‘It Will be Like Enchantment’ – John Gardner Low’s Art Tiles in the Victorian Age

Our June HRC meeting will feature scholar, archivist and librarian Richard Pennington, presenting the fascinating story of the Low Art Tile Company of Chelsea, Massachusetts, an important and influential maker of high quality ceramics between 1878 and 1904. His presentation will focus on the use of these beautiful tiles in architecture, and will also examines John Gardner Low’s extraordinary friendships with a number of the most gifted American artists in the last 25 years of the 19th century.

Richard Pennington was a reference librarian and archivist at the Boston Globe Library from 1981-2007; he managed the newspaper's century-old clipping morgue and assisted reporters writing books about John Kerry, Oliver North, Charles Ponzi, Richard Nixon, Edward Kennedy, Ted Williams, and other subjects. Mr. Pennington received a B.A. in History from the University of Illinois and an M.L.S. from Simmons College. He and his wife, Mary McCarthy, lived for more than a decade in her grandparent's Chelsea home that had two fireplace surrounds made by the Low Art Tile Company, and he is the author of "Low Art Tile, John Gardner Low & The Artists of Boston's Gilded Age," self-published in 2010.

For those who qualify, 1.5 LUs are available.

To learn more about the Historic Resources Committee, visit architects.org/committees/historic-resources-committee

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