DEBORAH M. CHILD is an author, lecturer and independent curator. Her expertise in genealogy has proved critical for authenticating and attributing portraits from the Federal period and establishing provenance.
ONGOING SCHOLARLY PROJECTS
2007 to present: since my publishing of the sketchbooks of Portsmouth-born John Samuel Blunt, it has become abundantly clear that he was not the Borden Limner as many of the most stellar works by this artist were created after Blunt’s premature death in 1835. Despite locating and identifying over 100 portraits that bear his hand, I have yet to find a single portrait signed by the artist or labeled as to who painted them. And the earliest documentation I have identified to date indicating who this artist was dates to 1914.
Since 2011, I have also developed a sustained interest in the art works made by artists while incarcerated for counterfeiting money and other white collar crimes in the first half of the nineteenth-century in America. Please see my publication page for information concerning Richard Brunton, Samuel Jordan, Lyman Parks aka “Mr. Willson of NH” and Abaham Eldred.
WORK EXPERIENCE
2008-2011 RISD Continuing Education Faculty member –guest lecturer for American Society of Appraisers
1997 – 2003 Independent Consultant advising creation and management of museum collection records. Project director Isles of Shoals Photo Archive Database Portsmouth Athenaeum, Portsmouth, NH. Other Seacoast NH clients included the Portsmouth Historical Society, Rye Historical Society and Warner House Association.
1996 – 1998 Strawbery Banke Museum, Portsmouth, NH Special Project Assistant, NEH grant-funded position. Collections Department. Becoming Americans: The Shapiro Story, 1898-1928. Outcome: furnished period house and companion CD-ROM with same title. Strawbery Banke
1998 – 2004 Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, NH. Duties included research and writing select catalog entries, managing objects at the sales, executing absentee and phone bids, maintenance of auction records
1994- 1995 Assistant Director The Art Gallery, University of NH. Coordinated exhibitions, cared for permanent collection, trained and managed staff.
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS
Proprietor Portsmouth Athenaeum, Portsmouth, NH 1996 to present
Board of Directors Warner House Association, Portsmouth, NH, 1999
Member of American Folk Art Museum, NYC, NY; Historic Deerfield, Deerfield, MA; Historic New England, Boston, MA; New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, MA; New Hampshire Society of Genealogists, Concord, NH; Piscataqua Decorative Arts Society & Portsmouth Historical Society, both of Portsmouth, NH; Rhode Island Genealogical Society, Hope, RI; Rufus Porter Museum, Bridgton, ME; Warner House Association, Portsmouth, NH.
EDUCATION
Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Master of Arts 1990 & B.A. Honors
Master’s Thesis (unpublished): “A Question of Attribution: Eight British Landscape Paintings Given to Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) in Queen’s University Art Collection” 1990