Collections are the foundation of museums, and behind every collection lies the story of a collector. Dr. Graham C. Boettcher, director of the Birmingham Museum of Art, discusses some of history’s greatest collectors—actual and fictional—exploring what motivates these passionate gatherers and separates them from hoarders. Boettcher will also discuss how the ethics of collecting have changed, and touch on some of the new challenges and obligations collectors—both individual and institutional—face today. This program is presented as part of the “Elephant in the Room” lecture series, supported by Vermont Humanities. This talk is presented with additional support from Marble Trail Financial.

Cornwall author Alexander Wolff spent a year in Berlin, sifting through family letters and diaries and mining German archives, for his book Endpapers. In this presentation he describes the process of researching and ultimately writing this saga about his book publisher grandfather, who fled the Nazis, and his father, who was left behind to fight for them. His remarks should be of interest to anyone eager to illuminate their ancestors’ lives and times with primary source materials. Wolff spent 36 years on staff at Sports Illustrated. He is author, co-author, or editor of nine books, including The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama; the New York Times bestseller Raw Recruits; and Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure, which was named a New York Times Notable Book. He has a B.A. in History from Princeton, where he has taught journalism.