Pritam & Eames, The Gallery of Original Furniture
P&E Archives Decade 1
The Gallery of Original Furniture

 
     
1981 - 1991: The First Decade
© Copyright 2005 Pritam & Eames
     

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.

Gallery entrance door design
by James Schriber
     
   

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.

   
     
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Selections from the Opening Exhibition - 1981

Opening Exhibition - 1981
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. 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.

 
Judy Kensley McKie - carved Walnut
Bird and Fern Chest

Wendell Castle - Walnut and Elm Game Table, Chairs

Judy Kensley McKie - Mahogany
Table with Dogs

Alphonse Mattia - Red Lacquer Mirror Detail
William Keyser -
Walnut Clothes Tree

William Keyser - Maple and Walnut Split Branch Wall Sculpture
Rob Sperber - Walnut Thread Cabinet

Hank Gilpin - Maple Bench Detail
Hank Gilpin - Oak Chest on Stand

Hank Gilpin - Curly Maple Tea Cart

Peter Korn - Cherry Dictionary Stand

Peter Korn - Rocker

Timothy Philbrick - Rosewood Pier Table

John Dunnigan- Walnut and Velvet Chair

John Dunnigan - Mahogany Table and Mirror

David Ebner - Wishbone Oak Rocker

Richard Newman - Mahogany Blanket Chest

Richard Newman - Black Limba
Coffee Table Base
Bruce Beeken - Bubinga Low Table

Wendy Maruyama - Padauk Bench

Thomas Hucker - Sitka Spruce Box
Mark Lindquist - Maple Burl Bowl
George Gordon -Teak and Mahogany Sideboard
 
 
 
   


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.

     
     
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Announcement of 1982 Show Schedule

 1982: New work from America's top designer-craftsmen
Neal Barkon, Larry Bickford, Michael Coffey, Ron Curtis, David Ebner, David Ellsworth, Hank Gilpin, Michael Hurwitz, Hunter Kariher, William Keyser, Silas Kopf, Alan Lorn, Judy McKie, Charles Mark, Alan Marks, Richard Newman, Timothy Philbrick, Robert Sperber, Leslie Wells, Newell White, Jonathan Wright.

NOTES: This show opened the gallery's second season. Seminal work from John Dunnigan and Richard Newman arrived this year. Newman's stunning dining table opened the 1982 season and Dunnigan's Versailles Table arrived for the Masters show later in the summer. These pieces established both makers as individual stylists from whom much could be expected.

Richard Newman's dining room extension table in cherry, ebony, and ormolu broke radically with his past. A commission requested by his mother-in-law forced him to abandon his RIT Modernist style of work in favor of Louis XVI. Prior to working in the Modernist vein that he says was encouraged at RIT, Newman had made banjos. And it was the musical instrument making that prepared him for the fine decorative work that characterizes his furniture from here on. The dining room table combines cherry and ebony on the legs and apron, which also features cast gold-plated ormolu of androgynous faces set in relief. The table has a resawn, hand-planed top of figured cherry veneer. The effect of this combination is stunning, like nothing else in studio furniture at the time. Although the use of gold was anathema to some and considered elitist by others, Newman was mostly undisturbed. He said, "Gold is noble, it's a perfect material."

When a piece sets a mark, it usually provokes some discussion. Work from others in the exhibit shows how well they, too, struck the vein of a successful personal furniture style. Such a piece is Tim Philbrick's pearwood and leather chair. The leather seat and back are tailored into an elegant pearwood frame, and outlined with red leather piping.

Judy McKie's carved and painted plant stand shows her inimitable blend of animal and invented form. The skyward seeking thrust of the bird's head, wings, and legs is a gesture that communicates to everyone.

With its fan-like form, the stylish padauk and purpleheart chest of drawers by Michael Hurwitz inverts the cabinetmaker's usual approach. In this case the largest drawer is on the top with the size of the drawers diminishing as they descend.

David Ebner's English brown oak sofa table and chair demonstrate the strong impression that Wharton Esherick's style of work had on him. In the sofa table, he made use of a "poured leg" design for the first time: the top appears to continue and flow down into the leg form.

You could dance on Gilpin's sassafras low table, affectionately dubbed a "foot stomper." It shows his fresh treatment of familiar form, as well as his preference for under-utilized domestic hardwoods.

Some makers become associated with a single piece. Such was the case of Jonathan Wright's bubinga/maple dining room extension table. Without its leaves, the top is a deltoid or inflated triangle; with the addition of its three leaves, the top of the three-legged table becomes round. Wright would continue to make versions of this popular design into the 1990s.
 
Signature Pieces - Summer 1982
 
Alan Lorn - Cherry Fallfront Desk

Richard Scott Newman - Cherry, Ebony and Gold Extension Dining Table

 
Richard Newman - Cherry, Ebony, Gold
and Silk Chair

Richard Newman -
Details of Dining Table
Michael Hurwitz - Purpleheart and Padauk
Chest of Drawers
Judy Kensley McKie - Bird Table
David Ebner - English Brown Oak
Sofa Table and Chair
Tim Philbrick - Pearwood and Leather Chair

Hank Gilpin - Oak Foot Stomper Table
Jonathan Wright - Bubinga and Maple
Extension Table
 

 
Work from the Masters - 1982

Work from the Masters -1982
Wendell Castle, Michael Coffey, John Dunnigan, Wharton Esherick, Tage Frid, William Keyser, Sam Maloof, Alphonse Mattia, George Nakashima, Jere Osgood.
Lecture by Wendell Castle, introduction by Jack Lenor Larsen.

NOTES: This show paid tribute to those who helped shape the course of the studio furniture movement by their work and through their teaching. With the seven-year apprenticeship system a tradition of the past, the academic training centers on American campuses that developed in the 1960s and 1970s proved crucial to the development of the studio furniture movement. In addition to providing basic furniture making skills, these structured academic programs took place in an environment that ultimately fostered a freer, more dynamic approach to design. The schools also provided the opportunity for friendships and a spirit of camaraderie to develop between students and teachers which, in many cases, lasted long after graduation.

At this point it might be helpful to give a sketch of some of the personalities in place at the time of the gallery's opening and to note the diversity of their background disciplines.
Wharton Esherick's singular visionary authorship is generally acknowledged as the source of the American studio furniture movement. Trained in the fine arts in the early twentieth century, Esherick went from painting to woodcut printing, and then to sculpture and furniture in the 1920s. He received public notice when he collaborated with Philadelphia architect George Howe on a room setting for the 1939 World's Fair. Esherick's legacy was that he showed the possibility of using wood to create sculptural furniture forms. He was also instrumental in showing the way to use found objects, such as materials from the woods or even from one's backyard, in furniture. Self-taught, he was not bound to the use of a particular set of tools or techniques and advocated the use of anything that would get the job done. Esherick's 1965 cherry and red oak library ladder in this show was borrowed from the collection of Jack Lenor Larsen, an early avid Esherick collector.

Wharton Esherick - Cherry Library Ladder
George Nakashima - Walnut Conoid Chair
Sam Maloof - Walnut Rocker

Jere Osgood - Maple Side Chair
Tage Frid - Mahogany
Flip-Top Game Table

Wendell Castle - Curly English Sycamore
and Ebony Demilune

   
William Keyser - Maple and Padauk
Shelf Cabinet
John Dunnigan - Wenge, Purpleheart, and
Epoxy Resin Table
   
   
   
   
   
    Another important figure in the early stages of the studio furniture movement was George Nakashima. Trained as an architect, Nakashima turned to furniture as a form of building in which he could involve himself "from beginning to end." He was among the Japanese-Americans interred during World War II in a detainment center in Idaho. It was there that he learned how to use traditional Japanese hand tools. Upon his release, Nakashima moved to New Hope, PA, where he produced furniture emphasizing simple lines and a respect for wood. With his shrewd business sense, as well as his background in design and architecture, Nakashima's one-man shop soon expanded to include a dozen skilled craftsmen. By the time the partners met Nakashima in 1979, his philosophy and practice to preserve the splendor of wood by making objects of use had evolved to such an extent that he had a much larger public audience than most studio furniture makers would ever enjoy. As Edward Cooke observed in New American Furniture:The Second Generation of Studio Funituremakers (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, catalogue, 1989), "Esherick and Nakashima gained a foothold in the high-end furniture market after World War II primarily through their architectural connections, but their subsequent success was also closely linked to the emergence of the studio craft movement of the 1950s. In furniture, different aspects of this movement arose among the self-taught and within the educational system."
George Nakashima did not work with galleries as he did not like middlemen, but he agreed to support the fledgling Pritam & Eames with one of his Conoid chairs, this one in Persian walnut.

The 1950s also saw other self-taught woodworkers like Art Carpenter and Sam Maloof develop their interest in furniture design and construction into new careers. Sam Maloof's 1955 walnut rocker in the P&E show was borrowed from the American Craft Museum collection.

Interestingly, it fell to Tage Frid, a Danish cabinetmaker trained in the traditional European apprenticeship system, to establish the first college-level programs in this country with a furniture major, first at Dartmouth College in l948 and then at RIT when the program moved there in 1950. His traditional approach to design and his exhortation to students "to design around construction" exerted a profound influence, as well as reaction, on those who studied with him. Frid's students included Jere Osgood, Dan Jackson, and Bill Keyser. Frid left RIT to establish the furniture program at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1962, where his emeritus influence continues today with former students Rosanne Somerson, John Dunnigan, and Alphonse Mattia on faculty. In the Masters show, Frid's contemporary take on the game table was based on a simple flip-and-twist mechanism. As with most of his work, the detailing itself was kept to a minimum. The solid stance of the table, its clean functionality, and its handsome material show how Frid continued to be influenced by a modernist approach.

When Frid left RIT for RISD, he was replaced by Wendell Castle, with Bill Keyser as Castle's teaching assistant. If Frid represented traditional cabinetmaking skills as practiced abroad in a journeyman's life, then Castle was his antithesis. He was inspired more by what was going on in contemporary sculpture than by furniture. Trained as an industrial designer and sculptor, Castle created wood furniture during the sixties and seventies utilizing the same stack-laminated techniques favored by other contemporary sculptors. As a teacher, his approach was radically different from Frid's. Instead of "design around construction," it was "
'bring out the sketchbooks." Castle began his own studio school in the early eighties in Scottsville, NY. He was represented in this show by his sycamore and ebony demilune, part of his "fine furniture" series first shown at the Alexander Milliken Gallery in New York the previous year. He would later eschew this body of work, which had been inspired by the French ébéniste Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, as overly reliant on skill. Much of Castle's work came to P&E in the 1980s as a result of the partners' friendship with Castle's New York dealer, Alexander (Sandy) Milliken.

Bill Keyser came from a family where technical know-how was second nature. When Castle left RIT in 1969, Keyser took over as head of the furniture program, where he remained until his retirement in 1997. Keyser's padauk and maple shelf and wall-hung cabinet is a piece defined in linear terms. By using laminations of woods in contrasting colors, the linear form gains rhythm. As with most of Keyser's work, this piece combines innovative process with a sculptor's sense of form.

When Krenov left PIA abruptly in 1976, it fell to Jere Osgood, and Dan Jackson, to lead the program in Boston. Alphonse Mattia would succeed Jackson at PIA as Jackson's health deteriorated. Osgood and Mattia provided a decade of inspirational teaching at PIA from l976-l986.

The wide crest rail of Osgood's 1978 curly maple chair in this show evokes the outstanding chair designs by Hans Wegner of Denmark. And, in fact, as a student, Osgood worked for a year in Denmark, although he did not train with Wegner. Osgood's body of work comes from a consideration of the lines found in nature's forms. This chair takes ergonomics as a starting point and arrives at a form that is strikingly organic and inviting. The comfortable seat, made of belt leather, avoids the visual bulk and technical fussiness of upholstery. This side chair is one of Osgood's three classic chair forms, the other two being his dining chair (see 10 x 16, 1991) and his easy chair (see P&E Editions, 1994).

Alphonse Mattia studied with Dan Jackson at the Philadelphia College of Art (PCA) and then with Tage Frid at RISD in the seventies. He said that he wanted to make a series of objects that were related to function, but not ruled by it. He was represented in the Masters show by his red lacquer mirror from the year before, which would not sell until it was reintroduced at the gallery's tenth anniversary show.

The business end of studio furniture depends on a relatively small group of buyers. Although these buyers represent considerable connoisseurship, few among them are willing to purchase pieces simply because of their excellence. In the world of fine arts, the case may be different -- it is not uncommon to keep prized paintings in storage. Studio furniture is collected primarily as a means towards an end -- a piece usually represents a fulfillment of a specific need. Time and again, pieces of exceptional quality remain unsold. These cases are often heartbreaking for the maker, as well as for the gallery.

At the time of this show, John Dunnigan was RISD's principal instructor in furniture making. For the Masters show, he made a side table that referenced the same 18th-century French furniture period as Richard Newman's dining table seen earlier, but with more of an attitude. Both tables perch on versions of the spade foot, though Newman used gold-plated bronze, while Dunnigan used cast epoxy resin. The rose color of the epoxy, seen on the feet and the rim of the tabletop, stands boldly against, yet remains sympathetic to, the wenge legs and the purpleheart top. [This Dunnigan side table would be included in the 2003-04 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston exhibit, The Maker's Hand, American Studio Furniture, 1940-1990.]

At the time, Michael Coffey had his own studio school in Poultney, VT, and was represented in the Masters show by a dressing table suite including a mirror and stool in mozambique.

Although not represented in this show, the gallery would exhibit the work of David Powell, director of the Leeds Design Workshop, Easthampton, MA, the following year.

After his brief stay at both RIT and PIA, James Krenov went west to northern California and formed the wood program at the College of the Redwoods in 1981. He was not represented in the Masters show, but would send his first work to the gallery the following year. His work, and that of his students, became an important source of furniture making talent for the gallery that continues today.

The Masters show was meant to acquaint people who walked through the door with some of the seminal figures whose work originated the field of studio furniture. In actuality, it was the well priced work of the masters' students, the coming generation of furniture makers, that allowed the gallery to survive its critical first years.
     
     
The Design Approach: Wendy Maruyama & Ed Zucca - 1982 Furniture Making: The Design Approach - 1982

NOTES: The work of Wendy Maruyama and Ed Zucca was the subject of P&E's first featured show, and it provided an opportunity for the young gallery to showcase furniture as original artistic expression. However, the confidence of the collecting public had yet to match the experimentalism and exuberance of the work. Later, Maruyama said that she was embarrassed that none of her pieces sold from this, her first featured exhibit. A supportive marketplace had not yet been created by galleries for art-driven furniture.

The expressive nature of Zucca's and Maruyama's furniture styles can be traced to their background influences as well as their circumstances. Maruyama graduated from San Diego State University in 1975 where she studied with woodworker/sculptor Larry Hunter, whose work would appear in the gallery in 1984. While still in San Diego, Maruyama saw the catalogue for Fantasy Furniture, a 1966 show that included work by Tommy Simpson and Wendell Castle at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York. This was furniture to which she could aspire. Having read about the work being done by Alphonse Mattia on the east coast, she enrolled at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and spent a semester studying with him. She followed Mattia to PIA in 1976 when he began teaching there with Jere Osgood. After two years at PIA, Maruyama went on to earn an MFA from RIT. At the time of the P&E show, Maruyama was teaching along with Tom Hucker at the Appalachian Center for Crafts in Smithville, TN.
 
Wendy Maruyama - Primary Chairs

Wendy Maruyama- Mickey Mackintosh Chair

Wendy Maruyama - I-15 to Vegas

Ed Zucca - Captain Video Table of Painted Basswood and
Raku Ceramic Tiles by Kathy Yokum
Ed Zucca - UFO Light
Ed Zucca - Flourescent Electric Table
Ed Zucca -
Floor Standing Light with Red Fan
   
    Ed Zucca maintained his studio in Putnam, CT. He had studied with Dan Jackson in the late 1960s at PCA, a period when Philadelphia was a dynamic center of innovative craft work. Zucca's interests in tinkering and building were already well established, and his work referenced a variety of influences from Art Deco, Egyptian, and pre-Columbian architecture, Shaker furniture, to American cars and gadgets of the 1950s, to space-age fantasy-fueled objects.
Zucca's wall-mounted light took the form of a Twilight Zone flying saucer, and his sound-emitting sideboard whined when someone would pass by. His space-crafted work, was an adventurous and humorous take on studio furniture. However, it is always a question, when embedding a high degree of novelty in a substantial piece, whether the longevity of comment is at variance with the investment.

Maruyama's puckish Mickey MacIntosh chair was paired with her three painted Primary Chairs, with plate-glass seats. Her work was, in part, influenced by what was going on in contemporary Italian design at the time, a colorful style that came to be known as Memphis. Maruyama's first work in neon, I-15 to Vegas, appeared in her P&E show, a lamp that also included colored marquetry. Her infamous Scribble Desk arrived at the gallery in 1983. Its appearance, together with Garry Bennett's Nail Cabinet, on the back cover of a 1980 Fine Woodworking magazine, fueled the gathering discussion as to whether work like this was furniture or something else.
     
     
The Bowl, the Vase, and the Box - 1982

Turned Work: The Bowl, the Vase, and the Box - 1982
David Ellsworth, Silas Kopf, Ed Moulthrop, Philip Moulthrop, Richard Scott Newman, Del Stubbs.

NOTES:
This exhibit included the work of four turners and two furniture makers who contributed boxes. Of the turners, Ed Moulthrop enjoyed a national reputation, and David Ellsworth was steadily building one of his own. The highlight of the exhibition, though, was the small, almost paper-thin, manzanita vessels of Del Stubbs.

Silas Kopf contributed boxes with floral marquetry patterns, and Richard Scott Newman again demonstrated his mastery with ebony and gold. One shallow lidded box of ebony has a contemporary feel to it, utilizing platinum as well as gold wire in its diagonally dashed pattern. The other ebony box has an inlaid mother-of-pearl image of Pegasus against an ebony night sky.
 
 
  Ed Moulthrop - Turned Tulipwood Bowls
Del Stubbs - Manzanita Goblets
David Ellsworth - Turned Bowl

Silas Kopf - Boxes with Marquetry
Richard Newman - Ebony Lidded Boxes
     
     
The Desk and the Reading Chair - 1982

Reading and Writing: The Desk and the Chair - 1982
Lawrence Bickford, John Dodd, Tom Duffy, David Ebner, George Gordon, Peter Korn, Thomas Loeser, Ben Mack, Bruce McQuilken, Robert March, Alan Marks, Craig Marks, Michael Rosen, David Steckler.

NOTES: Group shows are, by their nature, diverse in spirit. Nevertheless the serious observer will always come up with a few unprompted favorites, which gives these shows the excitement of the hunt. Thematically, of course, there can be some unifying concept such as, in this show, the desk. The gallery partners had received advice from design professionals that people would only be inclined to invest in pieces for the public areas of the home. The partners found, however, that a favorite piece for the collecting public was the desk, which normally would go into the private area of the home.

Both the rosewood writing table with drawer by Craig Marks, and the padauk roll-top desk of Robert March, have unusually graceful lines that allow them to sit confidently in almost any interior. The line of March's tambour roll-top flows down from the carcase through the legs. There is also a great deal of flowing line in Marks' writing table, which was featured of the gallery's show announcement. Notice the similarity of the line in the legs of these two pieces, though the makers worked a continent apart. In Marks' table, however, the lines become the personality, set aggressively at 45 degrees into the apron. The carved pull is a signature of his teacher, James Krenov. Proving again the strengths of diverse training centers, Marks came from the College of the Redwoods, and March from RIT.
Craig Marks - Rosewood, Kingwood and Ebony Writing Table

Robert March - Padauk Roll-Top Desk

David Ebner - Cherry Stand-Up Desk

Ben Mack - Maple Desk

Alan Marks - Oak and Leather Easy Chair

John Dodd - Cherry Desk
 
 
 
  Stand-up or reference desks are not unique to studio furniture, but David Ebner's piece gave him a perfect format for showing off his poured leg design. The piece has a delicate but sculptural presence.
John Dodd's desk in cherry focuses on pure line and is completely without ornamentation. Its design does not stem from any furniture tradition per se but is more in line with what one would expect from a contemporary architect. The curve on the front of the top contains pencil drawers and replies to the outward flare of the pedestal sides. It has a clean and inviting look.
     
     
Images in Wood: Marquetry by Silas Kopf - 1982

Marquetry: Images in Wood - 1982
Silas Kopf
Also new work from
John Dunnigan, David Ellsworth, Richard Scott Newman, James Schriber, Del Stubbs.

NOTES: Silas Kopf was established by 1982 as an expert in creative marquetry. He had apprenticed with Wendell Castle in the mid-70s, and continued occasionally to collaborate with him. Kopf employed craftsmen to build his pieces, which he would then use as a canvas for marquetry designs. In 1989, he studied with Pierre Ramond at the Ecole Boulle in Paris, further perfecting his mastery of marquetry.
 
   
Silas Kopf - Cherry Blanket Chest with Marquetryof Padauk, Bubinga, Rosewood,
Jacaranda and Holly
     
     
Commissions & Installations - 1982

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. Two notable exceptions were the pioneering efforts of Patricia Conway, principal in the New York architectural design firm of Kohn, Pedersen, Fox and Conway, and David Schwarz, a Washington, DC, architect who worked with studio furniture makers on corporate as well as residential projects. Later, the partners surmised that there may have been a perception in the trade that studio furniture cost more, took longer, and did not offer customary trade discounts. From the furniture maker's side, working with an architect or designer in a commission situation often left the maker out of the design process. Makers ended up executing designs of others rather than their own. Some makers made a practical adjustment and built to specification as part of their production routine. Beyond that, the results of the commission process can be far from a surefire thing. It is fair to say that some furniture makers and clients ought not be placed together in a commission situation.

George Gordon - Set of Walnut Arbitration Tables for Manhattan Maritime Law Firm

Home Office: David Ebner Chair; Hank Gilpin Walnut and Cherry Desk;
Jim Fawcett Storage Cabinet in Pecan, Oak, Beech, and Tulipwood
 
 
 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
    Summing Up: The First Year's Lessons

In the gallery's experience, clients generally make their own decisions and do not require professional vetting. They act as their own arbiters of taste, and for this a quotient of confidence is necessary. This fact does tend to limit the circle of collectors of studio furniture because it takes some strength to make such decisions. Whether a sales or commission situation, the client has to be convinced that the piece will work for them in an evironment that they know better than anyone else -- their own home. Jack Lenor Larsen has said you're not a collector unless you pay storage. But collectors of studio furniture are not generally of this nature. Their objective is to envision an acquisition that they will live with and use. You could argue that the challenge in placing studio furniture is more difficult than that of painting, not only because of the space furniture requires, but also because our tolerance of what is acceptable on someone's wall is greater than what we will accept to sit upon or eat from. The partners' mission was to show people that studio furniture was a real residential option, one that could heighten the quality of their lives in their most intimate surrounding. They didn't rely on pedestals to display work in the gallery. Rather, they assembled work in groupings that made synergistic sense, arranging pieces in familiar ways that suggested how they might look in a home. The natural eclecticism of studio furniture lent itself to some imaginative pairings. Group shows were the gallery's common exhibition format at the time, because the format served their mission very well. Many collections of studio furniture that began in the 1980s remain unequaled today.

In Patricia Conway's book, Art for Everyday: The New Craft Movement, (New York. Clarkson Potter, 1990), she guides readers through the homes and offices of collectors and demonstrates how studio furniture works in living rooms, bedrooms, boardrooms, lobbies, offices, patios, and gardens. "These craft artists," Conway wrote, "are concerned not primarily with the expression of material and natural form as were their predecessors, these craft artists are direct descendants of the Arts and Crafts movement that shaped the early part of the 20th century. Their ethos is the unifying moral and aesthetic force of craft and the reconnection of that force with the everyday."

The partners, who assisted Patricia Conway by introducing her to many of the collectors featured in her book, felt that Art for Everyday validated their approach.
     
    1 9 8 3
     
Spring 1983  

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.

James Krenov - Maple and Red Oak Cabinet

James Krenov - Mahogany and Yaca-wood Cabinet
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     
     
The Fine Art of Craftsmanship: Design and Process - 1983

The Fine Art of Craftsmanship - Design and Process - 1983
Wendell Castle, Michael Coffey, John Dodd, 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.

 
John Dunnigan - Pupleheart and Lacquer Table

Wendell Castle - Purpleheart and Maple
Music Stand
Michael Hurwitz - Cherry and Lacquer
Coffee Table

Michael Hurwitz - Child's Chair
Tage Frid - Walnut Stools
William Keyser - Pecan Low Table

David Ebner - Purpleheart Renwick Stool
Glen Gordon - Ronchamps Bench

Bruce Beeken - Cedar Adirondack Chair
James Schriber - Padauk and Ebony
Game Table

James Schriber - Ebonized Maple Table

James Schriber - Ash Bed

   
   
   
    Included in this show were three pieces by James Schriber. The stylistic differences between the black table and the queen-size ash bed are such that one would not assume that the same person designed both pieces. This versatility and design fluency has distinguished Schriber's work throughout his career, and also makes him among the most commissionable of furniture makers. Schriber played an exceptional role in studio furniture as he gave the wider public more faith in the field. The black table, has a slick contemporary elegance, while the ash bed harks back to Carl Malmsten and Schriber's time with Osgood at PIA. "Country" is the word that comes to mind to describe the bed, and "urban" the table.
     
     
Post-Modern Embellishment - 1983

Post-Modern Embellishment - 1983
Dale Broholm, John Dunnigan, Alphonse Mattia, Judy Kensley McKie, Richard Scott Newman, James Schriber.

NOTES: This show focused on the decorated surface, and the use of paint, epoxy resin, gold, ebony, and carving. Patricia Conway observed that Post-Modernism was regarded as a reaction against the austerity of Modern design, and its exclusion of ornament. Since the early 1970s, a number of furniture makers, architects, and designers renewed their interest in pattern and decoration and the application of pure ornament to furniture, rooms, and buildings. "The universal appeal of ornament is precisely its 'uselessness'," Conway writes in Ornamentalism: The New Decorativeness in Architecture and Design, co-authored with Robert Jensen (Clarkson Potter Inc., 1982). "Because ornament does not hold things up or make things work, it is essentially free: free to move the eye, to intrigue the mind, to rest the soul; free
simply to delight."

The epoxy resin in John Dunnigan's Vanity Suite (shown on the announcement) and the ebony detailing in Richard Scott Newman's demilunes exemplify the theme of this show. Newman exhibited a pair of demilunes, one in cherry and ebony, the other in maple and ebony. These original demilunes presaged the slightly larger versions of the table that would become his signature piece over the next ten years. Later, a commission allowed Newman to design a ten-foot wide version of the table (pictured under Commissions, 1989).

In studio furniture at this point, two pieces came to symbolize a movement in the field that took decorative detailing into the realm of art ideologies. One such piece was Garry Knox Bennett's padauk cabinet with a 16-penny nail pounded into one beautifully crafted door. This act on Bennett's part certainly would have been in keeping with the Dada movement. Many assumed that Wendy Maruyama's Scribble Desk that appeared in this exhibition derived from the same spirit. But, according to Maruyama, this is not true. Her intention was to embellish the top surface of the desk with a calligraphic gesture rendered in as free a manner as possible. She used a crayon, then lacquered the surface. Both Bennett and Maruyama's pieces appeared on the back cover of Fine Woodworking in 1980, to the consternation of some who thought they were desecrating the wood.

Ed Zucca's Egyptian Dynasty Cabinet is an apt example of ornamentation. The nature of its façade is entirely determined by two bold, but strange, tower-like bas-relief figures on the front. This piece was made before his space furniture series. The Egyptian-style work, although distinctive and appealing, was not a style to which he would return.
   
John Dunnigan - Purpleheart and Marble Table

Richard Newman - Maple and Ebony, First Demilune
Wendy Maruyama - Scribble Desk

Ed Zucca - Egyptian Dynasty Cabinet

Alphonse Mattia - "Fragile" Mirror

Alphonse Mattia - "Unbreakable" Mirror

Judy Kensley McKie - Carved Birch Table

Dale Broholm - Lacewood, Pearlized-Paint Upholstered Chair
 
  Both Fragile and Unbreakable are part of a signature series of mirrors by Alphonse Mattia that would represent him well in the gallery world until the appearance of his valet series in 1984.

Remarkable work from Judy McKie surfaced again in this show. Her table exhibits the first use of the lizard-like form, to which she would return in the future. The creature is carved into the leg material and its upward motion takes the eye in a continuous sweep up to the braided pattern of the apron. This table is a precursor to her Grinning Beast Table that she made for a 1986 P&E show.
     
The Box - 1983

   
 
Del Stubbs - Cocobolo Lidded Containers
 
 
Jeff Kellar - Rosewood Box-on-Stand
     
     
Signature Pieces: The Desk for Home & Office - 1983

Signature Pieces: The Desk for Home & Office - 1983
Wendell Castle, Michael Coffey, John Dodd, John Dunnigan, David Ebner, Hank Gilpin, George Gordon, David Hannah, Creighton Hoke, Silas Kopf, Peter Korn, Alan Lorn, Benjamin Mack, Robert March, Wendy Maruyama, Jere Osgood, David Powell, Wendy Stayman, John Tierney, Stewart Wurtz, Robert Whitley.

NOTES: Listed in this show are desks by Wendell Castle, Jere Osgood, and David Powell. The Castle desk uses his by-now familiar pinwheel leg-to-apron design with maple parquetry running up the legs and along the apron top to frame a green leather writing surface. One of Castle's simplest decorative treatments, and the desk is strong because of it.

David Powell, like Castle, was responsible at that time for a studio school, Leeds Design Workshop in Easthampton, MA. Powell had been trained by Edward Barnsley of the English studio furniture movement, but his desk owes more to the experimental forms of the 1960s than to Arts and Crafts influence. The carcase of Powell's desk is egg-shaped in profile and upholstered in leather. The Barnsley-Powell connection was an important trans-Atlantic association; another was that of the British furniture maker John Makepeace and Wendell Castle.

Jere Osgood made only a few pieces in the early 1980s. He has acknowledged that it was very difficult to do his own work while running the PIA program, especially during the first years of its existence. It would take until 1985 before he was able to create enough work for a two-person show with his former student, Tom Hucker. In this show, the surface of Osgood's simple walnut and ash writing table is supported by a curved leg structure built using his tapered-laminate technique. The asymmetrical design of the forward and rear legs allows the top to cantilever from a centr