Jeffrey Evans to Deliver Lecture on ‘Old George’ Sculptor Evans will explore the work of Matthew Kahle and his peers on March 25 in Payne Hall.

Office of Communications and Public Affairs
March 12, 2026

Jeffrey Evans, president of the Virginia-based auction house Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates, Inc., will deliver a lecture titled “Artisans of Rockbridge County: Matthew Kahle” at 5:30 p.m. on March 25 in the Mason Taylor New Room in Payne Hall. Matthew Kahle is best known for creating W&L’s “Old George [Washington]” statue, carved for then-Washington College between 1842-1844.

The event, hosted by Washington and Lee University’s Institutional History Museum and Galleries, is free and open to the public, but attendees are encouraged to RSVP in advance, as space may be limited. Light refreshments will be served before the program at 5 p.m. in the Mason Taylor New Room, and a question-and-answer session will follow in the Washington Hall Galleries. A limited number of copies of the Chipstone Foundation’s American Furniture journal, featuring Evans’ article on Kahle, will also be available to purchase.

Based on decades of research by Evans and Kurt Russ, executive director of the Mountain Valley Preservation Alliance, Inc., the lecture will explore the work of Kahle and his peers in the early 19th century. Evans will begin with an examination of Kahle’s cabinet shop in Lexington and a survey of his work, spotlighting his “Old George” sculpture. The discussion of Kahle’s cabinetwork will include the iconic pie safes produced in collaboration with tinsmith John Henson and their unique, politically charged punched-tin panels. Evans will also delve into other Rockbridge County woodworkers and their products, including Andrew Varner, who made furniture for W&L; Samuel Runkle Smith, an early partner of Kahle and accomplished chairmaker who supplied chairs to W&L and Virginia Military Institute; and Thomas Chittum, who sold assorted furniture to VMI.

A licensed auctioneer for more than 50 years, Evans specializes in the decorative arts of the Shenandoah Valley; his firm conducts catalogued auctions, hosts educational seminars and provides expert-specific museum services. Evans has served as guest curator and authored the accompany catalogues for a number of exhibitions, including “Safes of the Shenandoah Valley” with Russ at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV) in Winchester; “Come in and Have a Seat: Vernacular Chairs of the Shenandoah Valley” at MSVA; and “A Great Deal of Stone & Earthen Ware: The Rockingham County, Virginia School of Folk Pottery” with Scott Hamilton Suter at the Shenandoah Valley Folk Art and Heritage Center.

Evans serves on the advisory board of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Evans has lectured widely on Shenandoah Valley material culture, including at Colonial Williamsburg, MESDA, the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library (Delaware), MSVA, the Virginia Quilt Museum and Dish Camp (New York). He is a widely recognized expert on 19th-century American glass and has presented on the subject at the Corning Museum of Glass (New York), Old Sturbridge Village (Massachusetts) and the New York City Ceramics and Glass Fair. Evans is currently researching and writing about paint-decorated furniture and related folk art of the Shenandoah Valley and is in the process of authoring a volume on the artisans of New Market, Virginia, from 1780-1930.

W&L’s Institutional History Museum and Galleries include the University Chapel and Galleries, the Washington Hall Galleries and the forthcoming Institutional History Museum. The IHMG stewards a growing collection reflective of the full and rich history of the university, its people, traditions and impact throughout the nation’s history.