Jeff Evans’ expertise in early American glass and 18th and 19th century Shenandoah Valley furniture and decorative arts is recognized throughout Virginia and across the United States. He has worked as an appraiser and consultant for Virginia collections at the:
- Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum (Staunton, VA)
- Stonewall Jackson House (Lexington, VA)
- Frontier Culture Museum (Staunton, VA)
- Shenandoah Valley Folk Art and Heritage Center (Dayton, VA)
- Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (Winchester, VA)
- The Virginia Quilt Museum (Harrisonburg, VA)
Some of the numerous national institutions with which Evans has worked closely include:
- Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY)
- Sandwich Glass Museum (Sandwich, MA)
- Museum of American Glass (Weston, WV)
- Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) (Winston Salem, NC)
Jeff currently serves on the MESDA Advisory Board. He was a member of the Board of Directors at the Museum of American Glass in WV from 2006 to 2016, and for more than fifteen years Jeff served on the board at the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society where he was also the head of the Shenandoah Valley Folk Art & Heritage Center’s Museum Committee.
Jeff has lectured widely and conducted classes on antiques including American glass and Shenandoah Valley pottery, and in 2004, his extensive knowledge of Valley pottery was showcased when Jeff served as guest curator and co-authored the accompanying catalogue for the exhibit, “A Great Deal of Stone & Earthen Ware” (The Rockingham County, Virginia School of Folk Pottery).
As a guest speaker at the 2009 MESDA furniture seminar, Jeff lectured on Shenandoah Valley of Virginia Seating Forms of the late 18th to early 20th centuries, a subject he has been documenting and researching since the early 1970s. Jeff served as guest curator for the related exhibit at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, VA, titled “Come In and Have a Seat: Vernacular Chairs of the Shenandoah Valley”. On display from December 19, 2009 through June 20, 2010, the exhibit also yielded the exceptional Evans-authored exhibit catalogue/reference volume of the same name, the first catalogue ever published in conjunction with an MSV-organized changing exhibition.
In 2012 Jeff and his wife Beverley served as co-curators for an exhibition at the Virginia Quilt Museum titled “Counterpanes and White Work of the Shenandoah Valley” (on display from February 1 through May 12, 2012). The Evanses contributed several textiles from their personal collection and Jeff authored the accompanying catalogue complete with an authoritative essay on the subject.
Sold in 2004
Since August 2010 Jeff has been partnered with Kurt C. Russ on The Virginia Safe Project, a multi-year research project focused on Shenandoah Valley punched-tin-paneled furniture, aka pie safes. Their findings culminated in an exhibition at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley called Safes of the Valley (on display from May 11, 2014 through March 29, 2015) and a companion publication that will be released in spring 2017. Jeff is currently researching and producing a treatise “Artisans of New Market, Virginia, 1780-1930”.
Expanded printable copy of Jeffrey’s Bio.