Portland State Magazine Winter 1991

A fascination with the colonies The English are charmed by the display of Americana found at the American Museum in Britain where a PSU alumnus serves as director. Article and photographs by Dana Holmes H ead west from London into Bath , across the River Avon , up steep winding roads lined with ancient hedges and crumbling stone fences, and you will soon reach Claverton Manor, the elegant Regency mansion where William McNaught ('66 BA) lives and works. When you spot the tepee and covered wagon, you ' ll know you' ve arri ved. Any other English country setting mi ght be marred by frontier sights, but they ' re an added attraction at the manor, the home of the American Museum in Britain , where McNaught is director. "Americans do visit, and they' re delighted," he says, "but 90 percent of our visitors are Engli sh and they ' re absolutely fasc inated. " The museum at Claverton Manor, situated two miles from Bath on 120 acres of beautifull y tended gardens and woodl ands, is the first comprehensive museum of Americana established outside the United States. It illustrates nearly 200 years of American hi story, from about 1680 to 1860. In addition to its 18 authentically furni shed period rooms, from a primitive Puritan keeping room to an ornate New Orleans bedroom from Civil War times, the museum houses one of the world 's finest collections of American patchwork quilts. It al so has wide-ranging collections of pewter, silver, glass, textiles and American folk art. McNaught, 47, took up his post in December, 1989, after 14 years as New York regional director of the Archives of American Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution. Although firml y settled in Manhattan, he was hardly a stranger to Britain. PSU 20 " I came to England every year or every other year during vacations in Europe," he says. "As an art hi storian I did what everyone does-v isit country hou ses and museums. Du ring the last few years in New York I had a project in Scotl and of microfilming the Whistler papers." McNaught ' s spec ialty is Engli sh and American art from 1750 to the present. He settles behind a simple wooden desk in hi s small offi ce upstairs at Claverton Manor as he mentall y retraces hi s route from Portland to Bath . Facing him is an eight foot high window overl ooking the lush Limpley Stoke Valley. "Takes your breath away," he says. A native Oregonian, McNaught enrolled at Pa r.l and State University after graduating from Central Catholic High School in 196 1. He regards PSU art hi story professor Leonard Kimball as a prime influence. " It was in hi s course I first studied the field- 1750 to the present-and he encouraged me to go on to Oberlin College for an art history degree. I' ve always been grateful to him ." Following hi s sophomore year at PSU, McNaught took a year off to travel in Europe and learn French. "London was a city I loved," he says. By 1967 he had returned to England on a travel grant, and completed a thesis on the Norwich School of Painters for hi s master's degree from Oberlin . In 1970 he attended The Attingham Summer School for the Study of the Engli sh Country House in London. "This was important in my career, as you study all aspects of country houses, with high caliber tutors and lecturers," he says. Foll owing curatorial positions with the Frick Collection in New York City, the Nassau County Museum of Fine Arts, and with the Smithsoni an Archi ves of American Art, McNaught applied for the American Museum Job in 1988 after the death of the museum 's first director, Ian McCallum, who had held the post since 1961 . McNaught had visited the museum on previous trips, and liked what he saw. He was passed over in the first round of interviews, but when the new director resigned after a single turbulent year, McNaught didn ' t hes itate when he was asked back permanently to head the museum . He recall s, "What impressed me most was the way the museum was laid out, how the rooms were constructed and the placement of the objects. It 's architecturally interestin5 as well." During a whirlwind tour of the museum, McNaught eases past knots of visitors and bounds up a grand central staircase, pointing out treasures at every tum . Pausing in one of several meticulously furni shed 18th century rooms, McNaught expl ains that compl ete rooms, including paneling, were shipped across the Atlantic and rebuilt in the manor, which dates from 1820. A guide wields a flashlight in the authentically dim 1700 New Hampshire li ving and dining room, directing visitors' attention to the folding bed and linen " valuables bag." The museum has 30 full-time and I00 part-time paid guides, McNaught explains, and most are local women. All greet him warmly as he breezes through. He stops to admire a 15-foot-square Baltimore bride's quilt in a room that di splays hooked rugs, coverlets and loomed homespun in addition to dozens of colorful quilts. And in a di splay of cabinetmaker's art he points out a handsome Philadelphia mahogany lowboy made in 1770. "This was lent by the Metropolitan Museum of