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  George Washington Maher “Rockledge” American Arts & Crafts tall chest of drawers 1911-12

  GEORGE WASHINGTON MAHER  (1864-1926)  USA

  Rockledge “Man’s chest of drawers” for E.L. King (unique) 1911-12

  Original vintage cream/white painted surface (some losses to the top surface) on hardwood structure with original bronze drawer pulls (natural patina)

  Provenance: Ernest & Grace King, henceforth descended through the King family; Private Collection, Wisconsin from Hollander Auction Gallery, Milwaukee WI (1982); Private Collection, New York

  Illustrated: The Western Architect, “Geo. W. Maher, a democrat in Architecture”  (March 1914, n. p. – for a period photograph showing this model in situ in the master bedroom), Prairie School Architecture: Studies from “The Western Architect” H. Allen Brooks (Toronto, 1975, p. 179).

  H: 71” x W: 44 ¾” x D: 26 ¼”

  (Gift to The Wolfsonian-FIU, Miami Beach, FL)

  Information and other examples from the Maher / Rockledge commission can be found in the following books and publications: The Art that is Life: The Arts and Crafts Movement in America, 1875-1920, ed. Wendy Kaplan, (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1987), pp. 396-400,The Ideal Home: The History of Twentieth Century American Craft, 1900-1920, Janet Kardon (New York: Abrams, 1993) cover illus. and p. 205; Geo. W. Maher Quarterly, Oct.-Dec., 1992, pp. 1, 16, 17; Arts, December, 1995, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minn. cover and back cover.

  Examples of artworks from Rockledge are in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, NY, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Newark Museum, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Milwaukee Art Museum, The Wolfsonian, Miami Beach, FL, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Dallas Museum of Art and the St. Louis Art Museum.

  In 1912 George Washington Maher designed Rockledge, a summer residence near Homer, Minnesota, for E.L. King.  Sited just beneath a cliff along the Mississippi River, Rockledge is considered the finest residence of Maher’s career and a perfect example of his motif-rhythm theory of architectural design.

   

  ***Please note that the chest in the period illustration (as the pairing on view) is the woman’s version chest of drawers, which is slightly smaller and has the open segmental arched top. This chest can now be found in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum. On the other hand the man’s chest of drawers is a larger piece of furniture and has the segmental arch contained within the overall rectangular form of the back support. As a further note, the rocker is now in the permanent collection of the Detroit Institute of Art, courtesy of Historical Design Inc.

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  Rose Cabat / American Studio Ceramics “Feelie” Porcelain Vessel, c. 1980-85

  ROSE CABAT (1914-2015) USA

  “Feelie”  c. 1980-85

  Thin walled porcelain vessel with a silky satiny matte drip glaze

  Signed: incised CABAT on bottom

  For more information on Rose Cabat see: Rose Erni Cabat Retrospective 1936-1986 (Tuscon, AZ: Tuscon Museum of Art, 1986)

  H: 4 3/4″

  Price: $2,500

  Rose Cabat is an American studio ceramicist living in Tucson. Considered one of the most important ceramic artists of the Mid-century Modernist movement, Cabat is best known for her innovative glazes on small porcelain pots called “feelies” which she developed in the 1960s. Her organic forms often resemble the shape of onions and figs, and her glazes range from organic to jewel tones. Cabat was born in 1914 in the Bronx, New York, began to work in ceramics in the late 1930′s, and moved to Arizona in 1942, where she continued to make innovative ceramics.

  Feelies:
  Feelies are described as onion, fig, cucumber, and saucer-shaped ceramic vases terminating in an upward closed neck. Bruce Block, an avid collector, has described them as sensual and tactile with a very specific unforgettable texture, spiritual seeming to contain a type of energy. Rose Cabat had developed a silky satiny glaze, and it wasn’t until around 1960 that she had hit upon the first of the appropriate form, svelte and sleek to match the glaze. She exclaimed, “Now this one’s a feelie.”, coining the term. Upon developing the new glazes, she felt that she needed new forms to apply the glazes to, different from what she made before, “craft fair” style coiled heads and wind bells. She is quoted as saying, “The old things did not look good … I wanted simpler shapes that went with the glazes.”They are typically globular in shape, tightening down to a minuscule neck glazed to a satin surface. The tactile experience is most important. The nature of the neck is such that it is closed, so narrow that it cannot hold anything. Cabat would reply when asked why the necks of her feelies are so narrow, “A vase can hold weeds or flowers, but can’t it just be a spot of beauty?”