Displaying items by tag: american furniture

Few individuals have had as profound an effect on American furniture design as Paul Evans (1931-1987). A leading figure in the midcentury American studio furniture movement, Evans consistently pushed boundaries with his innovative approaches to metalsmithing and furniture-making. His transcendent works, which defied what everyday objects looked like and how they were made, continue to reveal the fascinating crosscurrents between sculpture and design.

Evans began working with metal in the early 1950s -- first at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School for American Craftsmen (SAC) in Rochester, New York, where he studied under the influential American silversmiths and designers John (Jack) Prip and Lawrence Copeland, and later at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

All styles eventually go out of fashion. Colonial hoop dresses, Victorian handlebar moustaches, and 1960s shag carpeting all enjoyed great popularity before falling out of favor. Similar cycles of taste have governed the history of furniture design. Going out of Style: 400 Years of Changing Tastes in Furniture, an exhibition presented by the Milwaukee Art Museum, displayed four centuries of major American furniture styles alongside scathing commentary written in the period by designers, architects, and writers.

Their critiques—which range from sarcastic to downright ruthless—reveal powerful opinions that helped drive the ebb and flow of taste from generation to generation. While the harsh assessments of the past may seem unfounded to antiques enthusiasts today, they remind us that most period styles—even the perennial favorites—were out of fashion at one time or another

Settled by the Dutch and claimed by the English, New York, from the start, was “a Babel of peoples—Norwegians, Germans, Italians, Jews, Africans . . . Walloons, Bohemians, Munsees, Montauks, Mohawks, and many others,” as writer Russell Shorto has observed. In the landscapes they shaped, buildings and furniture they made, New Yorkers created a place “unlike any other, either in the North American colonies or anywhere else.” This unique legacy is reflected in New York furniture featuring elaborate Dutch-inspired turnings, solid English construction methods, French sculptural carving, and Germanic painted decoration. In assembling the collection at Winterthur, Henry Francis du Pont created a world-class destination for viewing New York furniture in all of its splendid variety.

On Sunday, February 1, 2015, the 61st iteration of the inimitable Winter Antiques Show drew to a close at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. Over the course of the ten-day event, collectors, first-time buyers, museum curators, interior designers, and dealers, took to the show floor to browse and snap up fine art, furniture, and decorative objects from antiquity through the 1960s (Fig. 1).

The show kicked off on Thursday, January 22, 2015, with an Opening Night Preview Party that welcomed nearly 2,000 attendees, including Martha Stewart, Michael Bloomberg and Diana Taylor, Arie and Coco Kopelman, Ellie Cullman, Thomas Jayne, Bunny Williams and John Rosselli, Sandra Nunnerley, and John Douglas Eason. The Preview Party, which benefited the East Side House Settlement, a community-based organization in the South Bronx, gave guests an opportunity to peruse and purchase works before the show opened to the public on Friday, January 23, 2015.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hardford, CT announced the appointment of Oliver Tostmann as the institution’s new Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art. Tostmann, who previously served as a curator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, will officially assume his position at the Wadsworth on October 28,2013.

An expert on Renaissance and Baroque artists, Tostmann has lectured extensively throughout the United States and Europe and his writings have been widely published. He will oversee the Wadsworth’s comprehensive European art collection, which includes 900 paintings, 500 sculptures, and 3,500 works on paper. Tostmann said, “I am delighted and honored to work in such a renowned institution. To explore the Wadsworth’s collection of European art is simply irresistible, and I embrace its commitment to scholarship.”

The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest free public art museum in the United States and boasts an impressive collection of baroque paintings, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes, modernist masterpieces, and extensive holdings in early American furniture and decorative arts.  

WLTX in Columbia, South Carolina reported that antique dealer Michael Whittemore’s van and trailer went missing during an overnight stay in Orangeburg. Whittemore was on his way from Florida to one of the largest industry events of the year, the New Hampshire Antiques Show, when the apparent highjack occurred. The show, which is organized by the New Hampshire Antiques Dealers Association, is scheduled to take place from August 8^th through the 10^th in Manchester.

Whittemore’s white Ford van and 16-foot covered trailer were stocked with early American furniture, folk art, paintings, vintage garden items, weathervanes and other one-of-a-kind objects. Whittemore told WLTX, “It is scary that it has come to this point. That someone has taken all of this I have worked so hard for away from me and it is almost impossible to replace or recoup what I have lost.”

The Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Department in South Carolina is currently investigating the incident.

Even in a long museum career, it is unusual to have the pleasure of working with the same objects more than once. I first met George M. and Linda H. Kaufman in the National Gallery of Art’s design studio in 1979, when they were lenders to In Praise of America: Masterworks of American Decorative Arts, 1650–1830. Subsequently, in 1986 the Gallery devoted ten rooms to an extensive exhibition based exclusively on the Kaufmans’ collection. A wonderful relationship was forged between the collectors and the Gallery, and the recent opening of Masterpieces of American Furniture from the Kaufman Collection, 1700–1830, celebrates the Kaufmans’ generous promised gift to the National Gallery. This permanent installation consists of more than one hundred objects from one of the most important privately assembled collections of early American furniture and decorative arts. The addition of the Kaufman Collection significantly enhances the National Gallery’s decorative arts holdings, providing open access in our nation’s capital to seminal examples of early American furniture.

March 9–10, 2013 Auction

93 Pleasant Street, Portsmouth, NH
www.northeastauctions.com; 603.433.8400; or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This March, Northeast Auctions will offer collections from an all-star cast of consignors. Selections include American furniture deaccessioned from the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston; Historical Blue Staffordshire deaccessioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Rhode Island furniture from the estate of an Isham family member; and furniture from a Boston estate, among which is a Salem chest by John Chipman. Property of various owners includes two pieces of New York silver: a Peter Van Dyke caster (1730–1740) and a George Ridout salver (ca. 1745) with presentation inscription from Peter and Sarah Van Brugh to their grand-daughter Sarah Livingston.

Christie’s announced that Americana Week 2013 will be held from January 24-25 and on the 28^th in New York. The week will include a series of public viewings and auctions focusing on American craftsmanship and artistry. An Important American Silver sale will be held on the 24^th, an Important American Furniture, Folk Art, and Prints auction will take place on January 25^th, and on the 28^th, Christie’s will hold English Pottery and Chinese Export Art sales. The Americana Week auctions will present over 400 lots, many of which are from the 18^th and 19^th centuries and have never been offered at auction until now.

Highlights from the American Silver auction include a drum-form teapot by Paul Revere (1734-1818), a Japanesesque mixed-metal and hardstone style tea service by Tiffany & Co., and a set of silver casters by Simeon Soumaine (circa 1685-circa 1750) from 1740.

Leading the American Furniture, Folk Art, and Prints sale is a Chippendale carved mahogany block-and-shell bureau table signed by John Townsend (1733-1809). The bureau table will be offered alongside a Queen Anne carved maple armchair attributed to John Gaines III (1704-1743), an Edward Hicks (1780-1849) painting depicting William Penn’s treaty with Delaware tribal chiefs, a number of early needlework samplers from The Stonington Collection, and much more.

The English Pottery auction presents over 50 lots including early salt glazed stoneware, redware and creamware formed by William Burton Goodwin, and a London delft polychrome dish, which is painted with the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.

Highlighting the Chinese Export Art sale are a Chinese export ‘orange Fitzhugh’ armorial dinner service from the early 19^th century, a pair of Chinese export famille rose fishbowls, and a Chinese export ‘Lady Washington States China’ dish, which was presented to Martha Washington by Andreas van Braam (1739-1801), the director of the Dutch East India Company, in 1796. Van Braam designed the dish as an introductory gift for the First Lady.

On September 24^th, Christie’s presented their American Furniture, Folk Art, and Decorative Arts Sale in New York. Spanning the 18^th and 19^th centuries, works included furniture from the Wunsch Americana Foundation, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and American folk art and maritime paintings. The sale was 85% sold by lot and 93% by value.

The top lot was a Chippendale carved mahogany easy chair that was entrusted to Christie’s by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Estimated at $600,000-$900,000 and attributed to the renowned yet mysterious Garvan carver, the chair brought in $1.16 million, the third highest price ever paid for the form. “We are thrilled to have been the successful bidders on the Garvan Carver easy chair. It is a wonderful chair,” said Todd Prickett of C.L. Prickett who specializes in American antiques. The Museum will use the funds for new acquisitions.

Another lot that brought in more than expected was a Queen Anne Japanned Maple Bureau Table. One of about forty known examples of japanned furniture from colonial America, it is the only bureau table known to exist. Estimated at $60,000-$90,000, the table sold for $98,500.

Two paintings by the maritime artist, Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen (1850–1921), sold for more than their estimates that ranged from $12,000 to $18,000. The Paddlewheel Steamer St. John went for $45,000 while Fred B Dalzell went for $25,000.

Not all lots did as well as anticipated. A pair of Federal eagle-inlaid mahogany side chairs attributed to William Singleton were estimated at $60,000 to $90,000 but only sold for $32,500. The pair of chairs had been lent to the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the Department of State in 1968 and remained in the Monroe Reception Room as part of a larger set of four related chairs until they were returned to the Wunsch Americana Foundation. Until know, the location of this particular pair was unknown.