A Place at the Table: Dining at Sunnylands

The exhibition, A Place at the Table: Dining at Sunnylands, celebrated Walter and Leonore Annenberg’s remarkable history of gatherings through an exploration of the variety of dining experiences they provided their guests.

Guests at Sunnylands ranged from U.S. presidents, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, to British royalty, including Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles. Entertainment icons Bob Hope, Gregory Peck, and Frank Sinatra dined at the Sunnylands estate, as did world leaders, such as Margaret Thatcher and Toshiki Kaifu, the prime ministers of Britain and Japan, respectively..

The exhibition design centered the feminine, with script font quotes highlighting pertinent quotes from a variety of dignitaries and utilization of Mrs. Annenberg’s favorite colors. It also drew on motifs from the dishware itself, setting free patterns of leaves, butterflies, and plants as gallery accents. Settings were arranged to enable visitors to envision the dining experiences as they walked the gallery.