R E V IE W E D

Right:

Desk Chair,

ca. 1898-99,

oak, 53ls/j6X I5is/i6

x 16% in., with Anna

Katharine Green.

Like tide pottery o f his contemporary George Ohr,

Rohlfs’s work resides betw ixt and between,

a giddy fusion o f nostalgic andprogressive design

B at reflects Be lively push and pull o f his era.

The Artisftic

Furniture

of Charles

Rohlfs

By Jody Clowes

Milwaukee Art Museum

Milwaukee, w i

June 6 - Aug. 23,2009

mam.org

Charles Rohlfs’s furniture doesn’t fit art

history’s boxes. Gothic Revival? Heavy oak

with elaborate metal fittings, yes; but de-

cades too late and far too eccentrically orna-

mented. It’s also a bit late for the Aesthetic

Movement. With its solid rectilinear out-

lines, Rohlfs’s furniture is often allied to the

Arts and Crafts Movement. But while his

work is mostly built with straightforward

plank construction, more often than not it’s

held together with plugged screws; and its

elaborate carved and pierced decoration

seems better suited to the overstuffed lan-

guor of a Victorian parlor than an upright

Arts and Crafts room. Most of all, Rohlfs’s

highly individualistic carving and fretwork

simply defy categorization. Scholars have

invoked virtually the entire spectrum of

late-ipth-century eclecticism as design

influences, from Chinese to Islamic, Ro-

manesque to Louis Sullivan-esque. Strange-

ly, almost all of these suggestions seem

plausible. Like the pottery of his contempo-

rary George Ohr, Rohlfs’s work resides

betwixt and between, a giddy fusion of nos-

talgic and progressive design that reflects

the lively push and pull of his era.

The intriguing eccentricity of Rohlfs’s

designs attracted museum curators to his

work in the 1970s, and dealers have priced

his furniture at the top tier, in line with

pieces attributed to Gustav Stickley and

F rank Lloyd Wright. Active for just 10

years (1897-1907), Rohlfs appears to have

produced no more than a few hundred piec-

es. He made halfhearted efforts to build up

inventory and attract customers, but lacking

real financial pressure Rohlfs focused his

energy on ambitious, experimental design.

Over 40 of his best pieces are on view in

this exhibition, the first to explore Rohlfs’s

career in depth and give credit to his wife

and sometime artistic collaborator, Anna

Katharine Green. The show is fueled in

large part by the energy of Bruce Barnes,

one of Rohlfs’s earliest, most devoted col-

lectors and president of the American Deco-

rative Arts 1900 Foundation; Barnes’s part-

ner, art historian Joseph Cunningham,

curated the show and authored its excep-

tionally thorough catalog.

Rohlfs was a fascinating character. An

aspiring actor who described Shakespeare

as his master, he grew up in working-class

Brooklyn. By age 18 he was employed as a

patternmaker for an iron foundry, a trade

that required carving skills but minimal

engagement with the structural properties

of wood. Rohlfs rose through the ranks

to become a designer, creating decorative

cast-iron stoves that were marketed as artis-

tic furnishings. When he married Green,

a successful novelist, her income gave him

the freedom to pursue the stage full-time.

036 american craft dec/jan io

Find more magazines at www.magazinesdownload.com

Photo Michael W . Davidson and Florida State University, promised gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation.