Grant For LongHouse

The LongHouse Foundation in East Hampton has just been awarded $40,000 from the Henry Luce Foundation to support its initiative to develop a classification system for the decorative arts.

Jack Lenor Larsen, renowned textile designer and the founder of LongHouse, long ago recognized the difficulty of cataloguing the decorative arts without a common classification system, such as libraries use.

Each of the American decorative arts has an unusually diverse vocabulary, according to Mr. Larsen. Both historically and today, different terms are used to describe similar processes, materials, or construction.

He proposes a classification system based on method of fabrication and/or embellishment. Using the decimal system, catalogue numbers will be followed by a code of provenance and date of execution, similar to the library system.

LongHouse will use its own extensive collection of pottery, glassware, textiles, metalware, and other decorative arts as a case study. Mr. Larsen will direct the project and Matko Tomicic, LongHouse's director, and Sonja Nielsen, consultant librarian, will organize the cataloguing effort, which is already under way.