Lecture Series

Made possible with the generous support and assistance of the Wolfsonian-FIU and our stellar line-up of speakers. This year’s lectures are centered around our festival theme: “Art Deco Celebrates the Radio”

FRIDAY, JAN 14TH

DECO RADIO: THE MOST BEAUTIFUL RADIOS EVER MADE 12 pm - 1:30 pm Peter Sheridan BROADCAST HYSTERIA: ORSON WELLES’S WAR OF THE WORLDS AND THE ART OF FAKE NEWS 12 pm - 1:30 pm A Brad Schwartz

This lecture will be prerecorded and made available online. Register at artdecoweekend. com to receive a link to the video

This is the untold story of the Art Deco radio and the extraordinary contributions of famous industrial designers in the 1930s, who contributed so much to the development of radio and the world-wide spread of the Art Deco style. Enjoy a look at the most beautiful radios ever made.

Peter Sheridan has been in general dental practice in Macquarie Street Sydney, Australia since 1971. An accredited professional photographer specializing in fine art, Peter is also an internationally respected collector, historian and lecturer in the field of Art Deco design. His collections are considered world class and have been displayed by the National Gallery of Victoria and featured by the The National Trust and the Historic Houses Trust. He is the author of 4 major award-winning photographic reference books on design and architecture: Radio Days (2008); Deco Radio (2014); Sydney Art Deco (2019) and\ Sydney Art Deco & Modernist Walks – Potts Point & Elizabeth Bay (2021)

In 2001 Peter was honored by the Australian government and awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his work with people with Multiple Sclerosis. Peter is an avid tennis player competing in Australia and overseas in Masters’ tournaments. This lecture will be prerecorded and made available online. Register at artdecoweekend. com to receive a link to the video

In Broadcast Hysteria, A. Brad Schwartz boldly retells the story of Welles’s famed radio play and its impact. Did it really spawn a “wave of mass hysteria,” as The New York Times reported? Schwartz is the first to examine the hundreds of letters sent to Orson Welles himself in the days after the broadcast, and his findings challenge the conventional wisdom.

A. Brad Schwartz is a doctoral candidate at Princeton University, studying 20th century American history with a special interest in questions of media and journalism, law and policing, and the cultural production of history. His undergraduate thesis at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor explored Orson Welles’s 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast, drawing upon an untapped trove of listener letters to challenge the standard narrative of the so-called “panic broadcast.” This research became the basis for his first book, Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News (Hill and Wang, 2015). In 2013, he co-wrote a documentary about War of the Worlds for the PBS series American Experience, based in part on his thesis research. His second book, Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago, co-written with Max Allan Collins, was published by William Morrow in 2018.

SATURDAY, JAN 15TH

SOUND AND VISION: A CONVERSATION WITH A RADIO COLLECTOR 11 am – 12 pm Harvey Mattel & Michael Hughes Wolfsonian-FIU, 1001 Washington Ave

Beginning with a small, streamlined radio he spotted at an antique show, South Florida collector Harvey Mattel built a collection of radios that now numbers in the many hundreds and includes some of the most coveted receivers in existence. In conversation with Wolfsonian development director Michael Hughes, Mattel will reveal what sparked his passion for radios, share how his collecting interests have evolved, and speak about some of the most significant pieces he has acquired over the years.

WHEN RADIO WAS NEW: JOHN VASSOS & DESIGN FOR MASS MEDIA 1 pm – 2 pm Danielle Shapiro Wolfsonian-FIU, 1001 Washington Ave DECO FOR A DEMAGOGUE: FATHER COUGHLIN’S SHRINE OF THE LITTLE FLOWER 3 pm - 4 pm Frank Luca & Shoshana Resnikoff Wolfsonian-FIU, 1001 Washington Ave

The Shrine of the Little Flower, a Catholic church built in the Art Deco style outside Detroit, was the center of a radio empire started by Father Charles Coughlin that reached up to 30 million Americans each week in the 1930s. Originally an advocate of President Roosevelt’s New Deal and critic of the Ku Klux Klan, Coughlin turned to anti-Semitism and support for fascism by the end of the decade. In a talk that reveals the links between design, politics, and power, Wolfsonian chief librarian Frank Luca and curator Shoshana Resnikoff will trace Coughlin’s role in American life and shed light on how religion and rhetoric shaped the Deco design of his church.

What should a radio look like? How should a tuning dial feel to the touch? More than a half-century before the iPhone, pioneering industrial designer John Vassos addressed these questions, recognizing that the right answers could mitigate fears about new media technologies and inspire people to welcome them into their homes. Danielle Shapiro, author of a book about Vassos, will show how he contributed to the shape of radio and television receivers as a lead consultant to RCA in an age when these devices revolutionized how Americans consumed information and entertainment. LIMITED SEATING. FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED.

SUNDAY, JAN 16TH

FONTAINEBLEAU HOTEL: IMAGINING PARADISE 1 pm - 2 pm Joel Levine Art Deco Museum, 1001 Ocean Drive

The Fontainebleau Hotel is a Miami Beach icon appearing in more than a dozen Hollywood fi lms, representi ng both the city’s splendid glory and sordid historical past. Uti lizing movie clips and other archival material, Joel will explore the meaning of architecture in American cinema and then reconstruct the history of the Fontainebleau while exploring the themes of architectural beauty, status, racism and anti semiti sm.

Joel Levine is a Tour Guide and Board Member of the Miami Design Preservati on League. Prior to reti ring from a career in medical and educati onal administrati on, he collected and restored radios and televisions from the Art Deco and Mid Century Modern periods (1925-1970). Joel uses unconventi onal sources, including movie clips and picture postcards to tell a story about a place and its people. He has presented in Miami Beach, Tel Aviv, Mauriti us and Napier, New Zealand. SPOTLIGHT ON ART IN PUBLIC PLACES 3 pm - 4 pm Deborah Desilets Art Deco Museum, 1001 Ocean Drive

In the 1930s art and nati onal symbolism converged within the Federal Arts Projects, or the WPA Projects, that supported the values of the American Public. The great Depression and these Arts Projects changed the relati onship between art and the public and are the harbinger of the relati onships of art in the public realm today. Federal Arts Projects aimed to express American civic pride; today there are challenges to those very arts works as values in the public have changed greatly.

This lecture addresses Morris Lapidus’s life-long batt le for ornamentati on in architecture. The intenti on is to look at the ornaments, their symbolism, and the lasti ng quality of the messages in his art pieces for public consumpti on in his early hotels on Miami Beach, and his lasti ng contributi on to the art experience on Lincoln Road.

Deborah Desilets is a registered architect, curator of the Morris Lapidus Exhibiti on, and steward of the Morris Lapidus archives.

LIMITED SEATING. FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED.