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  Pierre Boucher, Propeller, Gelatin silver print, 1935

  PIERRE BOUCHER (1908-2000) France

  Propeller  1935

  Signed: WB – 7252; Photo Pierre Boucher (ink stamp); DBoucher (ink signature)

  Provenance: Gene Prakapas Gallery, New York, 1978.

  H: 7 1/16” x W: 9 ¼” (unframed)

  H: 14 11/16” x 16 11/16” (framed)

  Pierre Boucher came to photography as a result of the Nouvelle Vision and he explored photography as an experiment on all levels, photograms, collages, solarization and superimposition. He had a natural curiosity and a cultivated and sporty demeanor that led him to produce work as diverse as surrealist nudes and well-constructed advertisements. Whether it be in documentary photography or industrial photography, Pierre Boucher always awakens an empathy and a feeling of closeness with his subjects in the spectator.

   Pierre Boucher got his start in advertising, taking his inspiration from the graphic techniques of the modernists in the field and contributing to the transformation of the advertising photo into a work of art. He used photomontage to make his work more striking and effective, making unnerving and astonishing.

  Boucher’s nudes, on the other hand, use no technical prowess whatsoever. After the war the movement for freedom of the body led him to reconsider social models. Pierre Boucher revisited the female and male nude from several angles. Around 1931, he did his first nude photos under the umbrella of the “ New Objectivity ” : the image was boxed, the frame strict, the bodies freed from their faces. From 1933 onwards his nudes became surrealist inspired by the work of Man Ray. He then moved on to neo-classical nudes. In studio or in natural light his Apollonian nude aimed above all for beauty and harmony.

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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.