Art Deco

PEDRO DE LEMOS (1882-1945) Bay Area, California

Clydesdale horse sculpture c. 1930

Hand modeled orange glazed terra cotta.

Marks: De Lemos Palo Alto (sticker on the bottom), various pencil notations on the foot bottom

H: 9 1/8″ x D: 3 1/2″ x W: 9 1/2″

Pedro Joseph de Lemos (25 May 1882 Austin, Nevada – 5 December 1945) was an American painter, printmaker, architect, illustrator, writer, lecturer and museum director. He started his art career in the Bay Area. He studied under Arthur Frank Mathews at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art in 1900, later was a student of George Bridgman at the Art Students League in New York and of Arthur Wesley Dow at Columbia University Teachers College. The influence of traditional Japanese woodcuts is clearly seen in his work.

Pedro’s father Francisco, a cobbler, emigrated from the Azores in 1872, and settled in Oakland, California where Pedro was educated. Pedro and his brothers Frank and John all followed careers in art. Pedro was employed by Pacific Press Publishing Company between 1900 and 1906, afterwards starting the Lemos Illustrating Company with his brothers in 1907. Later this became known as the Lemos Brothers Art and Photography Studio, which offered art classes in copper, leather and landscaping as well as the traditional media of drypoint, etching and illustrating.

Lemos worked from a studio overlooking Lake Merritt and taught art at the University of California, Berkeley, working at the same time as illustrator and designer and giving classes in decorative design and etching at the San Francisco Institute of Art, where he had earlier studied when it was the Mark Hopkins Institute. He helped found the California Society of Etchers and an aqua print of his was acclaimed at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, for which he helped organise the California print exhibition. He filled the position of Professor of Design at Stanford University and became director of the Stanford University Museum of Art in 1919. Besides being the first president of the Carmel Art Association, he was an affiliate member of several art organisations such as the California Society of Etchers, the California Print Makers, the Palo Alto Art Association, the Chicago Society of Etchers and the Bohemian Club. In 1943 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London.

JEAN E. PUIFORCAT  (1897-1945)  France
ORFÈVRERIE PUIFORCAT  Paris, France

Sterling silver with sterling and bone gear-like finial detail

Marks:  JEAN E. PUIFORCAT, French Guarantee mark for 950/1000 pure silver, E.P. insignia (Emile Puiforcat)

For related works of Puiforcat see: Jean Puiforcat, Françoise de Bonneville (Paris:  Editions du Regard, 1986) p.171; Jean Puiforcat:  Orfèvre Sculpteur (Paris: Flammarion,1951).

H: 3 1/4″ x Dia: 3 1/2″

Jean E. Puiforcat is the most famous name of Art Deco silverwork. This is a gently tapered round footed and covered box of beautiful form and proportion with a contoured gear-like bone and silver finial. Overall it is a signature example of French Art Deco silver and dates from the late 1920’s and bears the early mark of Jean E. Puiforcat spelled out in addition to all of the appropriate French silver standard touchmarks. It is a really perfect example of French Art Deco silver by the French master of them all, Puiforcat!

CZECH CUBISM / ART DECO

Panel-cut vase   c. 1912-25

Clear cut lead crystal with amber overlay in conical form with a band of chevron cut designs around the upper third; the conical form above a flaring, paneled foot

For more information see: Czech Cubism: Architecture, Furniture, and Decorative Arts, ed. Alexander von Vegesack, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1991); Art Deco: Bohemia 1918-1938 (Milan: Electa, 1996); Czech Art Deco 1918-1938 (Prague: The Municipal House, 1998) pp. 74-75.

H: 7 1/2″