Norman-Wilcox, Gregor, 1905-1969

Gregor Norman-Wilcox was a curator of decorative arts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from 1931 until his retirement, shortly before his death in 1969. Norman-Wilcox was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 9, 1905, the son of Carl Humphreys and Eunice Wilcox. (The name on his birth certificate was Gregor Norman Humphreys; he later changed his name to Gregor Norman-Wilcox.) After graduating from the Cleveland School of Art, he worked for interior decorators in his hometown before making his way to Los Angeles. There, he joined the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1931, quickly becoming Curator of Decorative Arts.



In 1934, he married Grace A. Steen, a specialist in Oriental art. She wrote articles and taught classes on that subject. After becoming interested in Oriental, particularly Chinese art, she learned enough to become a buying agent for a New York importing firm, and worked in Shanghai in 1925. For a short time, she ran a shop in Cleveland where she sold Oriental imports, but the Great Depression ended her business. After becoming engaged to Gregor, she moved with him to Los Angeles.



Throughout his career, Norman-Wilcox wrote extensively on various aspects of the decorative arts, making many contributions to The Magazine Antiques (they first published one of his articles in 1927 and his last they published in August 1969, several months after his death), as well as other journals, encyclopedias, and books. He wrote a column on antiques for the Los Angeles Times from 1949 to 1959; the column was then nationally syndicated from 1958 to 1969. Norman-Wilcox was also a creative writer and cartoonist in his spare time, as evidenced by the keepsake books which he made for his wife.



In 1957, Norman-Wilcox took a year’s leave of absence from his job in Los Angeles to be in charge of furnishing Tryon Palace in New Bern, North Carolina. He was also responsible for restoring and refurnishing the Hugo Reid Adobe in Los Angeles. He was a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, numerous historical societies, collectors clubs, and preservation groups in the United States and England, as well as being an honorary member of the American Institute of Interior Designers.



Gregor Norman-Wilcox died on April 26, 1969, at the age of 63, after having retired the previous September. He and his wife had no children. After his death, his wife established a memorial scholarship fund in his name at Winterthur Museum, which is used to support fellows in the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture. Grace Norman-Wilcox died around 1995.