchner

Dr. Wolfram Koeppe

Ms. Trudy C. Kramer

Mr. Benjamin Krevolin and Mr. John Sare

Mr. Martin Levy

Ms. Jennifer Oshin MA ’98

Ms. Melinda Florian Papp

Park Avenue Armory

Ms. Lisa B. Podos

Ms. Emily K. Rafferty

Sir Paul Ruddock

Mrs. Ellen Taubman and Mr. Bill Taubman

Dr. Ian Wardropper

Ms. Shelby White

The Hon. Kimba Wood and Mr. Frank E. Richardson, III