CHARLESTON, SC .- Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, will deliver the Keynote Address for The Charleston Art & Antiques Forum on March 16. The 2011 Forum’s opening night event marks Mr. Campbell’s first lecture in Charleston. The distinguished art historian and curator, who became the museum’s ninth Director in 2009, will speak on Old World Splendor for New World Magnates: Collecting Tapestry in America. The Keynote Address will be held at 7 p.m. in the historic 1845 Courtroom at the Confederate Home, 23 Chalmers Street. Audience members will have an opportunity to meet Mr. Campbell at the reception following his lecture.

The Charleston Art & Antiques Forum, scheduled from Wednesday, March 16 through Sunday, March 20, launches the historic city’s celebrated “Antiques Week”. The fourteenth annual Forum program, “Made in America” ~ Century by Century, will feature fine and decorative arts from the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to contemporary ceramics. National experts will examine architecture, furniture, painting, silver, and ceramics as they explore the artisans who created these masterworks, the people who owned them, and recent discoveries. All lectures will be presented at 23 Chalmers Street.

J. Thomas Savage, Director of Museum Affairs at Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, is the Forum Moderator. In addition to Thomas P. Campbell, the 2011 speakers are: Daniel K. Ackermann, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts; Judy Anderson, Marblehead Heritage Tours; Charles J. Burns, The Preservation Society of Newport County; Paul F. (Chip) Callaway, Callaway and Associates, Inc.; Wendy A. Cooper, Winterthur Museum and Country Estate; Brandy S. Culp, Historic Charleston Foundation; Michelle Erickson, Period Designs; Kathleen A. Foster, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Ralph Harvard III, Ralph Harvard, Inc.; Margize L. Howell, Classical American Homes Preservation Trust; Peter M. Kenny, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Robert A. Leath, Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts; J. Grahame Long, The Charleston Museum; Lisa Minardi, Winterthur Museum and Country Estate; James C. Rees, George Washington’s Mount Vernon; and Beverly A. (Bly) Straub, Jamestown Rediscovery Project: Preservation Virginia.

A highlight of this year’s program will be the Evening on the Battery at the Roper House, a study tour of the house, collections and garden with the curators, followed by a private reception. An outstanding example of Greek Revival architecture, the 1838 Roper House is owned by Richard Hampton Jenrette who is opening his private home for this special Forum event. Optional offerings include a visit to several houses and a church featuring the carving of Henry Burnett, one of Charleston’s best architectural carvers from the mid 1750s; a curatorial study of the Holmes-Edwards Library Bookcase, in the collection of the Charleston Museum’s Heyward-Washington House and one of colonial America’s cabinetmaking masterpieces; the first look at Historic Charleston Foundation’s exhibition on Charleston coin and sterling silver; and a private visit to the Charleston International Antiques Show with J. Thomas Savage.

“The Charleston Art & Antiques Forum continues to stage the best fine and decorative arts program in the country,” writes Americana’s distinguished scholar and author Wendell D. Garrett. Founded in 1997, the non-profit organization benefits arts education and preservation programs. This year, the Forum is naming Historic Charleston Foundation as its beneficiary in support of Grandeur Preserved: Masterworks Presented by Historic Charleston Foundation. This important loan exhibition will showcase some of the finest Charleston-made objects at the 2011 Winter Antiques Show in New York.