Pausing to examine a Medici monument in Florence en route to the duomo
ABOUT STEWART & HUNNISETT
It all started in New York City the mid-1990s with a handful of one-inch ads in The New Yorker, Gourmet, and Smithsonian, and a little square brochure that we designed in a Midtown copy shop. We had a tiny budget, but happily the printers—an old-line firm in Lower Manhattan—were intrigued by our project and, after giving us a few last-minute design suggestions, kindly offered to add our small run to the end of an elegant Ferragamo catalogue!
Filled with the ambition to create and lead the finest cultural tours imaginable—we had met as co-guides of a Stanford University alumni tour and already knew quite a bit about professional guiding—we grandly named our first trip "The 1997 Tuscany Tour." Before long, the telephone was ringing and we were making daily runs to the post office to mail out our brochures. We were in business, and we’ll never forget that first al fresco lunch overlooking the glorious Val d’Orcia in the company of intelligent and charming travelers from all over the U.S. who had understood what we had set out to do.
Next, we added the Italian Lakes and Venice, and before we knew it, we'd crossed into France and were leading trips to Provence and beyond. Today, almost thirty remarkable years later (and thanks in large part to word-of-mouth recommendations), we develop and lead trips to dozens of cities and regions on four continents for families, groups of friends, educational institutions, museums, and other organizations with an interest in what we do. Notable partnerships in the area of museum travel have included the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and we were generously praised by Richard Armstrong—former Director of the Guggenheim Museum and Foundation—as leaders "with gentle hands and finely-tuned minds."
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In addition to our tours for adults, since 2006 we've been leading dynamic multigenerational With the Kids trips for families and schools filled with fun and learning for the young and young at heart (we were inspired to develop these travel adventures by our now twenty-four-year-old son).
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We have been complimented many times for listening carefully to what prospective travelers have in mind and tailoring their trip to meet their specific needs. Whether you are a party of two or a large group, please don't hesitate to contact us and we will explore some exciting possibilities together!
Chris
Chris was raised in Toronto and educated at Branksome Hall, St. Mildred’s-Lightbourn School, the University of Western Ontario, the University of St. Andrews in Scotland (where she was the first woman to receive the McEuen Scholarship), the Università per Stranieri di Perugia, and Columbia University in New York where she was a President’s Fellow. At Columbia, she completed all the requirements for a Ph.D. in art history with the exception of the dissertation, deciding in the mid-1990s to become an independent art historian and co-founding S&H with John, whom she had met as a co-leader of a Stanford University alumni walking tour in southwest France.
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As a Helena Rubinstein Fellow on the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program (ISP), she co-curated the exhibition Generations of Geometry shown at the Whitney’s Equitable Center. She went on to work for several years in New York at The Museum of Modern Art, curating exhibitions of contemporary art for the corporate galleries of MoMA’s major supporters. At MoMA she also advised Fortune 100 executives on art purchases and site-specific commissions for their corporate headquarters, and participated in the special acquisitions program for Room 5600, the Rockefeller family office at Rockefeller Center.
Chris has been a visiting professor of art history at Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. Her areas of special study include Italian and French Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, the English watercolor school, 20th century American art, the work of Joseph Cornell, and contemporary art. She is also passionate about children's literacy and in 2012 attended a Columbia University Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Institute taught by Lucy Calkins and her team.
John
John was raised in the heart of Rome, Italy, where his family resided for over two decades and his father was a co-founder of St. Stephen's School. He was educated at Rome’s Collegio San Giuseppe at the foot of the Spanish Steps, St. Stephen’s School, Trent University (Canada), and at the universities of Nantes, Paris (Sorbonne), Siena and Toronto. At the University of Toronto he completed all the requirements for a Ph.D. in art history with the exception of the dissertation, deciding in the mid-1990s to become an independent art historian and co-founding S&H with Chris.
For several years he worked at the National Gallery of Canada with Dr. Jean Sutherland Boggs on a major international Edgar Degas retrospective in cooperation with the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He was later guest curator of the exhibition Prints from the Age of Rembrandt at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
John’s interests range widely, from prehistory and antiquity to the contemporary world, with an emphasis on European history and culture. His areas of special focus include Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture in Italy, France, Belgium, and Germany; Dutch painting of the Golden Age; and nineteenth-century French literature, art and architecture.
He is entirely fluent in Italian and French and is an engaging freelance lecturer whose talks on a variety of topics have attracted record audiences. He has lectured abroad for the Young Presidents’ Organization, was the Italian editor of Melvin Charney/Krzysztof Wodiczko (Canada's exhibition catalogue for the 42nd Venice Biennale), and has contributed to a Paris guidebook. His translations include a guide by King Louis XIV to the Gardens of Versailles published by the National Museums of France.
With lives dedicated to education and travel, our interests and areas of expertise range widely from prehistory and antiquity to the contemporary world.
John buying a treat in a neighborhood park near the Colosseum.
John and his father with the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine in the background.
When John was just an infant, his parents moved from Canada to Rome where his father, an English and Latin teacher, co-founded St. Stephen’s School, an independent secondary school accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. John attended Italian elementary and middle school at the Collegio San Giuseppe on Piazza di Spagna and then transferred to his father’s school.
He first donned his guiding cap as a young boy leading family friends around the Eternal City, sparing his grateful parents dozens of climbs to the top of St. Peter’s (and dusty expeditions to the Roman Forum) and earning countless gelati! His lifelong enthusiasm for history, art and architecture and all things cultural led him to a career in art history and, later, with Chris, to the creation of a touring company dedicated to providing the best in travel from a truly international perspective.