The Vivien Greene Doll's House Collection

by Vivien Greene, Margaret Towner, Nick Nicholson (Photographer)

Vivien Greene has for the last forty years been the undisputed authority on English dolls' houses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. England inherited its interest in making and furnishing what were then called 'baby' houses from Holland and Germany at the end of the seventeenth century, but it was not until Mrs. Greene had undertaken her private research that it came to light that the British Isles also possessed a wealth of beautiful and interesting examples. In fact the current worldwide interest in dolls' houses by enthusiasts and museum departments alike can be traced directly to Vivien Greene's research in the post-war period. Since the 1940s, Vivien Greene has made hundreds of visits in pursuit of houses, recording their architecture and furnishings. Part of the results of her analysis were published in her two early books English Dolls' Houses of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries and Family Dolls' Houses. Her exploration of the subject also took her to the former German Democratic Republic, to the regions where most of the early toy furniture originated, and to the United States, where her name is well known. During the same period, she was herself acquiring houses, sometimes with their original furnishings, sometimes sadly neglected. Her collection grew, and eventually came to be housed in the Rotunda, a specially designed building in the garden of her house at Oxford, which for many years has been open to those interested on summer Sunday afternoons. Famous throughout the international community of collectors and enthusiasts, the Rotunda collection draws expert visitors from all over the world. Now that dolls' houses have come to be widely appreciated, it is most unlikely that a private collection of this quality, size and variety could ever be made again. This book offers a fully illustrated view of all the houses in this unique museum and their contents, with Vivien Greene's own memories and interpretation. It will provide a vital per

Hardcover

First published November 1, 1995

About the author

Vivien Greene has been a Guggenheim curator since 1993 and specializes in late 19th- and early 20th-century European art with concentrations in Italian modernism and international currents in turn-of-the-century art and culture. She most recently organized the exhibitions Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe (2014) and The Avant-Gardes of Fin-de-Siècle Paris: Signac, Bonnard, Redon, and Their Contemporaries (2013). Among her other exhibition projects are The Vorticists: Rebel Artists in London and New York, 1914–18 (coorganized with Mark Antliff; 2010–11); Utopia Matters: From Brotherhoods to Bauhaus (2010); and Divisionism/Neo-Impressionism: Arcadia and Anarchy (2007).

In addition to the catalogues associated with her exhibitions, Greene’s latest publications include “John Quinn and Vorticist Painting: The Eye (and Purse) of an American Collector,” in Vorticism: New Perspectives, ed. Mark Antliff and Scott W. Klein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); “Bizantium and Emporium: Fine Secolo Magazines in Rome and Milan,” in The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines, vol. 3, Europe 1880–1940, ed. Peter Brooker, Sascha Bru, Andrew Thacker, and Christian Weikop (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); “The ‘Other’ Africa: Giuseppe Pitrè’s Mostra Etnografica Siciliana (1891–92),” Journal of Modern Italian Studies 17, no. 3 (June 2012); and “Utopia/Dystopia,” American Art Journal 25, no. 2 (Summer 2011).

Greene was the recipient of a Bogliasco Fellowship in 2009, and in 2003 received a Fulbright Travel Grant to Italy and a predoctoral Rome Prize Fellowship in Modern Italian Studies at the American Academy in Rome. She regularly organizes and presents papers at scholarly symposia, and has cochaired sessions at the annual College Art Association conference and other events. She serves on the Center for Italian Modern Art’s Advisory Committee and the Bogliasco Foundation’s Selection Committee, and was a trustee of the Association of Art Museum Curators (2006–11). She has a Ph.D. in art history, and focused on 19th-century European art.