Cranbrook Sightings #4
Sighter: Shoshana Resnikoff
Sighted: Paul Evans furniture
Location: New York City
Date: January 26, 2013
I love Cranbrook’s impressive history of 20th century art and design, but sometimes a girl needs to revisit her roots in the 18th century. It was with that in mind that I went out to New York’s Americana Week at the end of January. For fans of 18th and 19th century American decorative arts, Americana Week is like Woodstock. Auction viewings followed by thrilling sales, museum exhibitions devoted to “brown furniture” or master craftspeople, and of course, the Winter Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory, where dealers, collectors, and academics gather to see the historical treasures that have resurfaced in the past few years.
This year was my second time at the Winter Antiques Show and I was looking forward to connecting with old friends, both human and furniture (I’m looking at you, 18th century japanned high chests). I figured I’d be leaving Cranbrook behind for the weekend, but what I stumbled upon instead was a Paul Evans Moment.
A Cranbrook Academy of Art student in 1952, Paul Evans crossed boundaries between modern design and historic craftsmanship when he went to work as a craftsman at the living history museum Old Sturbridge Village. Evans created enormous, heavily-decorated furniture pieces that showcased his metalsmithing skills while blurring the lines between functional and sculptural in industrial design.
In fall of 2013 the James A. Michener Art Museum will be staging a retrospective of Evans’ work, after which Cranbrook will play host to the exhibition. As the museum gets into the swing of exhibition planning for the coming year, Paul Evans is the talk of the office. So while I’d totally expect a Paul Evans encounter at Cranbrook, running into him surrounded by Queen Anne chairs and 18th century samplers was a surprise.
After I got over my initial shock, however, it suddenly made sense to see Paul Evans at the Armory. As we begin to take a longer historical look at the twentieth century, there is something meaningful about contextualizing Evans within the history of American craftspeople. The Winter Antiques Show is all about examining and celebrating the objects made by talented artisans over the course of three centuries, and Evans’ work situates him right smack dab in the middle of that. His tools may have been welding equipment rather than awls and hand saws, but Paul Evans is yet another story in this long tradition of people producing “stuff” that blurs distinctions between beauty and functionality and of creating art that can be used in the most immediate of ways.
A Tale of Two Paintings – Cranbrook and the University of Michigan
At the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, we spend a lot of time thinking about ourselves. That sounds self-centered, but it’s the nature of the job – we uncover connections between different areas of Cranbrook, building historical and cultural relationships that help us to better preserve Cranbrook history and shape its future. Cranbrook doesn’t exist in a vacuum, though, which is why it’s important for us to take a step back and look at the larger Cranbrook connections out there in the world. And really, what better place to start than 18th-century Canada?
I know that sounds crazy, but run with me on this. In 1759 the British war hero General Wolfe was killed at the Battle of Quebec City on the Plains of Abraham, a battle which the British won. Posthumously celebrated as one of the great British military leaders, General Wolfe and his heroic death were immortalized in both art and literature. In 1770, the American expat artist Benjamin West tried his hand at the subject, painting The Death of General Wolfe. Ultimately, that painting, and the five later versions also made by West, went on to become the iconic image of General Wolfe and a symbol of the British empire.
The Death of General Wolfe, Benjamin West, 1776
William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan
But what does this have to do with Cranbrook? Well, in 1928 William L. Clements bought one of the six identified General Wolfes and donated it, along with his extensive library of early Americana, to the University of Michigan in order to build the William L. Clements Library. In the same year, George Booth bought a version of The Death of General Wolfe on the understanding that it was also a Benjamin West. Booth’s General Wolfe is very different from the other versions, however, and there has long been debate over whether the painting is actually a West. Regardless of its origins, however, The Death of General Wolfe has hung in Cranbrook School for over 80 years.
The Death of General Wolfe, attributed to Benjamin West, 1791
Cranbrook School
Fast forward to 2012 when the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) borrowed the Clements Library’s The Death of General Wolfe to showcase it in an incredible exhibition called Benjamin West: General Wolfe and the Art of Empire. When the information about this exhibition came across a desk at the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, it was like a light-bulb went off. Two versions of The Death of General Wolfe just 45 miles apart, each purchased in 1928 by avid collectors? Could there be a more perfect Cranbrook connection? And with that the Day Away program was born.
The Day Away program is about exploring Cranbrook connections with the wider world, and so on December 1st a group of Cranbrook enthusiasts spent the day immersing themselves in all things Wolfe and West. We started the day at Cranbrook School’s Page Hall, where CS instructor Jeffrey Welch described the historical context for Booth’s acquisition of General Wolfe and I gave a brief overview of Benjamin West, providing a visual analysis of the features of both paintings.
Day Away participants bravely gathering early in the morning for a brief lecture on West and Cranbrook at Page Hall.
From there we boarded a bus and drove to Ann Arbor. At UMMA we were met by exhibition curator Carol McNamara, who took us through Benjamin West: General Wolfe and the Art of Empire. Her masterful analysis integrated the painting into a constellation of objects that ranged from a lock of Wolfe’s hair to mundane household goods. By examining the material culture related to General Wolfe, Carol was able to show how West’s painting became the defining image of the general, transforming him into a symbol for the newly formed British imperial identity and enshrining Wolfe within the pantheon of great British leaders.
UMMA exhibition curator Carol McNamara explores connections between the material culture of the late 18th century and the mythology surrounding General Wolfe.
Following lunch at the Kelsey Museum of Archeology (where a few of us slipped away to catch a glimpse of the incredible Tiffany window installed in the Kelsey’s reading room) we finished our day at Clements Library. Housed in an Albert Kahn-designed building that the architect described as his greatest achievement, the Clements is one of the worlds’ greatest repositories of early American written and printed material. Director Kevin Graffagnino spoke with us about the history of the Clements and its future plans. He set us loose on the library and even let us page through some of their treasures. Not only did the visit further contextualize The Death of General Wolfe into the world of 18th century colonial politics, but it highlighted even greater the Cranbrook connections. Here was a temple to history and learning, dreamt up by a passionate collector and designed by a great architect of the twentieth century. Replace “early Americana” with “art and education” and you have Cranbrook in a nutshell.
Alfred Kahn’s masterpiece, the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan.
With our time at the Clements coming to a close, we boarded the bus and headed back to Bloomfield Hills. On the bus ride back we took an informal vote whether or not we thought Cranbrook’s General Wolfe was really a West. As a group we decided that no, it probably wasn’t. Still, we won’t know for sure until a West expert checks it out. Even if the bus group is right, though, and Cranbrook’s Death of General Wolfe is not by West, we can still look at the painting hanging in Cranbrook’s Page Hall and see not only a history of 18th century British military heroism but also a record of Cranbrook connections that extend beyond the 319 acres of this campus far out into the world.