WASHINGTON, DC.- Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens has appointed two new curators to manage, research, and publish on areas of Hillwood’s collection and further develop the dynamic special exhibitions program. Associate curator of 18th-century French and Western European fine and decorative arts, Rebecca Tilles will spearhead exhibitions, publications, and acquisitions related to Hillwood’s collection of 18th-century French and Western European art. Megan Martinelli Campbell, as the new assistant curator of apparel, jewelry, and accessories, will manage and research Hillwood’s collection of more than 175 dresses and over 300 accessories, all acquired and left to Hillwood by Marjorie Merriweather Post. Both curators began their work at HIllwood in February.

“Marjorie Post had a discerning eye for the finest and most important works of 18th-century France and imperial Russia and left them for the benefit of the public at Hillwood,” explained Dr. Wilfried Zeisler, Hillwood’s chief curator. “With great insight, she also left to Hillwood the most important examples of apparel and accessories she acquired over the years and today they offer added perspective into her life as a collector and connoisseur. We’re always learning more about these important areas of Hillwood’s collection, so we are thrilled that Rebecca and Megan will apply their exceptional backgrounds and talents to ensure the public continues to be educated and inspired as Post intended.”

Tilles is currently a doctoral candidate in art history at the University of Sussex, with a dissertation on the collection and collecting partnership of German-born banker and collector George Blumenthal (1858-1941) and his wife Florence Meyer (1873-1930) who together amassed an important collection of medieval, Renaissance, and 18th-century French works of art in both New York and France. Tilles completed substantial original research at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, and the Archives de Paris and Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Prior to her Ph.D. studies, Tilles was a curatorial research fellow in the art of Europe department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she assisted with the exhibitions Splendor and Elegance: European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection (2009) and Symbols of Power: Art of the Empire Style, 1800-1815 (2007). In 2007, she received a Master of Arts degree in European decorative arts from the Bard Graduate Center, where she completed her thesis on the reconstruction of Marie-Antoinette’s corbeille de marriage. She has a bachelor’s degree in French and French cultural studies from Wellesley College and has completed the third year of the Premier Cycle at the Ecole du Louvre, which included coursework in 17th-to 20th-century painting, decorative art, sculpture, and architecture.

Coming to Hillwood from the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Campbell was previously a research assistant there, where she assisted with a complete assessment of the institute’s 19th- and 20th-century collections, researching and presenting hundreds of garments and accessories for curatorial consideration. She assisted with the installation of the special exhibitions, Manus X Machina: Fashion in the Age of Technology (2016), and China: Through the Looking Glass (2015). Prior to the Costume Institute, Campbell worked with the historic textiles and costumes collection at The University of Rhode Island, where she selected and interpreted a rotation of objects for display. Her work in highlighting the influence of menswear on women’s clothing was incorporated into the exhibition, Subject to Change: Art and Design in the Twentieth Century. At the University of Rhode Island, she was also the co-curator and designer for the special exhibitions The Other White Dress: Non-Wedding Gowns of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (2014) and Five Rhode Island Families (2011). Campbell holds a Master of Arts and Sciences degree in textiles, fashion merchandising, and design from the University of Rhode Island and received her bachelor’s degree in English literature from Providence College.

In addition to conducting new research on their areas of Hillwood’s collection, the new curators are organizing upcoming exhibitions. Tilles’s first project at Hillwood is the exhibition Perfume and Seduction (working title). Opening February 2019, the special exhibition will showcase the finest examples of 18th-century perfume bottles, gold boxes, porcelain, figurines, and other luxury items from Hillwood’s collection, in conjunction with fine objects from the private European collection of Givaudan, the Swiss manufacturer of flavors, fragrances, and active cosmetic ingredients, founded in 1898 by the French brothers, Xavier (1867-1966) and Léon Givaudan (1875-1936). Campbell has taken over the organization of an exhibition of works by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, who famously photographed Marjorie Merriweather Post, in addition to a host of other important 20th-century figures, to open in June 2019.