The New York Times called PRITAM & EAMES the "Gallery of Original Furniture" when it opened on May 21, 1981, in a converted 19th-century steam laundry building in East Hampton, NY. In its opening show, the gallery exhibited work by makers who would become instrumental in shaping the course of the American studio furniture movement. The following selection of announcements and work from the gallery's first decade records its commitment to studio furniture and chronicles the strength and originality that establishes this field as a vital 20th century decorative art.

Founders, Bebe Pritam Johnson and Warren Eames Johnson, 1981.

Note from the editors:

This document was created as a single scrolling page. It is long. If printed, the document could run from 140 to 160 pages. The editors have made every effort to align the images with their mention in the text. Words underlined in the text indicate work pictured.

Introduction

The conversation of artistic and design styles that continues to give studio furniture its signature vigor today was set in play for the gallery by the work exhibited in its 1981 opening show. When pattern books are cast aside, all possibilities are open. This was the backdrop of energy from the 1970s when major currents of design philosophy were at work, some of which had begun decades earlier. Underlying all was the acceptance of function, and of wood as the preferred medium of expression. Because of its familiarity, furniture retains an intimacy in our lives and is in this sense always personal. But the idea that furniture could have a personality as individualistic as its maker defines studio furniture. The notion of the artist-craftsman -- the person who conceives the piece also makes it -- is the conceptual underpinning of this 20th century decorative arts movement.

About Pritam & Eames

One's forties is a time when altering choice can still be made. Bebe Pritam and Warren Johnson made theirs at 40. After working in New York City for 15 years -- she was director of Asian Program Operations at the Council on International Educational Exchange, and he was a freelance cameraman-editor in documentary films -- they knew by the mid-1970s that they were ready for a change. They decided to gamble on their own business, one in which they could combine their talents and about which they could feel passionate.

Once they made their decision, it seemed that disparate threads from their respective pasts pulled together. Warren Johnson's grandfather did coach work for the Pullman Company in Chicago, and he grew up with some of his grandfather's furniture as well as a sensibility for craftsmanship. Johnson also made a few pieces of furniture during the couple's graduate school days in Boston and New York. They were influenced when a good friend opened his store in Brussels in 1968 that featured high-end Italian and Scandinavian-designed furniture. Through colleagues at the Japan Society in New York, Bebe Johnson was introduced to the furniture of George Nakashima. While visiting friends on the eastern tip of Long Island in the early '70s, they came across a small house for sale in East Hampton in dire need of repair. It answered their needs exactly. They quit their jobs and, with their young daughter, established themselves in East Hampton.

There, the Johnsons sought out Warren Pedula, a former Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) student and sculptor whose Bridgehampton rocker they had noticed in a local store. They also met their first furniture maker, Peter Korn, who lived in nearby Wainscott, during this time. Korn introduced them to the writings of James Krenov, and Pedula told them about Fine Woodworking's design book series. This led the couple to John Kelsey, then editor of Fine Woodworking. Initially, Warren Johnson approached Kelsey with the idea of doing a documentary film about studio furniture making. However, it was Kelsey's advice in 1979 that led the couple on a yearlong odyssey of visits to furniture makers and schools in the Northeast. Kelsey pointed out there were many furniture makers creating fine pieces of furniture that were mostly sold privately. He observed that the entrepreneurial end of the field was wide open. The Johnsons sensed that this was the challenge they were seeking. They applied for and received one of the last Small Business Administration loans to help women and minorities get started in business. They were ready to take the plunge into a business of their own. The name for their business came easily enough: Eames is Warren's family name, and Pritam is Bebe's maiden name. Otherwise, they would have been Johnson & Johnson.

There were two early encounters that encouraged the Johnsons: in l979 they visited the Richard Kagan gallery in Philadelphia, and in 1980 they attended a furniture show hosted at the Roitman showroom in Providence. Kagan's sliver of a shop on South Street in Philadelphia was virtually the only place where an interested observer could get a sense of the maker energy percolating in the East. Kagan, a furniture maker himself, was an inspiration to the partners because of his knowledgeable selection of work.

It was Tim Philbrick who invited the partners to see a group show held at the Roitman furniture store in Providence, RI. The show was organized by Tage Frid and John Dunnigan, and included work by them as well as by other southern New England furniture makers including Philbrick, Hank Gilpin, Rosanne Somerson, Alphonse Mattia, and George Gordon.

The Design Book series by Taunton Press offered another important source of information for the Johnsons, as were catalogues from museum shows such as the 1972 Woodenworks exhibit at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC, and the 1979 New Handmade Furniture exhibition organized by the American Craft Museum in New York.

The partners' task for the opening exhibition was to choose work from a multifacted, multi-centered field. By 1980, they had met Jere Osgood in Boston. His steering would be invaluable to the gallery since the studio furniture landscape was largely unlit at the time of the partners' research in the late 1970s.

One of their most important discoveries, however, was closer to home. It was their future landlord, Leif Hope, without whose support and encouragement the partners acknowledge they surely would have had a more difficult road and possibly have failed. Tucked away on a back street in East Hampton, the 19th-century steam laundry building owned by Hope has been the gallery address for nearly 25 years. This location was perfect for the Johnsons because the stabilized rent not only made their expenses manageable, but also allowed an unhurried pace for them to develop an audience for studio furniture. One of their first acts as Pritam & Eames was to commission James Schriber to make an entrance door for the gallery. They reasoned that his padauk and aniline-dyed ash door would provide a clue from the outside as to what was inside.

Good friends and owners of New York's Soho Charcuterie catered the gallery's opening on May 21, 1981. Many of the furniture makers came, providing enduring insight into their love of a good party. One of them said to a Fine Woodworking editor, "If any gallery is going to make it, it'll be this one."

Although the gallery's first years were a financial struggle typical of a shoe string venture, the partners consider their timing extremely fortuitous. It was during this period that resilient friendships were forged with many of the furniture makers. During this first decade, the Johnsons' small house was often filled with visiting furniture makers who lived in a style similar to theirs. Many shared a '60s background fueled by the belief that you can make a living by doing work that you love, and that such work would be valued by others. The challenge for these artist-craftsmen, then as now, is how do they make this work their own. Pritam & Eames has been privileged to be in place to learn more about why these gifted individuals do what they do and to be there for them as a showcase for their ideas in progress.

Opening Exhibition
Bruce Beeken, Larry Bickford, Wendell Castle, Richard Cohen, Michael Coffey, Nancy Crow (quilts), Ron Curtis, Tom Duffy, John Dunnigan, David Ebner, Stephen Dale Edwards (glass), John Everdell, Hank Gilpin, George Gordon, Maurice Hopson (rugs), Thomas Hucker, Michael Hurwitz, Hunter Kariher, William Keyser, Peter Korn, Mark Lindquist, Judy Kensley McKie, Robert March, Wendy Maruyama, Alphonse Mattia, George Nakashima, Richard Scott Newman, Timothy S. Philbrick, Peter Resnick, James Schriber, Rob Sperber, Pam Topham (tapestries), Jeffrey Urciuoli, Newell White, Jonathan Wright.

NOTES: In the opening show, Wendell Castle contributed an elegantly mannered, but rakishly stated, walnut and elm game table with four chairs that the Johnsons had spotted in his studio in 1980. Although the partners were principally seeking the work of the generation that succeeded Castle, they knew that a contribution from someone as well regarded as Castle lent substance to their efforts and they appreciated his contribution to a completely untested gallery.

Judy Kensley McKie's work has much in common with the spirit-imbued carving of primitive cultures. Her images suggest energies beyond what you see. (See Notes, McKie l987 show). She was represented in the opening exhibit with a console table in the form of a pair of carved mahogany dogs supporting a glass top. She also showed a walnut blanket chest with carved bird and floral motifs in the facades, patterns that continue in her work today.

Bill Keyser, on faculty at the School for American Craftsmen at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), took his command of technique and applied it first to form and then to function. He was exceptional in the opening show in that he contributed a nonfunctional piece that was a wall sculpture made from long sections of walnut and cherry branches. He also showed a branched-formed clothes tree, that could stand alone as sculpture.

Alphonse Mattia's red mirror, which utilized exotic hardwoods and a red lacquer shaped form as part of its frame, also took a decided sculptural direction. Mattia began with a mirror as a starting point but otherwise, the piece was a study of pure form, material, and color. He would continue to develop a series of sophisticated mirrors that featured carving, color, texture, and imagery that served him well in the gallery world during the 1980s.

Rob Sperber, Hank Gilpin, and Peter Korn contributed work to the opening show that could be described as "Krenovian" in approach. While McKie might first bring the piece to life as a sketch, James Krenov evolved a philosophy that saw the piece in the material. He published his ideas in four books in the mid-1970s, starting with The Cabinetmaker's Notebook. Krenov was not an advocate of building furniture from drawings. He didn't want a student to be obsessed with dimensions. Instead, he wanted a maker to see a piece in the material itself. If you could envision an important aspect of the piece in the material, then the rest of the piece would follow. Krenov's approach involves "seeing" like McKie, but with wood as material poetry. Many makers would be affected by Krenov's message. Sperber's thread cabinet and tie cabinet are good examples of material poetry, with great skill lavished on minor utility. Peter Korn's dictionary stand is at once functional, has a gentle sculptural attitude, and presents its material as a major dimension. His rocking chair ventures into a functional form not encouraged by Krenov. Its simple and slender Shaker-like sensibility is complemented by hand-woven fabric on the seat. Gilpin, as well, had a passion for material-just-right, and his pieces in the opening show would forecast his direction for the upcoming decades. In thinking about furniture he might say, "First, see a piece and its use in a room that is lived in. Second, bring just the right materials together for this piece." A strong part of the freshness of Gilpin's work is the use of always unusual, but seldom exotic, material. This is particularly evident in his white oak chest on stand but also in his curly maple bench and tea cart. The low base of the chest, with its novel asymmetrical extension and the simple beauty of the repeating, swelled drawer fronts, is emblematic of what would make his work appealing to so many in the years to come. Gilpin's furniture goes to the heart of livable, serviceable work that is designed with a clean material appeal in mind.

Tim Philbrick's sophisticated Pier Table of East Indian rosewood represents fine furniture as an outgrowth of early 20th-century European design movements. Philbrick had apprenticed with an antique restorer and reproduction maker in Rhode Island before joining the Program in Artisanry (PIA) at Boston University. His hero was Louis Majorelle, 1859-1926, master of Art Nouveau, and Philbrick was one of several working this way in what would become a strong movement in the 1980s that reestablished neoclassical references in studio furniture. However, the pier table in this show, Philbrick says, more directly referenced Art Deco. John Dunnigan's boudoir chair in walnut with its two tones of peach colored velvet fabric, and his wall-hung console and mirror, also make this aesthetic connection.

George Gordon's handsome sideboard represented the continuation of a strong furniture making program at RISD that had been established by Tage Frid, and where Gordon had studied under John Dunnigan.

David Ebner, RIT-trained, was influenced by Castle's design abilities as well as by the earlier work of Wharton Esherick. In his Wishbone Rocker, he is closer to Castle. One can see the hooped base used by Castle and Ebner in their chairs for this show. In both cases, the seat is cantilevered in form and the chairs' strength depends on the stile-to-hoop joint at the floor. In the rocker, the entire form uses bent lamination technique.

Also evolving from RIT and Castle's influence, Richard Newman was represented by two continuous veneer-formed low tables, as well as by the tour de force shaping of his solid Honduras mahogany blanket chest. He had not yet offended collegial sensibilities with his sumptuous neo-neoclassical work in ebony and gold, with which he would soon be identified.

The virtuosity nurtured by the PIA program was represented in the opening show in a minor key. Perhaps the most dramatic contribution by a PIA graduate was the entrance door in padauk and blackened ash commissioned of James Schriber. Both Wendy Maruyama and Bruce Beeken contributed free-form benches which are remarkably similiar in feeling considering the divergent paths these two influential studio furniture makers would take in the future. The absence of work from Jere Osgood was due to his continuing responsibilities as the director of the PIA program.

The opening was well attended, but the partners held their breath for the first sales. The early years would prove to be a financial tightrope for the gallery.

Commissions

The gallery's first commission came from a downtown Manhattan maritime law firm. Richard Cohen built a partners' desk in walnut, and George Gordon made a series of walnut arbitration tables as pictured. Commissions were a vital part of the gallery's activity in its first decade, constituting nearly half of its business. A short sampling of commissions during the year follows the end of each year's section.

Early on, the partners had been advised that dealing with the trade in commission situations would be essential to the gallery's success. However, this did not prove to be the case because few architects or designers at the time made an effort to include studio furniture in their residential or corporate projects.

Spring 1983
Lecture by James Krenov at Pritam & Eames

NOTES: The spring of 1983 marked the arrival of two cabinets by James Krenov, pieces that remain among his strongest work today. More than two dozen Krenov cabinets would be exhibited at the gallery during the ensuing years. Krenov also chose this occasion to visit Pritam & Eames for the first time, where he delivered a lecture to a full house. The first of his two cabinets is a maple case seated on a red oak stand. The concave flared panels of the two front doors, although not the first time Krenov used this feature, set this cabinet apart. The outward flare of the panel actually allows it to stand free of its frame at the outside of the door. The two small interior drawers are notable for the delicate pulls fashioned by carving into the partridge wood of the drawer front itself.

The second cabinet was built as a single integrated structure. Its frame is of mahogany and the panels are yaca-wood. By integrating the cabinet and the supporting frame, the legs could be joined at a 45-degree angle. This is a very satisfying feature that appears in a number of Krenov cabinets and later turns up in the work of Bill Walker (a student of Krenov's) and Hank Gilpin (a RISD graduate who did not study with Krenov). This cabinet's façade is so simple that the two pulls set into the doors act as a riveting focal point and express a powerful animus spirit. The animism is further enhanced by the extension of the stiles at the top of the cabinet. This carved extension of just a few inches has the symbolic quality of ears or horns. The pulls and the stile extensions provide a decorative emphasis that, overall, is compelling. Both Krenov cabinets contain wooden shelves as well as small drawers. The shelves carry a Krenov trademark that reflects his sensitivity to line: on the underside of the front edge there is a hand-planed bevel that delivers a slight visual lift. The effect is subtle, but real.

The Fine Art of Craftsmanship - Design and Process
Wendell Castle, Michael Coffey, John Dodd, John Dunnigan, David Ebner, Glenn Gordon, Tom Hucker, Michael Hurwitz, Hunter Kariher, William Keyser, James Krenov, Charles Mark, Richard Scott Newman, Russell Riscoe, James Schriber.

NOTES: This exhibit included drawings, photos of the production process for pieces in the exhibit, as well as an installation of the bending jigs and tools that David Ebner used to build his wishbone rocker. In an example of the drawing process, Michael Hurwitz showed a 20-foot piece of brown kraft paper with drawings of the evolution of a furniture idea that began as a table but wound up as a child's chair. The ornamental style of the chair's apron and crest rail evolved from Hurwitz's observations of historic buildings and decorative cornices. Cynthia Porter wove the fabric of the seat.
John Dunnigan was represented by another version of his Versailles Table. This time he utilized black lacquer for the base instead of wenge, which emphasized the top as a showcase for exotic wood. Note in the detail picture that the role of the apron is more decorative than functional, and that the stretcher system for the legs is a bent laminate structure. Also, the drapery-like aprons are turned and support the tabletop while the positions for the legs are cut out -- an unusual approach to table construction.

In 1964, Wendell Castle designed his music stand and determined it would be an edition. The one in this show was an unusual combination of purpleheart and maple. The viewer can't help but notice the similarity of the stand and a musical note. Although elements of the form would change in future editions, the spirit of its calligraphic gesture remained constant and made the music stand a classic in Castle's career.

Tage Frid's three-legged stools are animated work from Frid, you could say even anthropomorphic in that the group projects an assembly of personalities. You can also almost see these stools as Mattia's inspiration for his valet series.

David Ebner's Renwick Stool is an earlier design that brought him recognition from its acceptance by the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

The low table by Bill Keyser exhibits his creative use of steam bending, sculptural awareness, and technical intelligence in creating mystery for the eye. The arching legs appear to pierce the solid top.

Glenn Gordon's sturdy bench in lacewood is a compact composition of line and material. Although he would turn to writing in the future for creative outlet, this early small bench remains a strong piece.

Bruce Beeken's cedar Adirondack Chair was the earliest piece shown at the gallery to have been designed to be made in limited groups and marketed at a reasonable price. It took a discerning eye, nonetheless, to appreciate the differences between this chair and what was readily available in catalogues. The gallery itself would begin its effort to market an edition series in 1995; and by 2001, Beeken himself would be ready to launch his own line of Vermont furniture.

The Boston Influence
Dale Broholm, Thomas Hucker, Michael Hurwitz, Tom Loeser, Judy Kensley McKie, Charles Mark, Alphonse Mattia, Wendy Maruyama, Jere Osgood, Michael Pierschalla, Mitch Ryerson, Rosanne Somerson, Jonathan Wright, Stewart Wurtz.

NOTES: If talent is not contagious, there are times when it seems to create its own confluence. The Program in Artisanry at Boston University, under the leadership of Jere Osgood and Dan Jackson, and later, Alphonse Mattia, was an unusually productive source of talented furniture makers during its decade of existence from 1976 to 1986.

Those listed in the show are mostly still active in the Boston area. The valet series by Alphonse Mattia perfectly represents the vitality and exuberance that was collectively present at the time. The valets have charm, wit and, although mainly sculptural, were still sufficiently functional so as not to challenge the studio furniture code. The notion of completely non-functional work had yet to be asserted in the furniture field.

Also representing the more gestural aspect of the PIA influence is a pair of triangular side tables by Dale Broholm. Their blatantly red-dyed veneer tops say unequivocally: "Do you dare?"

Tom Hucker's three-seater beefwood bench reflects Ogood's thinking on structure. This furniture form is the forerunner of many pieces to come from Hucker -- some as benches, others as low tables. The footing would evolve into both bronze and stone, and the top would evolve to solid wood surfaces.

Tom Loeser's white oak chair and Michael Hurwitz's tall cherry table also show Osgood's influence. Although Loeser's work would follow more in the vein of his painted Mouse Hole Table, this chair represents the functional design discipline of PIA under Osgood. Its parts are light in mass, but the structure is well engineered, depending upon perfect joints to bear the special stress of seating. Hurwitz's tall cherry table is rigid in spite of its impossibly thin legs, due again to a well-conceived stretcher system and tight joints. His second piece, a brandy vault, shows another side of Hurwitz: his interest in color and surface texture. It also reveals his penchant for small, intimate case pieces that have more to do with a feel for enclosed space than with anything structural. In fact, the Victorian corner braces are purely referential. Note the decorative tie-in to his earlier Child's Chair already pictured. Both pieces use color, and have similar decorative detailing and playful scale. Hurwitz says he was mostly interested in making things that could be shipped by UPS during this period.

Judy McKie's Jungle Chairs in butternut focus on a primitive dugout shape, embellished with the carved figure of a creature. These chairs are an outgrowth of a commission for the puppeteer Jim Henson.

Rosanne Somerson's piece, a long rectangular mirror, reflected the re-emergence of paint as decoration. The vertical sides of the frame are capped by rounded volumes which themselves are painted with dense pattern. The top of the frame is crowned with a small medallion covered in handmade paper.

The appearance of Jere Osgood’s padauk and ebony Chest of Drawers in this show was a precursor to a regular contribution of major pieces from this outstanding maker. Although Osgood had developed his thinking about chests in the 1970s, the investment of time in a piece such as this five drawer chest makes their appearance rare amongst Osgood’s speculative pieces. The next chest of drawers, his three drawer low chest, would not show at the gallery until ’95. And his tall or lingerie chest would not appear until 2003.

Visually, the striking feature of these chests is their curved torso-like shaping. The width of the chest is narrower at the bottom with deeper drawers. The drawers get shallower as they widen towards the top. The curve of the front also becomes more accentuated as the piece progresses upward. This chest literally swells as in the tension of skin over muscle or the viscosity of a drop. This is accomplished by curving both horizontally and vertically. Although you see compound curving in other Osgood pieces, it is most effective in these chests. To accomplish this visual simplicity, the drawer fronts are all different bent laminate constructions. The sides of the chest which also swell vertically are coopered from shaped solid staves. The stems of the pulls are through tenons and pinned with wedges on the inside. The solid top is dovetailed into the sides. For a look at an earlier Osgood chest, see the one included on page 58 in the catalogue for the 2003 exhibit at the Boston MFA, The Maker’s Hand – American Studio Furniture, 1940-1990.

Although Judy Kensley McKie and Rosanne Somerson attended RISD and not PIA, their inclusion in this show reflects their influence and proximity to the Boston makers. PIA graduates not represented in this show but whose work also is associated with P&E include Bruce Beeken, Tim Philbrick, and James Schriber.

An Exhibition of Desks and Chairs
Dale Broholm, Wendell Castle, Michael Coffey, John Dodd, John Dunnigan, David Ebner, Hank Gilpin, Creighton Hoke, Jeff Kellar, Silas Kopf, West Low, Ben Mack, Robert March, Judy Kensley McKie, Richard Scott Newman, Ron Puckett, John Tierney, William Walker, Robert Whitley, Stewart Wurtz, Dennis Young.

NOTES: The show announcement is a sketch of Stewart Wurtz's three-legged desk that he completed after getting his certificate of mastery from PIA. In contrast to much of the curvature coming out of PIA at the time, this piece is strikingly linear and also architectural in its manipulation of perspective and geometric form. What is not visible in the photograph is the blue epoxy detailing on the top.

The Wendell Castle desk in this exhibit is part of his "fine furniture" series in which rich veneers and exacting details produced a consummate update of Ruhlmann's own update of 18th-century French ébénisterie.

Richard Newman was also at work in Rochester perfecting his neo-classical forms. Because of the publicity attending Castle, Newman's work was somewhat overshadowed. But the furniture coming out of both of these Rochester-area shops reached extraordinary levels of craftsmanship. In Newman's chair, the transition from the fluted rear leg to the fluted back stile is accomplished through seat corner details turned on more than one axis. The chairs' beautiful starburst ormolu shows Newman at the height of his jewelry-like decorative skills. The ormolu was first sculpted in wax from which the casting molds were made. The fluting on the gold plated feet, accomplished by cutting each flute on a Bridgeport mill, was a continuation of the tapered fluting of the legs.

Bob March settled in the Worchester, MA, area after graduating from RIT, where the Worchester Craft Center would take on a strong regional influence. The mellow light brown-gold color of his pecan and hickory desk, as well as its airy structural design, was a pleasant addition to this exhibition.

John Dunnigan's bird's-eye maple writing table, with its single unobtrusive drawer, once again demonstrates his ability to incorporate neoclassical references. In this piece he joined Newman by incorporating gold plating as an ornamental detail. You can see Dunnigan's use of exaggeration in the exploding tops of the faceted legs, and the billowing medallion-like maple details. The oval top itself seems to swell.

This was the first time that the work of William Walker appeared in the gallery. Walker, trained by Krenov at the College of the Redwoods, overlapped there for a year with Zivko Radenkov, but did not get to know Brian Newell, another Krenov protégé, until they would meet at P&E in the mid-1990s. Instead of pursuing a teaching role at the College of the Redwoods, Walker went north to Seattle, feeling he needed some distance to develop his personal furniture style. And his work did evolve in a strongly independent manner. The European cherry writing table and two chairs by Walker combine informality with simple elegant lines. The style of the suite is quietly original. The fruitwood is inviting and the thinking behind the details is rewarding: the koa inlay picks up the color of the chairs' hand-woven silk by Marjorie Lyons; the hand-planed relief in the curved and tapered legs is a good response to the corner details of the table top; the relieved drawer fronts allow for pulls carved from the solid material of the drawer fronts; the shape of the top itself subtly follows the pattern flow of the cherry and is, therefore, asymmetrical on close inspection.

If Castle and Newman showed the strength of work coming from the Rochester area, and Dunnigan and Gilpin expressed the vitality around Providence, RI, then Creighton Hoke and Bill Walker's work ably represented northern California. Hoke's fall-front desk exhibits his mentor's predilection to challenge us with unusual combinations of wood. The sensitively shaped hand-carved pulls, and the use of some asymmetry in the interior layout, signify Krenov's influence.

The Cabinet Art of James Krenov & New Works
John Dunnigan, David Ebner, Lawrence Hunter, Hank Gilpin, Michelle Holzapfel, William Keyser, Bob March, Charles Mark, Tim Philbrick, Ron Puckett, James Schriber, Rosanne Somerson, William Walker.

NOTES: James Krenov's cabinets in European cherry and chestnut are among a number of strong pieces that arrived for this show. Turner Michelle Holzapfel's carving skills found ample challenge in her MFK Fisher Bowl in ash burl, Ram's Horn Vase in yellow birch burl, and Breakfast in Bed, made of assorted woods.

The feeling of Bill Walker's chest of drawers in oak is very much in keeping with his earlier European cherry desk and two chairs. It is approachable and rich in rewarding detail upon close inspection: the hand-forged pulls, the inlay, and the surprising inclusion of two side compartments enclosed by doors.

Hank Gilpin's two walnut and bird's-eye maple chairs draw on Arts & Crafts as well as Chinese furniture references. But the design is resolved in a fresh and contemporary take on a dining chair with arms that easily accommodate a table apron. The chair focuses on its considerable joinery for a sense of style, rather than on challenging upholstery or decorative detail. The ample, well-designed back splat makes the chair most suitable for comfortable evenings around the table.

Bob March's small rosewood dining table, which evolved from his earlier harvest table design, is a comfortable companion to Gilpin's chairs, and also draws from the same historical sources.

From PIA's pool of talented graduates, both Tim Philbrick and James Schriber contributed high-style work. This was the first of Philbrick's chaises longue, derived from classical couches. The taut arching of the lower apron and the scrolling of the back and side give this piece, and those that evolve from it, an elegant tension.

Schriber's purpleheart table with its saber legs is also neo-classically influenced, although here the feel is distinctly more Deco, a period that would exert a powerful pull on a number of furniture makers in this decade. It is in his bed, however, with its startling contrast of bleached maple frame and crest rail in permanent wave, with pink ivory checks set in a warm, amber veneer, that you get a feel for Schriber's sense of fun and originality.

Larry Hunter's Clock V-2 is a kinetic sculpture that incidentally tells time. The movement of the pendulum, the locking and unlocking of the escapement, escapement wheel, fork assembly, and great wheel, contribute to the overall kinetics of the wall sculpture. The price of the clock included Hunter's travel from California to the collector's location in order to install the clock and instruct in its operation. Larry Hunter was one of Wendy Maruyama's teachers at San Diego State University in the 1970s.

Judy McKie's Dog Eat Dog table was a forerunner of many tables she would do over the years in which she would use paired animal forms.

Original Furniture for the Dining Room
Michael Coffey, David Ebner, West Lowe, Robert March, David Powell, Ron Puckett, Stephen Rieger, Greg Seiler, Wendy Stayman, Peter Superti, Joseph Tracy, Lee Trench, Jonathan Wright, Stewart Wurtz.

NOTES: Included in this show was a dining table by David Powell, the originator of Leeds Design Workshop in Easthampton, MA. Powell's table is a clean, contemporary three-legged table to seat six with a granite lazy Susan at its center. The table's ebony feet anchor straight tapered legs that enter into the pillowed apron with a visible V joint. The tip of the V ends at an ebony band encircling the top. The result is a simple, clean, as well as exciting, table design. The six armchairs are reminiscent of the work of Finn Juhl in the 1940s, but their ebony feet and post terminals make them stylish company for the table.

Work by Bruce Volz, a graduate of Leeds, was exhibited the previous year and would be joined the following year by another well-known Leeds graduate, Kristina Madsen.

Wendy Stayman's maple and satinwood silver chest has a Shaker simplicity that sets off its jewelry-like drawer pulls, the exterior's sole decorative flourish. She would return to this scale of chest two years later in her first one-person exhibit at the gallery. Stayman was trained in conservation before she studied at the Wendell Castle studio school in upstate New York.

You could find the work of Ron Puckett at Dick Kagan's gallery in Philadelphia until it ceased operation in 1983. Puckett was in RISD's program in the 1970s. His tall China Cabinet is remarkable for its beaten copper panels. Arts & Crafts in feel, the padauk wood of the carcass is set off by ebony trim that graphically segments the front and nicely offsets the large scale.

Judy McKie's limewood chest continued her exploration of abstract patterns. Her abstract pattern work, whether carved, painted, or both, goes back as far in her furniture history as the more familiar animal, bird, and reptile imagery with which she is so identified. The strict rectilinear form of this chest, as well as its quiet ivory-like color, gives the piece a calm, accepting presence. It, in fact, ended up comfortably in a dining area that included a Gilpin trestle table surrounded by Hans Wegner chairs. (See Commissions at end of 1984.)However, when one regards the piece, the energy of the carved abstract pattern begins to vibrate. The strength of the pattern appears as one's eye is pulled into its labyrinthine structure and like a labyrinth, it is a journey without repeats. What at first glance serves as a pleasant unity treats one to an unexpected pattern in each plane of its façade.

The show also included a dining table in white oak by Bill Keyser. The piece is a study of intersecting planes; the top is solid and expansive and simple in form with its gently canted edges. The double pedestal base that flares at offset angles is what catches the eye.

Much more organic in feel are two side tables by David Ebner and Peter Superti. Ebner's maple and rosewood Stick Table was the first of his twisted stick pieces to appear at the gallery. Foraging in early spring and taking to heart Wharton Esherick's dictum to look in your own backyard, Ebner would hunt the right-of-way of the Long Island railroad tracks for vine-twisted maple saplings. Once he learned how to remove bark and vine material efficiently, he had a wonderful local bone-like material with which to work. Superti's sideboard is called a Tropical Rain Cabinet and he also used found organic material -- the pulls are made from bean pods. The fiber woven door fronts add primitive texture.

Joe Tracy's tea cart was notable for its dramatic graphic statement. The plexiglass wheels encircled in black rubber provided a seemingly airborne support to the gentle sweep of the top surface.

Objects on a Smaller Scale

NOTES: The year opened with some playful, surrealistic entries that included Hap Sakwa's turned and painted wood scenes reminiscent of Giorgio de Chirico's landscapes, and the trompe l'oeil carving of Michelle Hozapfel's Breakfast in Bed and the marquetry of Silas Kopf's mantel clock.

The Room by David Ebner, with Paintings by Joseph Roboli - 1986

NOTES: This show focused on the energizing compatibility of contemporary fine and decorative art, and experimented with the synergy of mixing these two forms. This concept was not entirely successful for P&E. The exhibition demonstrated how strongly clients relate to a gallery in terms of their expectations. They came to see furniture and that is all they saw. Roboli's paintings were virtually overlooked, even though he was a successful East End painter. His paintings sold well elsewhere.

The work by Ebner was well-received and showed how far a studio furniture maker could stretch his residential scope. The exhibit included a mantel piece, and an exterior door with lites of delicately leaded, antique German textured glass. Ebner's furniture featured the refined use of wood in his upholstered pieces, cast bronze, and tables constructed from tubular steel. We can also see within this body of work a stylistic stretch that ranges from his very popular scallion coat rack (see Krenov & New Works 1984-85), which uses stacked lamination techniques he learned from Wendell Castle, to a French Deco-sveltness in his upholstered work, and then to the Egyptianate drama of his bleached oak blanket chest and full-length mirror. The tubular steel tables relate well to the upholstered work: both form and material have a strong contemporary style. Notice how a slender use of exotic woods in the upholstered work creates an elegant aura. The Egyptianate work was in step with what was occuring in post-modern architecture at the time.

The Furniture of James Schriber and Ron Puckett - 1986

NOTES: This exhibit was another indication that the time for the featured show had come. As with Hucker and Osgood, Puckett and Schriber draw from furniture traditions rather than from the "art" or sculptural end of the spectrum, yet this exhibit also illustrated the effect of architectural currents on studio furniture making. Whereas earlier we saw the effects of neoclassicism, here post-modernism is the influence. The two furniture makers took on this influence in distinctly different ways. Schriber's Pencil Post Bed and China Cabinet illustrate this influence but exhibit different attitudes as finished furniture pieces. The four-posted bed takes the historical pencil-post form but treats it with minimal decoration. In fact, the bed has an almost Shaker-like simplicity. The split detailing in the headboard and the simple crown approaches industrial or Michael Graves-like use of detail. The footboard is even simpler. This reserve sets off the slender faceted pencil posts themselves so that they soar elegantly to their finials in a dramatic vertical gesture. The simplicity sets up the drama. This piece would become the best-selling bed in the gallery's experience, and a classic piece for Schriber. He is still making it with very few changes. The China Cabinet takes up another facet of the post-modernist movement in its use of color. Schriber's palette, as well as the cartoon-like aspects of the design, is reminescent of Michael Graves. Where the bed comes off as stylish and elegant, this piece says, "Let's have fun." A part of its charm is Schriber's free use of industrial materials like fiberglass and perforated metal. It is milk paint, however, that provides the dominant effect. The use of color and paint in studio furniture had been percolating since the early 1980s, especially since the time when Tommy Simpson influenced younger makers as a guest teacher at PIA. This influence can also be seen in the work of Tom Loeser and Mitch Ryerson, also of PIA. But the milk paint colors here are close to Michael Graves' use of color, in their new/old quality. The hues are soft and rich. The China Cabinet is a well-remembered piece from this Schriber show. A pair of candlestick tables in what Schriber calls his "invention with historical form" and a set of painted mahogany garden furniture pieces -- two chairs and a table -- completed his portion of the show.

Earlier Ron Puckett work reflected a decided Arts and Crafts influence (see his paduak/copper cabinet in the 1985 Dining Room show). Here he shows a post-modernist influence, but rather than the rich Graves colors that Schriber employs, Puckett used the starker contrasts of the French ébénistes: ebonized or purpleheart decorative detailing combined with fruitwood and maple. The most successful piece in the show for him was the mirror, which he went on to repeat a number of times. Note that the detailing on the mirror is both bolder as well as simpler than in his other pieces.

Early Spring Show - 1987
Jim Budlong, Wendell Castle, John Dodd, John Dunnigan, David Ebner, David Finck, Hank Gilpin, George Gordon, Ted Hawke, John Hein, Marie Hoepfl, Michelle Holzapfel, Todd Hoyer, Thomas Hucker, William A. Keyser, Silas Kopf, Donald Krawczyk, West Lowe, Ben Mack, Kristina Madsen, Robert March, Jere Osgood, Timothy Philbrick, Ron Puckett, Jamie Robertson, James Sagui, James Schriber, Rosanne Somerson, Steven Speich, Lee Trench, Alan von Bekum, Bruce Volz, Geoffrey Warner, Robert Whitley, Stephen Whitney, Jonathan Wright, Rick Wrigley, Stewart Wurtz.

NOTES: The astonishingly broad roster for this show once again demonstrated the collective strength of the field from a variety of institutional and studio school sources.
Geoff Warner, a RISD graduate, produced a suite of pieces that provided the background for the show announcement. Warner's choice of white oak was unusual since it was not an exotic (highly favored at the time), but instead was a material that many associated with mundane functionality. But its combination with purple-heart gave Warner's work dramatic punctuation. There is a refreshingly spare, almost Japanese quality to his designs.

Ash, too, was a common wood mostly associated with tools and sports equipment. In Jere Osgood's ash and leather desk, ash was used in the aerodynamic design for its structural properties. The design provides a broad writing surface with a pencil drawer beneath that is supported by one of Osgood's signature pedestals. This time, however, he allowed the trunk of the pedestal to project above the writing surface by several inches. Those several inches incorporate a backstop which then curves and tapers to the ends of the writing surface. Although a small change, the result is an exponential leap in design.

Tim Philbrick's kosipo and slate Tea Table came about partly as a result of the strong impression an antique tea table had made on him. The slate top and the ivory-like tacqua palm-nut feet show his openness to new materials. Its ideal proportions and the gently shouldered transition from apron to leg made this an outstanding piece.

Schriber's maple, pearwood, and ebony dining room table is another accomplished piece that has a strong architectural presence. His simple use of multiple square posts in the base allowed Schriber to create an architectural perspective. The table achieves a classical sense without resorting to mimicry of Doric or Ionic columns, but rather reflects the post-modern trends in the architecture of the time. There is also a contemporary sense brought forward in the use of squares supporting a circle. The top is made inviting by solid edging that is shaped with a gentle ogee, a shape Schriber repeats in the base. It is interesting to compare this table with the pedestal table later created by Rick Wrigley in 1998.

Rick Wrigley's work appeared for the first time in a P&E show. His side table, made of quilted mahogany, ebony, and sapele, reaffirmed the circulation of neoclassical ideas in the mid-1980s. The fluting of the legs is not of the technical complexity of a Newman table, but reflects the restraint that production values impose on developing an elegant and refined series. It is the use of black pan-headed industrial steel screws for decorative embellishment that gives stylistic spice to the piece and saves it from becoming too historically referenced. At the time, Wrigley had set up his shop in Holyoke, MA, where he established his Gatehouse Furniture Series, of which this table is an example. It was there, too, that he developed a friendship with Kristina Madsen who worked in nearby Easthampton, MA.

Madsen's wenge and holly bench displayed her early focus on surface pattern. At this time, she was creating patterns in wood through lamination, router cuts, and re-sawing. In this way, initial pattern composition was realigned into more complex forms. This was the period before she visited Tasmania and Fiji and became immersed in Pacific shallow-relief carving techniques.

Rosanne Somerson's white oak daybed was the third variation on this theme to appear at the gallery and prompted one of her colleagues to remark that they just get prettier and prettier.

Don Krawczyk, a protégé of Somerson and Alphonse Mattia, produced a simple writing table suite for the show. The style was in contrast to the neoclassical influences of the time. Here technique was kept simple, and materials and design give the impression of informality and daily use. Krawczyk's table and chairs combine curly maple with milk-painted hardwood. The subdued tones of milk paint were popular with makers who wanted to introduce color while not making color the major statement of the piece. The use of simple cut-outs and relieved circles give Krawczyk's work a folksy feel, but with a contemporary look. Compare this Krawczyk suite to his return to this format in spring 1989.

Lee Trench was also searching for the feel of the vernacular in her work and, like Krawczyk, used milk paint to help render that sense. You can see this best expressed in her two basswood footstools. On a different order of complexity and elegance, Trench's chest of drawers was appointed with handmade glass pulls and feet. This touch gave the straightforward utility of the piece an overall feeling of delicacy.

Jamie Robertson's two lunettes bring to mind the work of the ébénistes and might come as a surprise to those who know his later work, such as the Sunrise bed or trompe l'oeil pieces. It is the prowess of his marquetry, however, that provides the continuity.

There were a number of pieces from Hank Gilpin in this show, including two of his chests of drawers. One of them utilized his legendary air-dried domestic hardwoods, in this case cherry and curly maple, while the smaller chest was of makore and Australian lacewood. The makore chest's barely four-foot height gave it a delicate stance for a case piece rich in drawers. It is a perfect size for silverware and small linens. This was especially refreshing work that was not insensitive to furniture history, but recognizably contemporary in feel. These two chests were created to bond viscerally with the familiar. Gilpin intended the viewer to imagine these pieces in the home. And in truth they did not stay long in the gallery. The accessibility of Gilpin's work stood in contrast to the demanding elegance of much of the historical Ruhlmann-inspired work of that time. In both chests, the corner stiles rise from the function of short legs at the bottom all the way to post supports for the top. The curve of this line is only slight but is enhanced because of the way the profile of the leg is joined into the carcase at 45 degrees. Gilpin claims that for him this was a powerful evolutionary design breakthrough. The pulls in both chests were lathe-turned. It's unusual for Gilpin to use a non-domestic hardwood, but occasionally he does to great effect, as in the six drawer makore and Australian lacewood chest.

Gilpin's corner desk was a large and unusual piece to come to the gallery since the gallery sales were mostly for residential use. Normally, a piece this size would be commissioned. The partners found its ample drawer space, including the accommodation of files, and the large work surface of the top to be appealing. Also, the beauty of the piece is due to Gilpin's knowledge of domestic hardwoods, in this case a composition based on the combination of hard and soft maples that provide subtle contrasts between the panels and framing.

Also present in the exhibition was a trio of pieces from three makers who had studied with Jim Krenov. The lovely country-styled hutch in fir and pearwood by Marie Hoepfl was fresh and unpretentious. Jim Budlong's simple cherry bowed wall-hung display cabinet was a sensitively rendered statement in minimalist form. Ted Hawke came from England to study with Krenov and produced a few pieces during his stay. His maple side table has unusual legs that are carved and not constructed.

James Krenov and William Walker - 1987

James Krenov and William Walker - 1987

NOTES: Krenov rarely returns to remake an earlier piece. In 1987, he returned to his 1970 Music Stand for Two, this time using maple instead of lemonwood. It is a table, 27 inches by 16 inches, with two drawers sized for music sheets that can be opened from opposite sides. There is a collapsible sheet-music rack. Opened, the rack cants to either side of the table so that two musicians, seated across from each other, can play from sheet music. The legs flare to the foot so that the table seems rooted. His cabinet for the show challenges a preconception of elegance. It stands squarely, and is both simple and refined. The vertical members are faceted to stand at 45 degrees to the two-door cabinet that itself occupies 60% of the vertical space. The relatively large scale of the cabinet gives the piece a strong, primitive look. The front of the cabinet is framed by horizontal rails, pierced by double tenons that are double wedged. Again, the impression is one of strength.

William Walker graduated from Krenov's program at College of the Redwoods in 1984. Rather than staying to teach, Walker moved north to Seattle to open his own shop. The oval table in pecan and doussie, sized for an eating nook, has the charm in scale and materials that you would expect from someone trained by Krenov, though Krenov himself made few tables and chairs. Walker would go on to become a master of the dining table form. The four chairs that accompanied his breakfast table had open, fan-styled backs with seats covered in handwoven silk. The six spokes shaping the back make you think of an early Swedish country chair. At the top, however, they pierce first an arched stretcher, and then land in the arched crown rail -- beautiful and time-consuming work. Also, the spokes are faceted and ergonomically curved.

His accompanying writing table with two chairs struck a distinctly different stylistic direction. Elegant and French come first to mind in describing the set. Curved sides swell out while the front curves in towards the center. To the rear of the writing surface, a low case holds a number of small drawers and shelves. The combination of the bubinga frame and pearwood-veneered writing surface and drawer fronts is surprisingly compatible. Walker's bubinga and pearwood Writing Table would be included in the 2003-04 MFA Boston exhibit, The Hand of the Maker.

Completing this body of work was the Swedish ash long cabinet that is 62 inches wide and stands 49 inches high. The front is composed of four doors and four drawers that carefully use the beautiful ash figure of the thick-sawn veneer in a vertical and horizontal composition. The pulls are relieved from solid lipping sections. The long horizontal cabinet would continue to be a major focus of Walker's work. The gallery would show three other such cabinets in the coming years, the most recent being Walker's entry in the 20th anniversary show in 2001. It's instructive to see Walker's leg-to-carcase transition go through its subtle evolution over the years in these four chests, since it is not uncommon for makers to consider design elements over a long period of time.

The Furniture Art of Judy Kensley McKie - 1987

NOTES: The Chase Table is Judy McKie's first work in bronze. Her friend and colleague, Garry Knox Bennett, ushered her into bronze work in the mid-80s. He encouraged her to try casting in response to an earlier piece in which she had painted the wood to look like metal. Bronze was a natural medium for her, not only because of its sculptural possibilities and sense of permanence, but also because it allowed her to think in terms of editions for her work. In this she would follow the tradition of European sculptors and keep the numbers small. The Chase Table is a table only in the sense that the two creatures support a glass top: they circle each other in an endless pursuit. Is it a game or is their pursuit in deadly earnest? This ambiguity characterizes the best of McKie's animal-derived forms. For the Chase Table, McKie said that she used rounded, full forms to depict a nonspecific animal reminiscent of pre-Columbian or ancient mythical creatures. She was after something that would cross cultures and time.

There were two case pieces in this show - the magnificent Dragonfly Chest of Drawers in limewood, and the strikingly tall Thumbprint Cabinet. In the Dragonfly Chest, the deep carving of the drawer fronts allows a play of shadow within the monochromatic tonality of the wood. The overall pattern was created by the repetition of a single image -- the dragonfly -- whose heads also serve as drawer pulls. She planted the chest above the floor on a stand to lighten its appearance.

The Thumbprint Cabinet was darkness to the lightness of the Dragonfly Chest. The thumbprint pattern is a fine relieved line on a black background, and the cabinet's simple rectilinear shape is a perfect canvas for the at-once chaotic and regular swirl that McKie created on the panels. She refered to it as "a fragmented fingerprint pattern." Both doors are segmented into eight panels, and the unpredictable pattern shifts as it moves up the panels. Despite its repetition of irregularity, McKie somehow managed to leave the piece in a state of balance. The regularity of the carving on the Dragonfly Chest and the irregularity of the carving on the Thumbprint Cabinet are graphic themes to which she would return in future work.

Beds in featured shows are rare. McKie's Turtle Bed was shown full length because part of its construction is a latticed platform. The rails repeat the carved and colored detail of the footboard and headboard, which is the bed's focus. The five acrobatic turtles could be dancers in a frieze or, given their aqua medium, joyful synchronized swimmers. The bed is black, the aqua and copper colors could not be deeper in tone, but the mood of the piece is light. McKie said that the bed was inspired by early American painted furniture and that this was the first piece in which she painted over a relief carving.

Besides the Chase Table, the show included three other tables. The Gazelle Table, a hall or console table, has a glass top. The back-to-back stance of the two creatures function as a table support, as seen in earlier McKie work. The long necks and anklets of the gazelles are embellished with rings that give this piece a distinctly African feel. The mahogany Bird Table was carved from solid wood. Its chunky pedestal leads you to think of a figure carved from a large stump, evoking a tradition in American folk carving. The bird is at once strong, familiar, and distinctly McKie. She herself said that she wanted to make something more primitive, direct, and less refined than her other work, and that African carved objects had influenced her.

Colette - 1987

NOTES: Colette's cloisonné enamel jewelry, with its mystical imagery on precious gold and silver, pioneered the pathway for Pritam & Eames's representation of work in metal. The layers of vitreous material, and the iridescence achieved as a result, enhanced her hieroglyphic and painterly imagery. The depth she achieved was the result of firing the pieces as many as 25 times. Colette's accomplishment in the field of wearable jewelry stems from a combination of strengths that include a marriage of painterly symbolism, technical skill, and an intriguing personal language. She is able to manipulate metal and enamel as though they were malleable materials. Colette's work evolved to include bronze table-mounted and wall-mounted stands that served as sculptural holders for the jewelry.

The Furniture of John Dodd and Ben Mack - 1988

NOTES: Both John Dodd and Ben Mack received their training in furniture making at RIT during the '70s. Since they were acquaintances, the two-person show was a congenial event. From the gallery's point of view, the idea of a combined show came from their compatible design aesthetic. It's difficult to identify any traditional furniture influence in either Dodd's or Mack's work. Take, for example, Dodd's free-standing corner screen with a table for flower arrangements. This type of piece is likely to inspire a need rather than satisfy one, and thus it broadens your sense of use. It illustrates how a piece first seen as pure sculpture can, in fact, add a distinctive dimension to our private space. Dodd used thin, flowing panels of bent veneer to create a soft rippled effect much like fabric. This piece is free-standing and could be used as a vanity screen or a partial divide in a residential space. Two other free-standing dividers were included in the show, each with a nominal furniture function. One featured two narrow, floor-length mirrors as well as a single central drawer. The drawer is not hung inside a case. Instead, Dodd used the central track for the drawer as its mount to the rear stile of the stand. In addition to the utility of the drawer, there is a space on the right to hold canes or umbrellas. The third piece, partially a collector's cabinet, could also function as a divider or privacy screen. The cabinet is enclosed by a slender glass door. Dodd received an interesting commission as a result of this work, from a client whose interior vision was up to his. Fortunately, the client was willing to devote an important part of her New York apartment space for the large installation. The cabinet included lit spaces for objects as well as closed compartments to house her collection of obis (kimono sashes) -- see 1988 commissions.

Ben Mack's two case pieces had been preceded by a media cabinet the year before. The media cabinet was at once both novel and fulfilled an existing need: it nicely hid the various components of an audiovisual system. As with his liquor cabinet in this show, the entertainment center was structured more like an architectural space than any traditional cabinet form.

The Furniture Art of John Dunnigan - 1988

NOTES: The pair of chairs that appear on the announcement can be and were called asymmetrical, but when both chairs are viewed from the rear, they form an easy symmetry. So the chair has two personalities: one as solo and another in pairs or groups. The unusual crown rail has the panache of a fashionable French twist because we see the maple only there and in the legs. The upholstered body of the chair has the effect of a stylish suit matching the coiffure. It is a striking and simple design. Again we notice Dunnigan's use of a wide seat-front that tapers severely in width toward the back of the chair: it's the same perspective game that Dunnigan frequently enjoys playing in his work. Here the simple curve of the back translates seamlessly into the curve of the crown.

Another striking seating piece was the Emerald or Cleavage Settee. This settee, like the pair of chairs just described, combined the simple curved form with surprising conclusions. The curved line from the arm to the foot is an unbroken one: on the inside, it has but a single transition. This form allowed Dunnigan to dramatize the piece with a tiny foot and tiny scrolled finials at the top of the arm. By giving himself this single transition, he created tension with the bloated junction at the point of the apron. By sacrificing a right-angle junction at the apron, he created much of the drama of the piece. In the upholstered volume of the settee, the most striking feature is the obvious cleavage in the middle of the back. Again, the curves here continue the curves of the front. The detail of a double canister on both sides of the couch gives the piece another moment of excess. Dunnigan's upholstered work is so voluptuous that his teacher, Tage Frid, would tease him about making furniture for bordellos. If you see Dunnigan's style as the enjoyment of slight decadence, then you understand his choice of French Deco linoleum for the top of the writing table, the rightness of the pink-ness of his vanity, and the splendid luxury of the upholstered tops under glass in the two side cabinets of his vanity suite.

Richard Scott Newman: Masterwork - 1988

NOTES: The time required to build Newman's work is so intensive that he would go on to appear in only one other featured show at P&E. This was the high point of Newman's incomparably detailed ébéniste work, and would prove to be his only one-person show at the gallery. His other solo show was at the Peter Joseph Gallery in 1995.

The centerpiece for the P&E show was a fluted cabinet on stand. It is difficult for anyone, except perhaps another maker, to appreciate the amount of time that such a piece requires, particularly for a small shop such as Newman's. The cabinet design evolved from Newman's thinking about fluted boxes (see 1989 Ebony show). The cabinet itself is oval, making its design and construction even more difficult. Its single door opens to a bird's-eye maple interior that houses two shelves and one shallow drawer. The stand's four legs are shaped helical flutes that twist in opposite directions on the left and right sides of the cabinet. The helix begins as a straight vertical flute from the foot that travels through the ebony bracelet attachment for the stretcher, and then accelerates. The stretcher mirrors the fluting of the cabinet and is surfaced similarly with figured maple facings and ebony trim. The diameter of each leg increases in proportion to the increase in the helix. The ebony finial is itself an accomplishment of form and execution. There are a number of excellent case pieces in Newman's work, including the one that would be in the 1989 MFA Boston exhibit New American Furniture, but none would compare with the flamboyance and passion of this piece.

His other furniture designs in the show had previously been introduced in the gallery, and they completed an overview of Newman's most popular pieces from the 1980s. Of particular note is the walnut, ebony, and gold-over-bronze umbrella stand. Its predecessor first appeared in the gallery in 1985, and it remains one of the most beautiful, as well as unusual, pieces in the studio furniture field. The design metaphor is a classic: the tied bundle. The gold circlets continue the metaphor with the appearance of a braided rope. The beautiful craft of the gold sections, especially those set between the ebony beads, produces a stunning effect.

Newman's mirror, combined with his hall or demilune tables, is a statement of reserved elegance. In contrast to the over-the-top quality of the cabinet, the leg treatments of his tables include vertical fluting edged with ebony and flat-faceted ebony faces separated by narrow flutes. Because of their exceptional length, the vertical thrust of these legs is as dramatic as their impossible slenderness. As supports they are rigid structure; the slimness is accomplished through a complicated internal structure including steel parts that Newman engineered. The legs end in a turned transition crowned by apron corner blocks embellished with starburst ormolu.

Michael Hurwitz - 1989

NOTES: Michael Hurwitz also was invited to be a part of the MFA Boston show New American Furniture later in the year. The piece Hurwitz chose to emulate was Samuel Gragg's bentwood "elastic chair." This is an amazing chair made in Boston in 1808, decades before any of Thonet's revolutionary bentwood work would be seen. Hurwitz's ambition was to make a chaise longue that rocked or, as he called it, a rocking chaise. He wanted the same fluid line from foot to crown that he admired in Gragg's chair. In that chair, the curving line ends in the crown rail. In Hurwitz's rocking chaise, the line at the crown continues to the base of the rocker in one fell swoop so that you can imagine drawing the profile in one unbroken sweep. In this way, the piece comes to a surprising length of 85 inches. Hurwitz made two rocking chaises, one for his show at Pritam & Eames in August, and the other for the Boston MFA show. He would go on to make several more versions of the rocking chaise.

Hurwitz's teacher, Jere Osgood, taught him to think with the eye and to create forms with visual integrity. You can see the connection to this principle in Hurwitz's table work. In this show, a monochrome mahogany tea table and a pair of purpleheart side tables represented the influence of Osgood. The tapered bent laminate work in the tables' stretchers give them strength but also lithe grace made possible by Osgood's teaching of process. In the plant stand, Hurwitz repeats this same stretcher work. Both in the tables and in the plant stand, the lattice-style tops give a nod to Tom Hucker's bid for transparency without glass. There were few tables to come out of the '80s as beautiful as these: they are an ingenious blend of imagination, technical panache, and wonderful utility. If this part of the show could be seen as being about structure, then his three cabinets were about texture.

The tall, floor-standing cabinet in Mexican and East Indian rosewood, and the two small wall hanging cabinets, presented a means for Hurwitz to experiment with texture and color through paint and distressed surfacing, using wood-burning and sand-blasting techniques.