Friends from near and far were on hand April 24 to honor Wendell Garrett. Shown here with Albert Sack, Nancy Druckman and Chris Jussell appear in the background.

The Appraisers Association of America (AAA) conducted its annual luncheon and awards presentation on April 24, 2007, honoring an icon in the world of antiques publishing and scholarship, as well as trusted advisor, Wendell Garrett. Presenting AAA’s Award for Excellence in the Arts was incoming AAA President Roslyn Bakst Goldman and Morrison H. Heckscher, Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of the American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Spending more than 40 years at The Magazine Antiques †35 of which he has served as editor †Garrett has also authored and co-authored numerous books, been involved with the Americana Department at Sotheby’s, appeared on The Antiques Roadshow and served on boards at Monticello, New-York Historical Society, Hancock Shaker Village, Old Sturbridge Village and Strawbery Banke, among others.

Goldman welcomed the capacity crowd and reminisced about first meeting Garrett more than a dozen years ago and the trepidation associated with meeting a man of such high regard, whom she only knew via his editorials and signature in The Magazine Antiques. “It took about one second for his personal warmth and humor to shatter any uneasiness I might have felt,” she said, “and I have had a friend ever since.”

Morrison Heckscher and Roslyn Bakst Goldman present Wendell Garrett with the 2007 AAA award for Excellence in the Arts.

Goldman closed with a fitting quote from Allison Ledes, referring to Garrett as “the dean of American Antiques, [who] has looked into the past in order to enrich the present.”

The luncheon continued with Suzanne Smeaton, gallery director at Eli Winner & Co., introducing the keynote speaker, Carrie Rebora Barratt, curator, American paintings and sculpture and manager of The Henry Luce Center for the Study of American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; further remarks were presented by Morrison H. Heckscher.

Garrett, in typical fashion, presented an informative, interesting and humorous assessment of his time spent within the antiques community, all the while presenting plenty of insight for the crowd to consider. The event, hosted at The University Club, was sold out with just under 200 people in attendance.