Courtesy Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
More than any other member of the American Abstract Artists, Irene Rice Pereira took to heart the principles of the Bauhaus. Assessing its importance, she wrote in 1939 that the Bauhaus “exerted the greatest influence on our entire social order.…”(1) In her paintings, her commitment to machine-age materials, and in a philosophy that called for a merging of technology and the transcendental, she was among the most avid Bauhaus proponents in the United States.
Pereira had experienced a difficult childhood. Born in Boston in 1902, she began supporting her family at an early age after her father’s death.(2) In 1927, while working as a designer during the day, she enrolled in night classes at the Art Students League. Over the next four years, she and fellow students Burgoyne Diller, David Smith, and Dorothy Dehner, came to know modernism through the instruction of Jan Matulka and Richard Lahey. By 1931, Pereira had saved enough money for a trip to Europe and North Africa.(3) She attended criticism sessions given by Amédée Ozenfant at the Académie Moderne in Paris. But much of her year abroad was spent traveling — in Italy, where she studied the brilliant color of Italian Primitive painting, and in North Africa, where the light and dramatic space of the Sahara had a lasting effect on her life and on her aspirations for her art.
In 1935, Pereira helped found, and began teaching at, the Design Laboratory, a cooperative school of industrial design established under WPA auspices. She believed deeply in art’s social function andconsidered abstract art the key to the future:
The importance of abstract art lies in the fact that it is an experimental art — These artists are not concerned with literary documentation — but experimentation which conveys its influences to our architecture — our typography — photography — industrial design — It is an art which performs a definite social function.(4)
The curriculum at the Design Laboratory paralleled that of the Bauhaus. Students were required to take a basic course (patterned after the Vorkurs taught by Albers and Moholy-Nagy) that introduced them to the chemistry, physics, and mechanics of traditional as well as new art materials. Much of the instruction took place in laboratories. The students experimented with materials in order to gain a practical grasp of physical properties. They then applied this knowledge to the design of objects that could be easily mass produced. “Truth to the materials” was a basic precept and the use of surface ornament was actively discouraged. Although the traditional media of clay, wood, and stone were listed as materials to be explored in the class schedule, by 1937, Pereira’s students were also working in glass, plastic, and metals.
Inherent in the philosophies of both the Bauhaus and the Design Laboratory was the notion that the individual genius was subordinate to broad social considerations. The needs of society dictated the program. Courses were taught in the social implications of technological developments, as well as the psychology, chemistry, and physics of color. Music, painting, literature, and architecture rounded out the academicschedule.
Experimentation also lay at the core of Pereira’s own artworks. The paintings in her 1933 exhibition at American Contemporary Artists Gallery were semi-abstract compositions based on nautical motifs — smokestacks, ventilators, anchors, and the like — while in her 1934 and 1935 exhibitions at ACA she presented canvases in which abstracted human forms were juxtaposed against the shapes of giant machines. Machine Forms #2 (also called Power House), and the study that preceded it, are among the last works in this vein. Painted early in 1937, Machine Forms #2 was inspired by the view from her studio window: “I used to look in at a power house on 16th Street where I was living, to get the feeling of power house; and then made my own.”(5)
Later in 1937, when Pereira began painting nonobjective canvases, the principles of the Bauhaus and Russian Constructivism became apparent in her work. She was especially concerned with finding a way to bring light into her work, and over the next ten years incorporated a wide range of unusual paints, as well as glass, plastic, gold leaf, and other reflective materials into her art. By 1946 she had experimented with radium paint — these works would emitghostly patterns when lights were extinguished — and she madeglass constructions in which she painted on smooth, pebbled, and corrugated glass surfaces, then layered them together to emphasize a shallow, planar depth.(6)
Pereira continued to work in an abstract vein for the remainder of her life. She said abstraction offered “a wider range for experimentation and for clarifying the problems concerning pictorial presentation.”(7) Increasingly, though, she attempted to articulate her ideas in poetry and essays, the metaphysical tone of which often obscured rather than clarified her thoughts.
I. Rice Pereira, Sketch for Machine Composition #2, ca. 1936, pencil and crayon on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.73
Sketch for Machine Composition #2 was inspired by the view from the artist’s studio window. “I used to look in at a power house on 16th Street where I was living, to get the feeling of power house; and then made my own.” Fascinated by their functional beauty, Pereira made machines the central focus of her work in the 1930s. In this study for a painting, she presents devices that appear to have been taken apart and reassembled into a fantastic, abstract creation. Although she appreciated the potential of mechanization to transform society, this drawing has menacing overtones that suggest ambivalence.
Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2009
. Rice Pereira, Machine Composition #2, 1937, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Patricia and Phillip Frost, 1986.92.72
I. Rice Pereira, Untitled (Boats at Cape Cod), 1932, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Djelloul Marbrook, 1988.80
I. Rice Pereira, Mecca, 1953, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Leslie Dame, 1973.191
I. Rice Pereira, Heart of Flame, n.d., oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Max Robinson, 1981.184
LONG LOST PLAQUE AT THE FOOT OF THE LIGHTHOUSE “THIS IS THE WORK WAS DONE BY JOHN McCARTHY WHO BUILT THE LIGHT HOUSE FROM THE BOTTOM TO THE TOP/ALL YEEATH DO PSS BY MAY PRAY FOR HIS SOUL WHEN HE DIES”
ARON EISENPRIES, GLORIA HERMAN, ED LITCHER ALL GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM
1. Irene Rice Pereira, “New Materials and the Artist,” lecture given in 1939 at Columbia University; see notes in Irene Rice Pereira Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington,D.C., roll 2395: 153.
2. I am grateful to Karen A. Bearor for alerting me to Pereira’s correct birthdate of 1902. Throughout published sources on the artist, the date has been given as 1905, a date Pereira herself had provided. For a detailed study of Pereira’s work and beliefs about art, see Karen A. Bearor, “Irene Rice Pereira: An Examination of Her Paintings and Philosophy” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1988).
3. The dates given for this trip vary in published sources on Pereira’s work, but her trip apparently took place sometime after her first marriage in 1929.
4. Pereira, “New Materials and the Artist.”
5. Pereira, manuscript for Eastward Journey, 1953, Pereira Papers, Archives of American Art, roll D223: 0032.
6. For an illustrated discussion of this technique, see Dorothy Gees Seckler, “Pereira Paints a Picture,” Art News 51, no. 5 (September 1952): 34 – 37, 54 – 55.
7. Pereira, letter to Emily Genauer, 25 April 1947, Emily Genauer Papers,Archives of American Art, roll NG‑1: 373.
Virginia M. Mecklenburg The Patricia and Phillip Frost Collection: American Abstraction 1930 – 1945 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1989)
Irene Rice Pereira worked as a stenographer before turning to painting in the 1920s. She studied at the Art Students League in New York and helped to found the Federal Art Project Design Laboratory, a school patterned after Germany’s Bauhaus school. Trips to England, France, Italy, and North Africa fostered an almost mystical attachment to the qualities of light in space. In the 1950s, Life magazine ran a profile of Pereira as it had for the abstract expressionists, although that predominantly male group never accepted her work or her assertive personality. Pereira showed her works with other women artists and minorities in New York and Washington, including students coming up through Howard University’s program. She remained as interested in the company of writers as in painters and in the last decade of her life wrote books and poems exploring the mysteries of space, time, and vision (New York Times, January 13, 1971; Schwartz, “Demystifying Pereira,” Art in America, October 1979).
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Photo by Marius Ciocirlan on UnsplashWith autumn in New York City officially here, you can take in the changing leaves and crisp air, and there are few places better to do that than a local farm. Some of the best spots near town offer apple and pumpkin picking, in addition to a slew of other fall-ready activities, making it easy to bring some of the season home with you. Ahead, we’ve rounded up our 10 favorite spots to check out.
1. Lawrence Farms Orchards 306 Frozen Ridge Road, Newburgh, NY 845-562-4268 This family-run farm located just over an hour’s drive from Manhattan has been hosting apple-and-pumpkin-picking folks for over three decades now. From June through October, a $7 entry fee during the week and $10 on weekends and holidays gets you access to the farm and orchards (kids under two enter for free). They have a whopping 19 varieties of apples to pick, along with grapes, pears, and many vegetables. Other fun activities include hay bale mazes, and a “Little Village” filled with child-sized farmhouses to play in.
Photo by Tim Evanson / Flickr cc 2. Barton Orchards 63 Apple Tree Lane, Poughquag, NY 845-227-2306 This Poughquag farm offers up over 100 acres of apple orchards with produce ripe for the picking (for a fee, of course), in addition to a pumpkin patch, farmer’s market, and taproom with outdoor seating. Admission is free unless it’s a festival weekend, but the fee grants you access to a bevy of fall activities, including hayrides, a corn maze, and live music. The orchards host a number of fall-ready events, including a Jack O’Lantern Jubilee and a weekend-long Harvest Fair. Also within the farm is Tree Top Adventures, an aerial adventure cours
3. Dubois Farms 209 Perkinsville Road, Highland, NY 845-795-4037 This first-generation family-owned Highland farm has 54 acres of produce-producing land, which includes a pumpkin patch and an apple orchard, as well as pick-your-own flowers, grapes, peppers, and more. The farm’s also got a bakery, a market and cafe, a corn maze, weekend barbecues, tractor-pulled wagon rides, a child-sized “Tiny Town,” and a tavern serving hard cider, craft beer, and wine. The farm is about a two-hour drive from Manhattan and is open daily from May 31 through November 23. 4. Fishkill Farms 9 Fishkill Farm Road, Hopewell JCT, NY I am personally attached to this farm, located just over an hour’s drive from Manhattan—my grandparents used to live just down the road from it when it was owned by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, and I spent much of my childhood playing in its hayfields and eating cinnamon doughnuts with apple cider purchased at its farm stand. Today’s iteration is run by Joshua Morgenthau, and it’s much like it was when I was a child, focusing on sustainable farming and offering apple and pumpkin picking to visitors in the fall months. This year, advanced reservations are required for pick-your-own. 5. Apple Ridge Orchards 101 Jessup Road, Warwick, NY 845-987-7717 This Warwick farm, which takes about two hours to get to from Manhattan by car, has a gorgeous pick-your-own pumpkin patch, in addition to a slew of apple trees (they say they’ve got up to 20 varieties of apple) and peach trees in the summer. Admission to the farm is $3, and includes parking and access to the apple orchard, petting zoo, play area, and farm stand. Apples run about $$34 per half-bushel; a pumpkin of any size costs $13. The orchards also have hayrides and a corn maze, farm animals you can feed and pet, honey bee hives, and a farm stand where you can purchase cider and apple-themed desserts. 6. Jenkins-Lueken Orchards 69 Yankee Folly Road, New Paltz, NY 845-255-0999 This New Paltz orchard, located about a two-hour drive from Manhattan, kicks off its apple picking season in early September, granting visitors access to its more than 500 apple trees. You can pick bags by the peck or half-bushel, and pick pumpkins from their patches for 40 cents a pound. There’s also a farm stand where you can purchase produce, cider, and baked goods, among other farm-ready items. 7. VonThun Farms 438 Route 57 West, Washington, NJ 07882 732-986-6816 + 519 Ridge Road, Monmouth Junction, NJ 08852 732-329-8656 VonThun Farms has two locations in New Jersey, both of which offer apple and pumpkin picking during Spooky Season and are open daily. Both farms have corn mazes and other autumnal activities to amplify the seasonal fun. On Fall Festival Weekends, guests get access to 20+ activities, including self-pick access, hayrides, pumpkin bowling, rubber duck races, pedal karts, and more. 8. Wightman Farms 1111 Mt. Kemble Avenue, Morristown, NJ 973-425-9819 This nearly century-old family-owned farm has hayrides, multiple mazes, and a fun picnic play area, in addition to pumpkin and apple-picking. The latter has a $7 fee for picking, which includes orchard admission and a tote bag, plus you pay per pound. If you want a pumpkin, you’ll have to spring for the $16 Farm Sampler, which includes maze and hayride access—you can upgrade to the $25 All Access Pass for both pumpkins and apples, which I highly recommend doing. 9. Wilkins Fruit and Fir Farm 1335 White Hill Road, Yorktown Heights, NY 914-245-5111 This Yorktown Heights farm, located about an hour’s drive from Manhattan and is celebrating its 105th year of harvest. It offers apple, pumpkin, and peach picking, with apple season kicking off in September and pumpkins arriving in October. To enter the apple orchard, which offers 13 varieties, you’ve got to commit to half a peck per person or half a bushel per three to four adults. The farm is open every day except Tuesday from 10 a.m to 4:30 pm. On the weekends, you can also do a wine tasting at the on-.location White Hill Vineyard
Photo courtesy of Queens County Farm Museum 10. Queens County Farm Museum 73-50 Little Neck Parkway, Floral Park, Queens 718-347-3276 The Queens County Farm Museum is New York City’s finest apple-procuring and pumpkin-picking establishment, boasting a long tradition of permitting urbanites to pretend they live somewhere rural for five minutes. The 47-acre farm has a pumpkin patch open daily in October, and though you can’t exactly pick apples on the premises, you can purchase them (and apple pie, and apple cider) at the farmstand. More importantly, you can visit the famed Amazing Maize Maze.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources
6SQFT
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Cunard Line poster. “For safety and comfort take the old reliable Cunard Line. Established 1840. Sailing 4 times a week. For all European points. Between New York and Liverpool. P.H. Du Vernet, General Western Agent, North West Corner Clark and Randolph Streets, Chicago.”
Poster of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company liner Alcantara at Rio de Janeiro, by Kenneth Shoesmith
New Zealand Shipping Company Ltd, New Zealand line. R.M.S. Rangitata in Gaillard Cut, 1930s, Screenprint, 980 x 1253 mm, Printed Ephemera Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Reference: Eph-H-SHIP-1930s-01
Some of the most striking posters on the international scene in the twentieth century were those showing ships; the large flat surfaces lent themselves well to poster treatment. This one uses a comparatively subtle colour palette. We think the date is likely to be the early 1930s, because of the style and because the R.M.S. Rangitata was launched in 1929.
The Red Star Line ship Belgenland, rigged as a schooner and dressed overall. She was launched in 1878, completed in 1879, renamed Venere in 1904 and scrapped in 1905.
NURSES ON PIER OUTSIDE CITY HOSPITAL ED LITCHER AND GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
In 1882, Charles Lewis Tiffany decided to build an enormous new residence for himself and his family.
The early years of the mansion, almost alone in the wilds of the Upper East Side
This wouldn’t be unusual for a rich, prominent merchant in Gilded Age New York City. Tiffany was that Tiffany, the man who launched a stationary and fine goods shop in 1837 that soon grew to become the internationally famous jewelry store.What might have seemed odd was the location Tiffany chose for his family castle. Rather than gravitating toward Fifth Avenue just below Central Park, where other elite new money New Yorkers were building elegant homes, Tiffany planned his mansion on Madison Avenue and 72nd Street—a mostly empty stretch of Manhattan that had yet to fulfill its destiny as a wealthy residential enclave.
The Tiffany mansion between 1900-1910, with more neighbors on Madison AvenuePerhaps he had an affinity for Madison Avenue; Tiffany lived at 255 Madison near 38th Street at the time. Or it may have been an opportunity to “procure a large footprint of land on a wide cross street, ensuring not only extra light but also ample southern exposure,” wrote Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen in Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall.Tiffany hired McKim, Mead & White to design what would be one of the largest dwelling houses in New York, even by Gilded Age standards. Working closely with Stanford White in particular was Charles Tiffany’s son, Louis Comfort Tiffany. Louis had studied painting before becoming an innovative and acclaimed decorative artist-craftsman and starting Tiffany Studios, “renowned for pottery, jewelry, metalwork and, especially, stained glass,” wrote Christopher Gray in a 2006 New York Times piece.
Louis Comfort Tiffany, far left; Charles Tiffany is in the center holding Louis’ kids in 1888
The mansion, completed in 1885, was a 57-room showstopper that dwarfed its few neighbors. There was another unusual aspect to it: the gigantic house was actually three separate residences for separate Tiffany family members.
“The first, on the first and second floors, was frequently said to be for Charles, but he never occupied it,” wrote Gray. “The second apartment, taking up the third floor, was for Louis’s unmarried sister, Louise; the third, on the fourth and fifth floors, was for Louis himself.”
Louis’ first wife died before the mansion was finished, and the widower moved in with his four young children from their previous residence on 26th Street. (He would soon remarry and have four more kids.) Louise stayed with her parents at 255 Madison, according to Michael Henry Adams, writing in HuffPo.
To enter the house meant walking through a huge stone arch, which led to a central courtyard. “The structure was crowned by a great tile roof—substantial enough to have covered a suburban railroad station—and by a complex assemblage of turrets, balconies, chimney stacks, oriel windows and other elements in rough-faced bluestone and mottled yellow iron-spot brick,” noted Gray.
Of course, a mansion of this size and pedigree attracted the attention of architectural critics, who either loved it or hated it. Ladies’ Home Journal dubbed it “the most artistic house in New York City,” thanks in part to detail on the facade and ornament, wrote Frelinghuysen. A detractor called it “the most conspicuous dwelling house in the city,” she added.
Louis reserved the fifth floor for his studio, which was three to four stories high and situated amid the mansion’s gables, according to Gray. Accounts from visitors suggested that the studio was a showcase for Louis’ talent and creativity, as well as his collections of exotic objects and furnishings. It also served as a “sanctuary from the daily bustle,” wrote Frelinghuysen.
“A forest of ironwork, brasses and decorative glassware suspended from the ceiling made the atmosphere even more obscure and mysterious,” added Gray. “Near the center was a four-hearth fireplace, feeding into one sinuous chimney made of concrete. It rose from the floor like an Art Nouveau tree trunk.” Makes sense; Louis took his inspiration from nature
An 1886 sketch of the house, dwarfing the two men on the sidewalk
In 1905, after the elder Tiffany passed away, Louis built a country estate near Oyster Bay, Long Island called Laurelton Hall. As the decades went on, he began spending more time there, moving some of the furnishings and objects from his Madison Avenue to his estate house.
He died in the Madison Avenue mansion in 1933 at the age of 84; the house met the wrecking ball three years later. The spectacular mansion, designed as a family compound of sorts that most of the family never actually lived in, was replaced by a stately apartment building.
LOBSTER TRAPS ON PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, CANADA BEFORE HURRICANE AND AFTER FIONA.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources EPHEMERAL NEW YORK
[First and second images: NYPL; third image: Wikipedia; fourth image: MCNY 93.1.1.18259; fifth image: Google Arts and Culture; sixth image: NYPL]
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Dear reader, I don’t usually write about myself. But this is really something. So, permit me, just this once.
Over the Covid era, I have become a puzzle – jig-saw puzzle – enthusiast. I like them 1000 pieces and difficult to hard. I have a large dining table, and since I only take up a small portion at one end, the other can be devoted to weeks long puzzle struggles. I’ve done some lovely paintings but I like magazine covers, too. The old Sunset mag has some wonderful images and I’ve enjoyed several Norman Rockwell covers from the Saturday Evening Post. At the moment, I’m battling a Steinberg cover from the New Yorker.
I was recently gobsmacked to learn that the Bard Graduate Center now sells a puzzle in its bookstore – not my picture, but the image of a gift we gave to Bard which has become a major feature in their Study Collection program. How about that!
The Bard Graduate Center is a research institute in New York City with MA and PhD programs. It’s devoted to the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through research, advanced degrees, exhibitions, publications, and events. The Study Collection lives in the Graduate Center and is what might have been called in earlier times a Wunderkammern, or cabinet of wonders. It’s a grand collection of things – many media, many eras, many places. The Collection website states, “The purpose of the Study Collection is to support pedagogy by providing hands-on, close-up examination of objects as part of a classroom experience. Holdings include artifacts of glass, metal, ceramic, wood, plastic, textiles, and paper.”
Several years ago, we donated 80 pieces of pottery, glass, and wood collected or simply picked up around the world because they were interesting or just simply beautiful. At a recent Bard program for high school students, I was enormously pleased to hear one young woman describe and analyze a carving I had carried home from Nigeria. She and her colleagues were clear, clever and articulate far beyond what I would ever thought such young people could do.
We met the Bard folks when we learned of a program run at the Grad Center dealing with mended works of art. Researchers pore over these pieces like forensic pathologists reconstructing a crime. What is it, how was it broken, how was it mended and other questions are on the table.
Years before, we purchased a large English serving platter. We knew it was Staffordshire, early 19th century, with a large transfer image. It was a magnificent piece, well beyond our price range. Except that it had been broken and very, very carefully mended. The price was now in our range, so, of course, we purchased it.
The damage could scarcely be seen from the top. The two halves had been carefully fitted together and held by 15 metal stables. Tiny holes were bored, perhaps with a diamond drill, and the staples, heated red hot, were placed in the holes. When the staples cooled, the two pieces were drawn together securely. In addition to the break, there’s more damage on the bottom, yet not a chip on the surface.
We assumed it had been brought here in colonial times, almost surely a valuable addition to a home, and that it had been broken here (but perhaps in transit?). More fascinating was the effort and time expended to mend it. Who mended it? There must have been expert hands at doing this. We wondered why the owner felt it was so important to be worth mending. And then, how had it been preserved for so many years.
We learned more about it. Markings showed that it was made by Rogers and Son in perhaps in the 1840s. Rogers and Son was a pottery manufacturer located in Burslem, a town in Staffordshire, one of a several manufacturers in this area – producing what is now known as Staffordshire ware. The pattern, an Egyptian scene of a rider on a camel and architectural elements, was named “Camel” and colored in bold cobalt blue and white.
England had made fine porcelain – Bow, Chelsea, among other manufacturers – but that was much too expensive for England’s new middle classes. These people had money enough for some indulgence, but it had to fit their purses – and Staffordshire pottery looked very much like the real thing, although it was earthenware or stoneware and much less dear. As demand for this new product grew, technological advances responded, and new forms of decoration (transfer printing, for example and new colors, as well as a raft of new shapes and designs) emerged. (Some of these potters very successfully imitated Chinese export ware.) Soon, Staffordshire ware became standard in the kitchens of all but the wealthiest British families.
Some of the Staffordshire companies grew much larger and their names are legendary today – Spode, Davenport, Moorcroft, Mintons, Doulton and, of course, Wedgewood. And we can see a profound transformation in marketing and advertising as the industry became one of England’s largest and helped move England into the industrial revolution.
John and George Rogers are listed in a 1784 directory as manufacturers of “china glazed, blue painted wares and cream coloured” at Burslem. They were probably operating from the potworks their father Francis had owned and which he left to John, the elder son, in his will. George Rogers died in April 1815 and John in December 1816. John had a son, Spencer Rogers, who inherited the business and continued to trade as ‘John Rogers & Son’. Spencer Rogers continued in business until 1842, in which year he was adjudicated bankrupt. (see http://www.americanhistoricalstaffordshire.com/history/john-rogers)
Roger and Son carried on trade with the United States. The Boston merchant Horace Collamore gave the factory three orders; the first, for twenty-five crates on 23rd May, 1814; the second, for three crates and five hogsheads on 4th December 1815; and the third, for twenty five crates, on 4th May 1816. The first order included ten crates of printed tea and table ware. The named patterns were Stag, Zebra, Elephant, Oriental and, of course, Camel. So, we know this platters of this design found their way to the United States through at least one Yankee merchant. And perhaps, an American merchant imported it, and sold it to a customer, in whose charge in was broken – and mended.
Years later, into our hands and then, to Bard Graduate Center’s Study Collection where it has become one of the most viewed and studied objects. And finally, the subject of a 300-piece jigsaw puzzle commemorating their exhibition entitled Conserving Active Matter. Check out the bottom note.
I know, this was a slightly odd addition to my RIHS series. I’ve donated paintings and plates to several museums, and that is always a kick. But how many people have had their own puzzle, at least when they are still around?
FLOOR PLAN IN EASTWOOD FOR ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT, 1975, RENT IN 1977- $321.
ED LITCHER, NINA LUBLIN, GLORIA HERMAN GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
STEPHEN BLANK
GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE JULE MENIN DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
When it was founded in 1917 by local Jewish shop owners on West 47th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, the congregation was known as Ezrath Israel.
Actors who frequented the Theater District and Times Square were decided not welcome. In the early 20th century, they were looked down upon for their supposed loose morals and the sometimes shady venues where they plied their trade.
But in the mid-1920s, a new synagogue for this small congregation had been constructed—a beige brick building that stood out thanks to its majestic stained glass center window. A new rabbi also took the helm, and he “realized that he could increase the membership by welcoming actors from nearby Broadway,” wrote Joseph Berger in the New York Times in 2011. That rabbi, Bernard Birstein, reversed the previous no-performer policy, according to David Dunlop’s 2014 book, From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan’s Houses of Worship.
Drawing from all the theaters, cabarets, and nightclubs in this hopping part of Jazz Age Manhattan, the congregation attracted showbiz hopefuls as well as the already famous. Performers like Sophie Tucker, Milton Berle, and Jack Benny came to services, and Ezrath Israel became known as the Actors’ Temple.
“Some members and congregants, many of whom were born into poor, hardworking immigrant families, included Al Jolson, Edward G. Robinson, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Henny Youngman, Eddie Cantor, Burt Lahr, George Jessel, and countless other lesser-known actors, comedians, singers, playwrights, composers, musicians, writers, dancers and theatrical agents, along with sports figures like Sandy Koufax, Barney Ross, and Jake Pitler,” states the temple’s website.
By the time of his death in 1959, Rabbi Birstein had boosted membership to 1,000, according to a 2002 New York Daily News article. But the number of congregants began to dwindle steadily through the decade—a trend experienced by other small synagogues in Manhattan’s unglamorous business districts, like the Garment District Synagogue and the Millinery Center Synagogue.
Today, the Actors’ Temple is still holding fundraisers and offers services for the high holidays. I’m not sure if any A-listers belong to the congregation, but members “take great pride in carrying on our Jewish show business tradition by being a place of acceptance, spirituality, creativity, and love,” per the website.
was once the centerpiece of a great public market beneath the Queensboro Bridge Market in the early twentieth century, but it was long hidden from view until restored under the aegis of MAS’s Adopt-A-Monument program. The perilous life of this handsome civic amenity is a saga that stretches nearly nine decades.
The Queensboro Bridge, built in 1908 by the architect Henry Hornbostal and engineer Gustuv Lindenthal, spans the East River, linking Manhattan with farmlands in Queens. By 1916 one of the city’s most prosperous plein-air farmer’s markets developed alongside the bridge. As a result of its success, and as part of a campaign to get pushcarts off the street, the main section underneath the bridge, with its soaring Catalan vaulted tile ceiling pioneered by the émigré Spanish architect, Rafael Gustavino, was glazed, converting it to a year-round market facility.
Judy Schneider got it right
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Deborah Dorff All image are copyrighted (c)
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
SOURCES
[Third image: geni.com] Tags: Actors Temple Hell’s Kitchen, Actors Temple New York City, Actors Temple West 47th Street, Small Synagogues of Manhattan, Synagogues of New York City Posted in Hell’s Kitchen, Houses of worship, Music, art, theater |
GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE JULIE MENIN DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
American Impressionist Edward Henry Potthast is best known for sunny beach scenes, filled with sparkling surf and high-keyed details such as balloons, hats and umbrellas. He was born to a family of artisans in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 10, 1857. At age twelve he became a charter student at Cincinnati’s new McMicken School of Design. He studied at McMicken, off and on, for over a decade. From 1879 to 1881, his teacher was Thomas Satterwhite Noble. Noble, a portrait and figure painter, employed a dark palette and a rich, painterly technique derived from his instruction under French artist Thomas Couture.
Potthast made his first trip to Europe in 1881. After a visit to Antwerp, where he studied with Polydore Beaufaux and Charles Verlat, Potthast proceeded to Munich perhaps on a visit that had been prearranged with Noble, who was also in Munich in the early 1880s. Munich and its Royal Academy strongly had long been a destination for Cincinnati artists. Potthast and Noble had been preceded by fellow Cincinnatians John Henry Twachtman, Robert Blum, Joseph De Camp, and Frank Duveneck, who alternately taught in Munich and Cincinnati. At the Royal Academy, Potthast studied with the American-born instructor Carl Marr (von Marr, after 1909), who was known for his adroit handling of light and shadow in realistically rendered works. Potthast completed his European tour with a visit to Paris, where he studied for about a month and a half at the Academie Julian.
Returning to Cincinnati in 1885, Potthast resumed his studies with Noble, while earning his living as a lithographer. At this time, his painting style was much influenced by the Munich School, which was, in turn, influenced by the Dutch painting tradition. Potthast’s paintings, which included both interiors and landscapes, displayed sound draftsmanship and dark tones applied with solid unbroken strokes. At the end of 1886, he again departed for Paris, where he studied with Fernand Cormon and, possibly, with Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. In 1889 he met American Robert Vonnoh and Irishman Roderic O’ Conor, landscape painters who were working at Grcz. The cool-toned, Impressionist paintings with scumbled surfaces these painters and others at the Grcz colony were making had a profound impact on Potthast’s palette. His conversion to Impressionism was immediate and irrevocable. When he returned to Cincinnati, he carried back light-filled canvases, paintings such as Sunshine, 1889 (Cincinnati Art Museum), a painting of a girl in an outdoor setting, which had been exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1889. When the exhibition entitled “Light Pictures” opened in 1894 at the Cincinnati Art Museum, Potthast was the only American artist included in the show.
Even though he enjoyed modest success in his hometown, Potthast made the decision to leave Cincinnati in 1895 and establish himself in New York City. While he went about setting up a painting studio, he fulfilled illustration commissions for the publications Scribner’s, Century, and Harper’s. He exhibited watercolors and oil paintings in exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago beginning in 1896, and at the National Academy of Design from 1897. He won the academy’s Thomas B. Clarke prize for best figure painting in 1899, the same year was he was elected an associate of the academy. Potthast was made a full academician in 1906.
After his move to New York, Potthast made scenes of people enjoying leisurely holidays at the beach and rocky harbor views his specialty. He spent summer months in any one of a number of seaside art colonies, including Gloucester, Rockport and Cape Cod in Massachusetts, and Ogunquit and Monhegan Island, Maine. Such was his love of the beach that, when he resided in New York, he would journey out on fair days to Coney Island or Far Rockaway with his easel, paintbox, and a few panels.
Potthast never married. He was an extremely private person, though he was close to his nephew and namesake, Edward Henry Potthast II (1880-1941), who also was an artist. Potthast died alone in his New York studio on March 9, 1927.
The paintings of Edward Henry Potthast are represented in public collections across the United States, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; Art Institute of Chicago; Cincinnati Art Museum; Georgia Museum of Art, Athens; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.
Edward Potthast spent many days at the beach painting scenes of children and their families. Through his artwork, he captured the peacefulness of the children. Although he never had children and was a somewhat private person, he clearly enjoyed their company.
Potthast is one of the top beach scene painters by any American artist today which accounts for the rather steep prices of his artwork. A Potthast beach scene can be a great investment for the future. (From Hollis Taggart Galleries)
SEEDING AN OYSTER BED NEWAR THE BATTERY IN THE EAST RIVER ED LITCHER AND HARA REISER GOT IT RIGHT!
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Queen Elizabeth II visits New York City, July 6, 2010. Mayor Bloomberg Photo Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The late Queen Elizabeth II traveled to New York City three times during her 70-year reign as the British monarch. The first visit took place on October 21, 1957. Her majesty had expressed a lifelong desire to see the famous Manhattan skyline from New York harbor. Her wish was granted as she traveled by ferry from Staten Island across the bay to the Battery for the start of a ticker-tape parade that brought her to City Hall and a welcome from Mayor Robert Wagner.
Ticker tape parade Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, October 21, 1957. NYC Municipal Archives Collection.
Queen Elizabeth’s 24-hours in New York City was the culmination of a six-day visit to the United States. The details of her journey are well-documented in Mayor Wagner’s subject files. The records include a ten-page “Program for the Visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, to the United States of America, October 16–21, 1957.” The program lists the fifteen members of the royal party as well as a minute-by-minute schedule, beginning with their 1:30 p.m. arrival at Williamsburg, Virginia on October 16. Other stops included the College of William and Mary, and three days of sightseeing and ceremonial luncheons and dinners in Washington D.C.
The program indicated that on the evening of October 20, the Queen and her party would depart from Union Station in Washington arriving at Stapleton, Staten Island the next morning at 10:10 a.m. to begin their day of festivities in New York City. A luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria hosted by Mayor Wagner followed the ticker-tape parade. Their itinerary included a stop at the United Nations and the Empire State Building and ended at 11:45 p.m. when the motorcade proceeded to Idlewild International Airport for a 12:45 a.m. departure by Royal Aircraft for London.
Waldorf Astoria program for a luncheon in honor of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Mayor Wagner Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.
The folder in the Mayor Wagner collection also includes items such as a helpful memo issued by the Department of State, Office of the Chief of Protocol. The document specifies that “The Queen and Prince Philip prefer short, simple meals.” For beverages, “The Queen likes Rhine wine, sherry, and Canada Dry ginger ale. Prince Philip may ask for Scotch Whisky and Soda Water or Gin and Tonic Water.”
Queen Elizabeth II visited New York City again on July 9,1976, as part of a six-day tour of the United States marking the Bicentennial of America’s Declaration of Independence from Britain. Although Mayor Abraham Beame proclaimed her an honorary New Yorker, there is not documentary evidence of her visit in the processed records of his administration. However, the mayoral scrapbook series does provide a source of information. Beginning in 1904 clerks in the mayor’s offices clipped articles from local newspapers that referred to the mayor, or municipal events in general, and pasted them into scrapbooks. The practice continued through the administration of Mayor Edward I. Koch. Although many newspapers have been digitized in recent years, the scrapbooks contain clippings from all the daily newspapers. The scrapbooks also provide useful context for events and personalities that is not always apparent in on-line searching.
Not every New Yorker was happy with the Queen’s 1957 visit. The Queens chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians sent Mayor Wagner a letter protesting “the use of taxpayer’s money to entertain a British Queen.” Mayor Wagner Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.
Mayor Beame’s staff clipped several articles documenting the Queen’s day in New York City. According to the New York Times, it began with her arrival at the Battery aboard a “sleek 44-foot motorboat—from the royal yacht Britannia.” The Daily News reported that Queen Elizabeth accepted a welcoming bouquet from Mayor Beame’s granddaughter, Julie, at Battery Park. From there she went to Federal Hall and then “strolled, with Beame and Mrs. Beame, the 100 yards up Wall Street to Trinity Church.” Their itinerary included a luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and a stop at the Morris-Jumel mansion in Harlem. Several articles detail her 30-minute visit at Bloomingdale’s department store: “A Bloomin’ Good Day for Queen Elizabeth,” proclaimed the Daily News. The Times reported that the excursion had been suggested by the department store executives, “… as a very American experience,” and agreed to by the Queen. The article went on to note that “…the Queen seemed slightly bewildered—and perhaps that was because what she was doing was not exactly part of her everyday routine. In Britain, the Queen seldom goes shopping—the merchandise comes to her.”Queen Elizabeth’s third and final visit to New York City took place on July 6, 2010. The Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg photograph collection includes several images of Queen Elizabeth during her visit. Bloomberg administration records have not yet been completely processed and it is not known if there is other documentation of the one-day visit. But newspaper accounts tell the story. According to the New York Times, the Queen and Prince Philip arrived by private plane from Canada. Her majesty made a short address to the United Nations. Next her motorcade traveled down to ground zero where “…she solemnly laid a wreath in remembrance of the lost lives. Then, along with her husband, she greeted some of the families of the victims and first responders.” Her final foray was to nearby Hanover Square to officially open the British Garden, a triangular park that opened in 2008 as a memorial to the 67 British citizens who died on September 11.
Thank you letter from Buckingham Palace, October 24, 1957. Mayor Wagner Papers, NYC Municipal Archives.
THOM HEYER, ALEXIS VILLAFANE, ED LITCHER, NINA LUBLIN ALL GOT IT RIGHT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources
N.Y.C. MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES KENNETH R.COBB
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
I spent the day in Boston last week and had a wonderful visit to the Central Library at Copley Square. It was worth the visit with the Mc Kim building being a treasure trove of masterpiece art.
The Bacchante and Infant Faun sculpture in the central courtyard at Boston Public Library
Two lions grace the central staircase (cousins of Patience and Fortitude?) Sculpted by Louis St Gaudens, the stone is not finished and if you rub the tails, good luck will follow.
Boston Public Library 1st Public library
The room has a commemorative plaque
The Guastavino Room is now used for special events
The ceiling looks so familiar.
Books are still on the upper level shelves
Murals by John Singer Sargent grace the upper level.
Just in case you were curious, the Mc Kim building is connected to the modern Boyleston Street annex. A great modern structure where you can have you mandatory Cappuccino,.
WINDOW WASHERS AT BLOOMBERG CENTER, CORNELL TECH NINA LUBLIN GOT IT
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources
JUDITH BERDY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
FROM ANDY SPARBERG: Underground trolley terminal at Manhattan end of Queensboro Bridge, for cars that crossed the bridge and made a stop at the Upside Down Building for access to Welfare Island, now Roosevelt Island.
Text by Judith Berdy Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website Edited by Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c) Roosevelt Island Historical Society unless otherwise indicated
Sources
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
