Adelaide Alsop Robineau – A Collection of Thirty-Four Vases and Jars – 1909-28

Adelaide Alsop Robineau ’ A Collection of Thirty-Four Vases and Jars 1909 to 1928 Born 1865. Middletown, Connecticut: died 1929, Syracuse. New York Porcelain Heights: 2 to 11 7/8 inches . Gift of George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth Accessioned between 1929 and 1975 Pushing beyond the limitations of her craft, china painter Adelaide Robineau decided to try her hand at high fire porcelain production in 1903. Armed with only a few weeks' instruction at a pottery school and information gleaned from published articles on Sévres porcelain, Robineau began a slow and laborious process of mastering the techniques that would eventually make her one of the best-known ceramists of her day. Through experimentation, she developed many glazes and a range of novel techniques—such as carving designs in the fresh clay before glazing-— that resulted in exquisitely fashioned pieces renowned for their intricate detail and beautiful finishes. To ensure the highest quality ...

Albert Herter- The Great Crusade – 1920

Albert Herter The Great Crusade, 1920 Born 1871, New York, New York; dies 1950, Santa Barbra California. Manufacturer; The Herter Looms. Inc. New York, New York. Cotton, wool and silk tapestry 156 x 120 inches. Gift of George Gough booth and Ellen Scripps Booth CAM 1944.83 George Booth was inspired to mark the end of World War I in 1918 with a commemorative tapestry designed in the European tradition. His pen and ink sketch was submitted to renowned designer Albert Herter in New York City, who developed Booth's concept and oversaw the work's production by the Herter Looms in 1920. the resulting tapestry is beautiful, unique and dense with political symbolism. Since the middle ages, tapestries functioned as a means to document and glorify the "progress" of civilization. The Great Crusade presents America, whose involvement in the battlefields brought the war to an end, as the savior of European culture. The tapestry depicts ...

John Kirchmayer – Reading Desk and Bench – 1919

John Kirchmayer Reading Desk and Bench, 1919, or earlier. Born 1860, Oberammergau, Germany; died 1930, Boston, Massachusetts. Carved wood Desk 44 1/4 x 43x 21 1/2 inches Bench; 20 x 41 7/8x 12 1/8 inches Gift of George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth CAM 1919.10. A and B. Trained in the famous workshops of his native Oberammergau, Bavaria, master carver John Kirchmayer immigrated to the United States in the 1880's and settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. there, in the view of many, he developed into the finest woodcarver in the land, turning out hundreds of sculptures, decorative panels and other works of art for churches, businesses, institutions and private homes. Kirchmayer had close working relations with a number of prominent architects and artisans and was founding member of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston. George Booth made Kirchmayer's acquaintance through his Arts and Crafts activities and soon became on of his most ardent patrons, ...

Wilhelm Rupprecht – Twenty-Four Scenes from the Book of Genesis designed 1921, executed 1923

Wilhelm Rupprecht (Designer) Twenty-Four Scenes from the Book of Genesis designed 1921, executed 1923, installed at Cranbrook Art Museum 1942 Born 1886, Stadtprozelten. Germany; dale and location of death unknown Manufacturer: Zettler Royal Bavarian Glass Staining Company. Munich. Germany Stained glass Each panel: 11 3/4 x 8 3/8 inches Gift of Mrs. Ralph H. Booth CAM 1955.376.1 through .24 German artist Wilhelm Rupprecht tells the Biblical story of creation by merging medievalist conventions with modernist style in this stained glass work. In the panel of God admonishing Adam and Eve for eating from the tree of knowledge, for example, Rupprecht represents a larger God (to show his greater importance) towering over the modern figures of Adam and Eve, whose more closely observed bodies are modeled with paint. Rupprecht also produced a series of woodcuts on Christ's Passion, in the collection of Cranbrook Art Museum, which includes a scene of Palm ...

William Morris – A Collection of Seventy-Two Wallpaper Samples

William Morris (Designer) A Collection of Seventy-Two Wallpaper samples, designed 1884 in 1899, printed 1932, or earlier (clockwise, from upper left] Wild Tulip, designed 1884; printed circa 1932, 28 ⅝ x 21 inch. Lily and Pomegranate, designed 1888, 29 x 21 inches Pimpernel, designed 1878, 28 7/8 x 21 1/8 inches knit or Pomegranate, designed 1884, 24 5/3 x 22 1/2 inches Born 1834. Essex. England; died 1896. Hammersmith. England Printer: A. Sanderson and Sons. Ltd. London. England Hand-printed wood block prints in distemper colors on wove paper Gift of Mrs. William H. Hansen CAM 1991.17 These wallpaper samples are a representative selection of the seventy-two wallpaper samples donated to the museum in 1991. This superb collection, with many of the samples bearing the stamp of Morris 8: Co, accompanies the fine Arts and Crafts collection accumulated by Cranbrook's founder. George Booth. Booth was a firm believer in William Morris's ...

May Morris – Bed-Hangings (Two Curtains)

May Morris [Designer] Bed-Hangings [Two Curtains), 1917, Dr Barney Born 1862. Bixley Heath. England; died 1938. Lechlade, England Embroiderers: May Morris and Mary J. Newill Embroidered wool on linen Each panel: 76 3/4 x 27 inches Gift of George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth CAM 1955.402.A and .B May Morris learned textile design from her father, William Morris (1834-1896), and embroidery from her mother, Jane Burden Morris (1839-1914). An astute businesswoman, author and lecturer, May was so accomplished as a designer and embroiderer that she became Morris & Co.'s director of textile production at age twenty-three. These panels were exhibited at the 1916 "Arts 8: Crafts Exhibition" in London and were reproduced in The Studio: Year-Book of Decorative Art in 1917. In November and December of 1920, the panels were shown in the "Exhibition of British Arts & Crafts" held at the Detroit Society of Arts 8: Crafts. George ...

Eric Gill – Alms Dish

Eric Gill (Designer) Alms Dish, 19130, or earlier Born 1882. Brighton. England; died 1940. London. England Metalsmith: HG. Murphy Engraver: G.T. Friend Silver 2 3/4 x 14 1/2 (diameter) inches Gift of George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth through The Cranbrook Foundation CAM 1930.74 Eric Gill, active in the British Arts and Crafts movement, trained in architecture before realizing his true passion lay in lettering. He studied writing and illumination at the Central School for Arts & Crafts, London, and worked as a sculptor, typographer, illustrator and stone carver. Gill designed many fonts still in use today, most notably Gill Sans (1927-1930) and Perpetua (1929). He influenced the next generation of British stone carvers and letter cutters through his work and teachings, and established an informal Arts and Crafts community in Ditchling Common, England. A Catholic convert in 1913, Gill imbued this Alms Dish with his strong faith. As the ...

Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh – The Three Perfumes – 1912

Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh I The Three Perfumes, 1912 Born 1864, Newcastle-under-Lyme. England; died 1933. Pont Vendres. France Watercolor and pencil on vellum 19 3/4 x 18 3/4 inches Gift of George Bough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth CAM 1955.275 As ephemeral as fragrance, this image of The Three Perfumes comes into focus like an ethereal vision. Dressed in flowing, heavily patterned jewel-tone mantels exquisitely adorned with roses and lotus-like blossoms, three maidens cluster around a fragrant white lily as blue and pink droplets of perfume rain down from them. This rhapsody of fleeting beauty was produced by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, the wife and creative partner of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the great Scottish architect and designer. Working together, they were pioneers of the "Glasgow Style," a unique blending of ancient Celtic design and symbolism with Art Nouveau, an elegant stylization of foliate forms derived from nature. Mackintosh was accomplished in the fields of repoussé metalwork, oil and watercolor painting, stencils, fabrics, and interior design. This delicate watercolor of The Three Perfumes was purchased by Cranbrook Founder George Booth from ...

Eli Harvey – Recumbent Lioness

Eli Harvey (Sculptor) Recumbent Lioness, 1904 Born 1860. Ogden. Ohio; died 1957. Alhambra. California Foundry:Pompeian Bronze Works. New York Bronze 7 l /2 x 5 x 21 l /2 inches Gift of George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth CAM 1909.1 George Booth purchased this resting lioness in 1909 from Tiffany & Company in New York and prominently displayed it in the Sunset Room of his newly completed home north of Detroit, Cranbrook House. Although not the oldest work in his art collection, which became the permanent collection of Cranbrook Art Museum, it was assigned the first accession number: 1909.1. At the time, Eli Harvey was widely recognized as a leading American animal sculptor, known in particular for the moods of his lions-majestic, shy, frolicsome, fierce. Among his most celebrated commissions were the four seated lions he carved in stone for the Lion House at the Bronx Zoo (1901-1903). Initially trained as both a painter and a sculptor in Cincinnati, Harvey devoted ...

Roy Lichtenstein – Modular Painting with Four Panels, No. 7

Roy Lichtenstein Modular Painting with Four Panels, No. 7 from the Modern Series, 1970 Born 1923. New York. New York: died 1997. New York. New York Oil and Magna on canvas 108 x 108 inches (overall) Gift of Rose M. Shuey. from the Collection of Dr. John and Rose M. Shuey CAM 2002.21 Roy Lichtenstein began a series of paintings called the Modern series in 1966 in which he paraphrased art history using the language of Pop Art. In Modular Painting with Four Panels, No. 7 the source of inspiration was the geometric Art Deco style of the 1930s, such as ocean liner lounges and theatre foyers, and the commercial reproduction of Art Deco designs in the mass media. Lichtenstein cleverly parodied the typical Art Deco fascination with the world of technology and industry by creating a pattern based on four gigantic mechanical-looking shapes, which employ an inexpensive product of mass culture as their monumental subject. The high art simulation of this strongly geometricized and rigorously structured composition is deflated by the use of the ...