Now entering its sixth year, the Charleston Antiques Symposium provides members of the public with a venue for learning about the decorative arts of the past. It also serves as a living laboratory for students in the Arts Management Program at the College of Charleston School of the Arts.

The 2003 Symposium will take place from March 13-16, 2003, with preview satellite sessions on Kiawah Island on Wednesday, March 12, 2003. With most of the sessions taking place in historic structures and in classrooms on the College of Charleston’s campus, you will find our schedule to be both manageable and exciting. Our theme, “About Charleston,” will interest both novices and connoisseurs by focusing on decorative arts and architecture from Charleston.

In recognition of the significance of the new book, "The Furniture of Charleston 1680 - 1820," Bradford L. Rauschenberg, Senior Fellow at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) in Winston-Salem, N.C., and co-author of the book, will be the opening night speaker, the keynote speaker, and the first speaker during Saturday's sessions. Each of his lectures will correspond to one of the three volumes of the book. This publication, which is to be released in March 2003, is the result of twenty-five years of research sponsored by MESDA. Like his co-author, the late John Bivins, Jr., Rauschenberg has been a prior speaker for the Symposium.

Other Symposium speakers include Ted Landsmark, President of the Boston Architectural Center; Robert Leath of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation; Maurie McInnis of the University of Virginia; George Williams of Estate Antiques; and Robert Russell, Co-Director of the College of Charleston's Historic Preservation and Community Planning Program. The event on Kiawah Island will feature author Susan Sully, who will present a lecture focusing on the differences between "Charleston Style" and "Savannah Style." She will be joined by Graham Long of the Charleston Museum, who will speak about objects in the Museum's collections, and Jan Goin, an appraiser, who will discuss Charleston Renaissance prints.

If you have any questions about the 2003 Charleston Antiques Symposium, please telephone Michael W. Haga at (843) 953-7766 or send an e-mail message to him at hagam@cofc.edu. He will be happy to answer your questions about the Symposium.