Walter Nichols Chinese Art Deco rug with circle motif c. 1935
More Information
Walter Nichols Chinese Art Deco rug with circle motif c. 1935
Walter Nichols Chinese Art Deco rug c. 1935
WALTER NICHOLS China
Chinese Art Deco rug c. 1935
Walter Abner Burns Nichols was one of the most colorful of the American adventurer/entrepreneurs in 1920s China. The Nichols name has come to be used almost synonymously with the ‘Chinese deco’ rugs manufactured in Tientsin, China in the 1920s and 1930s. Nichols did not originate the Chinese deco style, but he did a great deal to popularize it and to maintain its high standards of manufacture.
Nichols began in his youth as a first-class wool grader who went to Tientsin around 1920 to work for the Elbrook family of wool merchants. Nichols started his own business a couple of years later. In a brochure he produced in the late ’20s, with the assistance of Pande-Cameron, he announced: “In 1924 W.A.B. Nichols of Tientsin, North China, introduced the Super Chinese Rug which has become world famous. It is known in every market as the most durable and beautiful product of the modern Chinese weavers art and adorns the homes of people all over the earth.”
Pedro de Lemos / Art Deco Orange glazed American Pottery Clydesdale Horse Sculpture c. 1930
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.
Breuhaus de Groot / WMF Ikora Germany Art Deco Rare “Pokal” Covered Footed Cup 1928
FRITZ AUGUST BREUHAUS DE GROOT (1883-1960) Germany
WMF [WÜRTTEMBERGISCHE METALLWARENFABRIK] Geislingen
“Pokal” Covered footed cup ( model no. Br 6 )1928
Silverplated brass, model no. Br 6
Marks: WMF insignia (touchmark), x/o
Illustrated: Goldschmiedekunst 49, (1928) m. Abb; Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration 63, (1928/29) Abb S 353; Metallkunst: Kunst vom Jugendstil zur Moderne (1889-1939), Karl H. Bröhan, Band IV (Berlin: Bröhan-Museum, 1990) n. 610, p. 571; WMF Ikora Metall / Metalwork, Carlo Burschel and Heinz Scheiffele (Stuttgart, Germany: ARNOLDSCHE, 2006) pp.12,19,34.
@hd_jewels