WASHINGTON, DC.- Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens announced the promotions of Wilfried Zeisler to the role of chief curator and Estella Chung to director of collections, effective immediately.
Overseeing the areas of collections management and conservation, the research library, and the archives, Chung will also continue in her role of curator of American material culture, historian, and head of the oral history program, ensuring a synergy between Hillwood’s history and the collections that furthers Hillwood’s mission to engage and delight future generations. As chief curator, Zeisler will lead the areas of collections research, stewardship, and acquisitions; publications; and special exhibitions. He will keep the areas of Russian and 19th-century art within his personal curatorial portfolio, and direct and advance the Liana Paredes Fellows Program at Hillwood.
Chung and Zeisler replace former chief curator and director of collections, Liana Paredes, who died in March after a long illness.
“One need only to experience our current special exhibition, Spectacular Gems and Jewelry from the Merriweather Post Collection, to grasp how profoundly Liana Paredes shaped Hillwood’s curatorial vision,” explained executive director, Kate Markert. “Not only did she have a keen eye for maximizing the splendor of our collection, she had a keen eye for talent as well. The considerable knowledge and experience that she nurtured at Hillwood with Wilfried and Estella illustrated that and in their new roles, they will continue the work to develop and strengthen the growing stature of Hillwood’s collection, exhibitions, and publications programs.”
Chung has been curator of material culture, historian, and head of the oral history program at Hillwood since 2007. Her extensive research into Hillwood’s archives and documents at the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan, which houses the Post family papers, resulted in the book Living Artfully: At Home with Marjorie Merriweather Post, published in 2013. Fully illustrated with an abundance of photographs, hand-written and typed notes, menus, invitation cards, and other ephemera—much of which was published for the first time—the book followed Post’s yearly calendar, offering a vibrant and detailed account of life in each of Post’s three grand residences. The publication, now in its fifth printing, was timed to the presentation of a special exhibition at Hillwood, which Chung also curated. In 2016, she was the in-house curator for the traveling exhibition Deco Japan: Shaping Art and Culture. She lectures around the country about Post’s historic estates, with an emphasis on the legacy she left at Hillwood in Washington, D.C. Chung has been co-chair of Hillwood’s publications committee and is currently working on a new Marjorie Post biography.
Prior to Hillwood, Chung co-curated the exhibition Once Upon a Time in Italy: The Westerns of Sergio Leone (2005) at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles, at the time, the largest artifact-based exhibition ever devoted to a director of cinema. Chung received her master of arts degree in American Civilization from Brown University and a bachelor of arts in American Culture from the University of Michigan. She also studied American Studies at the University of Sussex, England and is an alumna of the Attingham Summer School for the study of historic houses in Britain.
Zeisler has been curator of Russian and 19th-century art since 2014. With an academic background in French 19th-century art in the Russian court, Zeisler has brought significant professional and academic expertise to this area at Hillwood. As curator, Zeisler has been actively administering the acquisitions and exhibitions efforts at Hillwood. He was curator of the special exhibitions Splendor and Surprise: Elegant Containers, Antique to Modern, in 2015; and Konstantin Makovsky: The Tsar’s Painter, for which he also co-authored an accompanying publication. Continuing to oversee Hillwood’s dynamic special exhibitions program, Zeisler’s next project will be the special exhibition, Fabergé Rediscovered, opening in June 2018, and an accompanying publication of the same title.
Zeisler received his doctoral degree in art history from Sorbonne University, Paris, with a dissertation on “The Purchases of French objets d’art by the Russian Court, 1881-1917,” offering a dual perspective on French and Russian decorative arts in the context of political, commercial and artistic interactions of the time. He is also a graduate of the École du Louvre and has written extensively on the decorative arts in France and Russia, including a 2010 book on ceramics and several articles. His dissertation was published in Paris in 2014. He has curated and participated in exhibitions in Paris and Monaco, including Moscow Splendours of the Romanovs (2009) and Magnificence & Grandeur of the Royal Houses in Europe (2011).
