Party Pictures 12/3/03 - Rolex America's Cup, Visionaries

10th Annual Visionaries! Gala Benefit

L. to r.: Barbara and Donald Tober; Arlene Dahl and Marc Rosen; Paul and Kathy Charron.

The Museum of Arts & Design (formerly American Craft Museum) held its 10th annual Visionaries! Awards at the Hilton New York, celebrating individuals who have advanced the fields of craft, decorative arts and design.

Visionaries! is the Museum’s most important annual benefit and helps underwrite educational and public programs, as well as future exhibitions. This year Visionaries! are corporate honoree Paul R. Charron, a fashion industry executive, and architect-designer Michael Graves and sculptor Ruth Duckworth, who will receive lifetime achievement awards. Honorary Chair for the event was First Lady Libby Pataki.

Honorees:

Paul R. Charron, Chairman and CEO of Liz Claiborne, Inc, has leveraged major support, not only for the Museum’s mission and programs, but for those of many other cultural institutions. His corporate support of the arts has distinguished him as a leader in this community.

Michael Graves, an internationally known contemporary architect and designer, and a professor at Princeton University for almost 40 years, has made outstanding contributions to his fields through his innovative and whimsical approach to product design.

Ruth Duckworth, one of America’s leading ceramic artists, has been inspiring national and international audiences for over 50 years with small-scale and major public commissions in clay and bronze.

Paul Charron, Barbara Tober, Michael Graves, Ruth Duckworth, and Holly Hotchner

Nanette Laitman and Stuart Lasdon

Past honorees:

Among the Museum’s past Visionaries! were designers Geoffrey Beene and Todd Oldham; artists Dale Chihuly, Wendell Castle, Stanislav Libensk and Jaroslava Brychtová, Harvey Littleton, Sam Maloof, William Morris, Lenore Tawney and Bertil Vallien; gallery owners Linda Boone and Ferdinand Hampson, Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio, Helen Drutt English and Dorothy Weiss; dancer-choreographer Bill T. Jones; Marvin Hopkins of Hunter Douglas Window Fashions; Jamie Houghton of Corning, Incorporated; Guy LaLiberté of Cirque de Soleil; philanthropist and collector Henry Luce III; arts educators Priscilla and Francis Merritt; arts education advocate Libby Pataki; Martha Stewart; costume designer and Broadway and film director Julie Taymor; decorative-arts exposition producer Mark Lyman; graphic designers Ken Carbone and Leslie Smolan; the late, renowned ceramic artist Peter Voulkos and legendary songwriter Cy Coleman.

Rosetta Miller

Jerome Chazen

Patti Weeks

Charles Diker talking with a friend

Laureen Knutsen

Holly Hotchner, Ann Richards, and Laurie Beckelman

Steve and Kara Ross

Michael Francis presents the Visionaries Award to Michael Graves

Laurie Beckelman and Brad Cloepfil with a friend

Stars Came Out for Rolex America's Cup Hall of Fame Induction

Walter Fischer

For inductees Gary Jobson (Annapolis, Md.) and Alan Bond (Fremantle, Australia) there was honor in being ceremoniously rewarded for changing America's Cup history. For the evening's sponsor Rolex and the Herreshoff Marine Museum, which houses the 11-year-old Hall of Fame in Bristol, R.I., there was heartfelt gratitude for supporting the sport of sailing worldwide. And for the 300-plus audience of America's Cup devotees, there was the reflection into the past, which, at least for one evening, made the fast track of the modern day America's Cup competition seem like a smooth country lane on which close-knit neighbors lived.

Doubling as a fund raiser for the America's Cup Hall of Fame, the Rolex Induction Ceremony attracted many who made their own special mark on the America's Cup. The big names included Bruno Bich, Russell Coutts, Halsey Herreshoff, Bill Koch, Dawn Riley, Bruno Trouble and Ted Turner, but still, no one was bigger than Jobson or Bond on this evening. Jobson helped keep the Cup in Newport by serving as tactician aboard the winning 12-meter Courageous. Bond, after three unsuccessful Cup attempts, led a charge in 1983 with the Ben Lexcen-designed Australia II, a radical controversial 12-meter with a never-before-seen winged keel, to finally unbolt the America's Cup from its 132-year resting place at the New York Yacht Club.

Halsey Herreshoff, Dawn Riley, Gary Jobson, Ted Turner, Bill Koch, and Alan bond

The America's Cup Hall of Fame was created to honor the challengers, defenders, and legendary personages of the world's most distinguished sporting competition. The present prototype Hall of Fame was established in 1994 in an historic building on the grounds of the former Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in Bristol, Rhode Island, where yachts were constructed for eight consecutive America's Cup defenses between 1893 and 1934. The Herreshoff Marine Museum, situated on this historic site, operates the America's Cup Hall of Fame.

Commencing with its first induction ceremony in 1993, 53 legends of the Cup have been invested with membership. Candidates eligible for consideration include skippers, afterguard, crew, designers, builders, organizers, syndicate leaders, managers, supporters, chroniclers, race managers, and other individuals of merit. Each nominee is judged on the basis of outstanding ability, international recognition, character, performance, and contributions to the sport. The 17 members of the Hall of Fame Selection Committee bring a wealth of knowledge to the selection process. They are persons intimate with the America's Cup tradition of yacht racing and committed to the integrity of the Hall of Fame.

The Herreshoff Marine Museum and America's Cup Hall of Fame are dedicated to preserving, exhibiting, and interpreting the accomplishments of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company and demonstrating the influence of America's Cup Competition, for the purpose of education, research, and the inspiration of excellence in the world of yachting.