From 1908 to 1919, the room we now call the Old Country Office was George Booth’s personal workspace in Cranbrook House, where he carried on managing his newspapers and met with the many farm employees, contractors, and artists involved in the operation and transformation of the estate. A side door leads directly into the entry vestibule, allowing outdoor workmen to come inside without tracking mud onto the hall carpeting.
George Booth’s tastes shaped the whole of Cranbrook House, but here in his own office we see a concentrated expression of his personal preferences in interior design. Yet, because it was also the space where George interacted with employees and colleagues, the office speaks not only to what George liked, but also to how he wished to be perceived.
George Booth’s office, photographed in 1910. Cranbrook Archives.
The office’s dark tones and simple, solid materials reflect the serious and businesslike side of George’s personality. The exposed timbers, wood paneling, and prominent fireplace all demonstrate George’s enthusiasm for historic English homes, and his pride in his own English heritage. Its furnishings – books, prints, and statuary – speak to his desire, despite his working-class background and his position as a newspaper manager, to be seen primarily as a sophisticated art lover.
How different an impression of George’s personality we might form from the exuberant colors and rich textures of the Still Room! That space, wholly set aside for private relaxation, with its rainbow ceiling, walls hung with gold fabric, and violet velvet sofa (sadly faded now), reveals George’s inner aesthete. Yet both rooms, the luxurious Still Room and the somber office, tell us something about his character – specifically, how highly he valued the arts.
The Still Room at Cranbrook House, Summer 2023. Photograph by Jim Haefner.
In England in the 19th-century, a new school of thought about domestic design arose, which argued that the houses we live in do not just shelter us – they also shape us, emotionally, morally, and intellectually. Having a beautiful home with well-made furnishings could elevate the spirit, encourage thoughtfulness. Collectively, a community that dwelt surrounded by art would be a better society than one that lived without it. This ideal was embraced by the Arts and Crafts movement from its early days, and taken up by the Booths.
The mantelpiece in George’s Old Country Office, Cranbrook House. Photograph by Daniel Smith, CAA Architecture ’21.
George Booth once wrote, “A life without beauty is only half lived.” In his office, we can see how important it was to him to always be within reach of some great work of art or craftsmanship, even in the most ordinary moments of daily life. This same principle shaped the greater Cranbrook campus, for the benefit of all its community members.
— Mariam Hale, 2023-2025 Collections Fellow, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
Each year before my History of American Architecture lecture series, I like to commission Cranbrook Academy of Art student or recent alumni to design a poster to promote the event. This year, I asked second-year 2D Design student Luis Quintanilla to create a poster for this year’s series, Detroit and the World. I am thrilled with how the poster turned out—you can pick one up at the first lecture February 6, 2024—and thought I would share with you some of how it came about.
When I visited Luis’ studio in the Arts and Crafts Court, I was struck by their graphic sensibility combining imagery and text in sticker-like collages. I was also very impressed by a series of stipple drawings in ink on tracing paper, which Luis kept in a shoebox. As we talked about the themes of my upcoming lectures, and what we both admire about Detroit and its architecture, the idea of the poster came about. With Luis’ sketches strewn across the table in their studio, I was reminded of the great tradition of architectural capricci.
Architectural capprici are fantasies, where artists or architects combine buildings from across time in a single image. Traditionally, 18th century capprici could be oil paintings, pencil or ink sketches, or engravings. Joseph Michael Gandy is the most famous painter of architectural fantasies. Here, he is combining the London works of Sir John Soane into a single fantasy, set within the studio of Soane’s own house.
Joseph Michael Gandy, Public and Private Buildings Executed by Sir John Soane between 1780 and 1815, first exhibited 1818. Courtesy of Sir John Soane Museum, London.
If you’ve come to many of my previous architecture lectures, you might recognize my favorite painting: Thomas Cole’s The Architect’s Dream of 1840, a capprici which embodies the mid-19th century debate between gothic and classical styles. Contemporary British painter Carl Laubin creates stunning work inspired by Gandy, using contemporary architects for elaborate capprici.
What might an architectural capprici of Detroit include?
Marshall M. Fredericks’ The Spirit of Detroit, 1958, photographed by Helmut Ziewers for Historic Detroit Area Architecture.
I created a list of forty buildings I thought embodied the best of Detroit architecture. I narrowed it down to twenty buildings for Luis’ consideration, and shared images of each. My only real request: include at least one building from each of the five lectures, and center the poster on John Portman and Associates’ 1977 Renaissance Center.
I don’t think Detroit has a more iconic building than the RenCen, with its piston-like glass towers rising up from the Detroit River. There are better works of architecture, sure, but as far as an associated image of Detroit? Nothing tops the RenCen.
I suggested, too, that Luis include the 1901 St. Josaphat’s church by architects Joseph G. Kastler and William E. N. Hunter in front of the RenCen, to recall the almost too-good-to-be-true alignment of these two structures when driving into the city from the northern suburbs on I-75. After all, by the nature of delivering lectures about Detroit from the distance of Cranbrook, this is the view (from the suburbs, from the car) many of us hold toward the city.
We went back and forth about including the Spirit of Detroit, former Cranbrook Schools faculty member Marshall M. Fredericks’ monumental bronze at the Detroit City-County Building. What attracts me to the Spirit is its iconic status and its graphic replicability: whether on the redesigned city buses or the new city holiday lights, all you really need is an orb and some rays of light to know: that’s the Spirit of Detroit.
What would be the mood of our Detroit capprici?
Inextricably linked to the history of Detroit since 1980 is Detroit Techno, a form of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) that combines synth-pop with African American styles such as house, electro, and funk. For me, Detroit is most exciting, and its dynamism most electrifying, at night. In riding through the city after dark, buildings become speeding landmarks, and its possible to disappear for a time into a former factory or repurposed commercial building for a party or a rave. In these moments, buildings become less defined by their former glory or current decay than by their inhabitation as a dancefloor pulsating with music and lights. It’s a new way of occupying the city’s architecture to unique advantage.
Luis went to work. They began by printing out and arranging the buildings I’d shared. Then, they began overdrawing some of the images—distorting or highlighting certain features.
Layering on tracing paper, Luis dutifully stippled certain prominent architectural elements. I was especially impressed at the beautifully rendered hand, orb, and rays of Spirit of Detroit.
Luis then cut out stars on blue and yellow paper, adding in light sources to the night scene. The Ambassador Bridge, Dodge Memorial Fountain, Penobscot and Fisher Buildings are all recognized for their dramatic nighttime illumination, and Luis captured this with hand-drawn and cut stars.
Fisher Building with Full Moon Eclipse in Nov. 2022
Finally, Luis scanned in the physical elements of the poster and reassembled them in Illustrator, where text was added. Luis took inspiration from Detroit Techno posters for the colors and fonts. I could not be more thrilled with our poster, and the capprici of Detroit at night (with techno).
Luis Quintanilla, CAA ’24, working on the poster. Luis is from Austin, Texas, and earned their BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Can you identify all the buildings shown? Can you speculate why I chose them?
If you can, you’ll love this year’s History of American Architecture: Detroit and the Worldlecture series! If you can’t, you’ll also love this year’s History of American Architecture: Detroit and the World lecture series! The first lecture is February 6, 2024, at 12:00pm ET online and at 6:30pm ET online and in de Salle Auditorium at Cranbrook Art Museum. Purchase your tickets and learn more on our website. All lectures will be available for viewing after the lecture to ticket holders. See you there!
—Kevin Adkisson, Curator, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
Special thanks to Artist-in-Residence Elliot Earls, Head of 2D Design, for suggesting Luis for this project. A perfect fit!
On this, the last day of summer, I thought we’d look back at the Center’s second-annual Architecture Elective for the Horizons-Upward Bound Summer Component. It was a real highlight of my summer!
A grant from the Society for Architecture Historians enabled Nina Blomfield, the Center’s Collection Fellow, and me to co-teach the six-week elective. Each Monday and Wednesday morning from June 28 to August 2, we met in Gordon Hall of Science at Cranbrook with fifteen enthusiastic HUB students, grades 9 through 12. While we started most mornings in the classroom with our textbook or a slideshow of images, the real excitement came on class trips.
I mean, what better way to learn about excellent architecture than to study the buildings of Cranbrook?
Head Archivist Deborah Rice showing our HUB students architectural treasures from Cranbrook Archives. Nina Blomfield, photographer.
To orient ourselves, we started with a morning spent in Cranbrook Archives, studying original sketches, renderings, blueprints, photographs, and even fundraising literature about Cranbrook’s many architectural treasures. We saw the great diversity of how our buildings were imagined, represented, and constructed, and how an architect moves from a loose, gestural sketch to formal construction documents that communicate complex structural systems.
Then, we spent a class period each at Cranbrook House, Saarinen House, and the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Smith House. In each location, students carried their sketchbooks and made notes and drawings about the architecture. I was especially impressed at the students’ analytical skills. In fact, while I usually love talking about the nitty-gritty specifics of Saarinen House, I found myself sitting much more quietly, asking students questions about what they noticed, liked, or disliked in each room. Listening to their observations and conversation helped me see each space anew.
At Smith House, Nina led a phenomenology exercise, where, instead of telling the students the story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Smiths, she simply asked each student to find a spot in the house to sit in quietly. Then, they wrote or sketched what they observed and sensed. Having such a tactile experience with the architecture and nature proved to be more memorable than a conventional tour.
In addition to working as an Associate Archivist at Cranbrook, I am also a fledgling volunteer docent at Christ Church Cranbrook. Recently, I gave a tour of the Chancel to test my skills with my teachers. As I prepared, I found there was very little written about the history of the pipe organ at the church. So, where to turn for more information? Cranbrook Archives, of course.
In August of 1925, George Booth and Oscar Murray (of Bertram G. Goodhue Associates, the church architect), started in earnest to finalize their thoughts and feelings about the choice of organ for the church. While the organ itself was installed in January 1928, plans for its ducts and conduits had to be decided early, before the concrete floors were poured.
Christ Church Cranbrook organ pipes prior to the 1997 restoration. Jack Kausch, photographer. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.
The correspondence suggests that the E.M. Skinner Organ Company was the only company considered. The Boston-based firm was considered America’s finest and most technologically advanced organ builder. Skinner’s specifications for the organ, console, and bench were submitted in October 1925.
George Booth inquired of his colleague Cyril Player to provide comments on the specifications, and Player begins his commentary saying,
“I think I would emphasize gently to them that you want gravity, dignity and softness—the three prime essentials of any church organ, large or small… [gravity] is secured by an adequate and properly-balanced pedal department; dignity by volume of foundation tone in the basic divisions of the instrument; and softness and refinement by skillful voicing with a copious wind stream at a moderate pressure.”
Cyril Player to George G. Booth, November 1925
In passing along the comments to Murray, Booth remarks that, “the desired qualities, viz; gravity, dignity and softness; seems to me peculiarly to express my own feelings and desire.”
Skinner Organ Company Specifications for Christ Church Cranbrook Organ, October 1925. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.
William Zeuch of Skinner Organ Company revised the specifications following some of Player’s suggestions, while some revisions were the suggestion of Henry Willis, the great English organ builder who was a consultant to the firm. The contract for the organ (including the Great, Swell, Choir, and Pedal pipe divisions) was duly signed in December 1925 and work proceeded.
At the same time, a separate contract was made with Alfred Floegel to decorate the organ case doors. Booth wished to confine the oak finish to the exterior of the doors while having the rest richly decorated with color. Booth imagined the opening of the organ doors to represent the opening of the mind. He also envisioned the organ case to read as a triptych (a picture or altarpiece on three hinged panels) when open.
Organ case doors, woodwork by Irving and Casson, decoration by Alfred Floegel. Gift of James Scripps Booth. Laura MacNewman, photographer.
In July 1927, work on the organ console began. The console is where the organist sits to play the instrument, distinguished by its multiple hand keyboards (called manuals), pedalboard, and other controls. Rev. Dr. Marquis requested a change from a 3-manual (Great, Swell, and Choir pipe divisions) to a 4-manual, by adding the Solo division. Zeuch responded positively as it was not too late to build a 4-manual console; however, having already instructed the architect to reduce the dimensions of the organ chamber, which had been too large and would have interfered with the proper effect of the sound in the church, the architect would now need to find space for the Solo division. Room was found above the Sacristy.
Oakland County is decked out in checkered flags this Friday for the annual Woodward Dream Cruise. As the crowds gather in their folding chairs and thousands of classic cars roar past my windows, I’m reminded of a much more serene image from automotive history: the 1960 Plymouth Suburban stretched out on the manicured lawn of the Frank Lloyd Wright Smith House.
1960 Plymouth Suburban, on location at the Frank Lloyd Wright Smith House. Smith Papers, Cranbrook Archives.
In 1959, Chrysler was developing promotional materials for the 1960 Plymouth. Seeking a sleek, modern backdrop for the long lines of the Suburban station wagon, Chrysler’s Public Relations Department contacted Melvyn and Sara Smith about staging a photoshoot at their Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in Bloomfield Hills. The resulting photographs show the 18-ft long Suburban, not parked in the pea-gravel driveway or the distinctive cantilevered carport, but pulled to the back of the house where it could be reflected in the natural setting of the Smith’s newly expanded pond.
1960 Plymouth Suburban, on location at the Frank Lloyd Wright Smith House. Smith Papers, Cranbrook Archives.
The long, low horizon line of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian architecture, with its stacking roof planes, seems a great fit for the station wagon’s extended style lines and characteristic fins. In a second image, two casually-dressed models (check out those long socks and walking shorts!) lounge in rattan Tropi-Cal armchairs on the living room patio. Designed by Danny Ho Fong, the Tropi-Cal armchairs were recently identified through the diligent research of the Center’s Summer intern Clare Catallo.
May 30, 2023, marks one hundred years since Henry S. Booth and J. Robert F. Swanson returned home from ten months of travel in Europe. Midway through their architecture studies at the University of Michigan, the friends and classmates set off on August 1, 1922 for a “Grand Tour” through Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Tunisia, Italy, France, and England to study and sketch European architecture.
In today’s post, I want to share moments from their journey through France, which is so beautifully documented by Henry’s letters and photographs, and by both of their sketches.
Eglise St. Pierre de Coutances, April 29, 1923, J. Robert F. Swanson. Courtesy of Cranbrook Art Museum.
Arriving in France in March 1923, Harry and Bob journeyed through Nice to Cannes, then through Lyon to the city of Bourges. Henry describes the scenery en route:
“…mountains on the right and the “Cote d’Azure” on the other, flowers overhanging balustraded walls, old olives and tall but easily climbed palms, rocks and breaking waves, and then always the bluest of skies and sea to match, and dazzling sunlight–quite warm and ‘drowsy’.“
At Bourges, they headed for the Cathedral, which they visited several times: at night by the light of gas lamps; in the afternoon sunlight; at dusk with a handful of worshippers on their knees; and then later that evening filled with the faithful.
Cathédrale St. Etiénne de Bourges, March 1923. Henry Scripps Booth, photographer. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.
“It was an inspiring sight—the nave packed, and both the inner and outer aisles (for there are two) on the north side filled also, and not a few on the other side of the church. The light was dim all during the sermon, and when that was over, a quantity of candles were lighted almost instantaneously about the “Host,” and all the electric candles down the nave came on, so that suddenly this great cathedral was changed from a imaginative forrest in the night, to a great cathedral church ablaze with the lights associated with a feast.
“But I thought more of other things than of the architecture that night. The preacher talked too fast for me to understand his French, but I knew what he should have been saying even if he wasn’t…, I looked at the great number of long black vails [sic] everywhere, noticed the lack of men of middle age, and saw many young fellows who are now “heads” of their father’s family standing by their veiled mother’s side.”
They stopped in Tours before taking in the Chateaux of the Loire: from Loche to Langais, Ussé, Villandry and Azey.
From the moment I entered Saarinen House twenty-seven years ago to give my first public tour, to my upcoming presentation for the Kingswood Middle School for Girls Explore Cranbrook students, I remain . . . simply enthralled. No more so than by the vibrant Peacock Andirons gracing the living room hearth.
Eliel Saarinen’s cast bronze Peacock Andirons, 1928-29. Each 21-1/4” W x 22-3/8” H x 27-1/4” D. Collection of Cranbrook Art Museum, CAM1985.2 a-b. Robert Hensleigh, photographer.
Designed by Finnish-American architect Eliel Saarinen and produced by Sterling Bronze Company, New York between 1928 and 1929, these cast bronze andirons were paid for by the Cranbrook Foundation and entered in the 1928-1930 Arts & Crafts Building ledger on pages 40-41 (third line from the bottom)—Date: 1-7-30; No.: 515; Name: Sterling Bronze Co; Remarks: 1 pair/ Andirons for Saarinen Res[idence]; Amount: $152.50 (the equivalent of $2,631.50 in 2023).
Arts & Crafts Building ledger, 1928-30. Laura MacNewman, photographer, 2023. Cranbrook Archives.
The pair of birds are fabulous. Ready and alert, they face each other, ankles bent, balanced upon splayed toes.
When I was asked to gather archival materials related to Cranbrook in Kent, England, a short series of correspondence in the Henry Scripps and Carolyn Farr Booth Papers particularly caught my notice. Written to Henry Scripps Booth, the letters discuss a stone from St. Dunstan’s Church in Cranbrook, Kent, and its overseas delivery to Christ Church Cranbrook. I became quite curious about it.
Carved coign from St. Dunstan’s Church, Cranbrook, Kent, at Christ Church Cranbrook. Laura MacNewman, photographer. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.
One handwritten letter in the correspondence was rather difficult to decipher, but once I got the pattern of it, it helped me begin to comprehend the story.
In July 1930, St. Dunstan’s Vicar, Rev. Swingler, acknowledged a request from Booth for a fragment of the church which could be placed in the chapel of the same name at Christ Church Cranbrook.
It was July 1931 before Rev. Swingler wrote again to inform Booth that the stone was ready for dispatch. He explained that the Church Council had welcomed the idea and directed the Fabric Committee to select a stone, which they had, but that the Secretary had forgotten to inform Booth until then, a year later, and it was already on its way!
Letter from Rev. Swingler to Henry Scripps Booth, July 22, 1931. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.Letter from Rev. Swingler to Henry Scripps Booth, July 22, 1931. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.Letter from Rev. Swingler to Henry Scripps Booth, July 22, 1931. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.
The forgetfulness of the Secretary and finding appropriate shipping arrangements for such an unusual commodity had caused quite a delay, to which Rev. Swingler writes,
“I am sorry that the matter has not been dealt with more speedily but old Cranbrook has hardly yet learned modern methods of business, as perhaps you know.”
St. Dunstan’s Church, Cranbrook, Kent. Kevin Adkisson, photographer. Courtesy of the Center for Collections and Research.
He goes on to describe the provenance of the stone, at least as far as he could tell. A fifteenth century carved coign (an architectural term for a “projected corner”), it once formed part of the string course (a projected band of stone) which runs at the base of the battlements of the church nave. The course includes a series of grotesque heads, some of which were pierced for waterspouts. A grotesque, common in medieval church architecture, is a decoratively carved stone used to ward off evil spirits and to signify the sanctuary and safety of the church. On inspecting an historic photograph of the church, I could identify similar stones at the top of the drainpipes and around the tower battlements.
St. Dunstan’s Church, Cranbrook, Kent, July 1901, with grotesques in situ. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.
Rev. Swingler had first seen it laying in the churchyard and surmised that it had not been replaced during past repairs. He doesn’t mention why they selected that particular stone, but one could conjecture that it was because it was no longer part of the fabric of the church building and hence was available to be gifted to Christ Church. He notes that it is probably of Hartley stone, which was quarried in the Parish.
Henry Scripps Booth contributed great efforts to building relationships between the old and new Cranbrooks by establishing and maintaining connections between the two churches. The grotesque that arrived at Christ Church more than 90 years ago is an artifact that tells just one story of his efforts. From St. Dunstan’s of old Cranbrook, known as the “Cathedral of the Weald,” to St. Dunstan’s of Christ Church Cranbrook, the carved coign continues to herald sanctuary and give confidence to those who enter.
–Laura MacNewman Associate Archivist, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
The clerestory windows designed by G. Owen Bonawit in the nave of Christ Church seem to be one of the least described elements of the church’s artwork. The work was negotiated and subcontracted through architect Oscar H. Murray at Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue Associates rather than commissioned directly through George G. Booth. Consequently, there are few documentary vestiges of the artist’s process in our records.
The windows can be studied through other materials held by the Archives, including architectural drawings, photographs, and the records of a window restoration project which commenced in 1993. In 1995, the Thompson Art Glass company made rubbings of the window for the purposes of identifying their care and preservation needs.
Window rubbings by Thompson Art Glass made June 19, 1995. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.
There are seventeen grisaille clerestory windows in the nave and chancel at Christ Church, which were analyzed as part of this stained-glass restoration project. They are made of clear antique glass upon which minute floral detail is painted and accentuated by the addition of small amounts of colored glass. In the chancel, there are two lancets and tracery of nine panels supported by T-bars including one ventilator panel. In the nave, they are comprised of three lancets and tracery with eight panels, with ventilator panels making up the bottom row.
Detail from Architectural drawing of Christ Church Cranbrook, North Elevation. April 30, 1925. Drawn by J.E.M./Oscar H. Murray, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue Architects. [AD.10.33]. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.
Grisaille, literally meaning ‘to grey,’ is a type of stained glass that is mostly monochromatic, with a silver or grey tone being painted onto the finished glass. The purpose of the plainness of grisaille is twofold: they let more light into the space both literally and metaphorically in that they were intended to limit distraction from meditation.
The grisaille stained glass style is thought to have originated in French Cistercian abbeys after a prohibition on colored glass issued by St. Bernard of Clairvaux in 1134 in accordance with their charism of simplicity. St. Bernard, the master of paradox, also banned the use of figurative decoration according to the First Commandment of no graven images. Under his guidance, the Cistercians seek the face of God, a theological anomaly that produces an exquisite spiritual discipline and religious practice through which the monk contemplates holiness by virtue of continually recognizing the poverty of their thoughts and feelings when weighed down by seeking to satisfy worldly desire. The style often employs natural or geometric patterns, much like a labyrinth.
The windows can best be observed by sitting in the aisle stalls of the nave, which are in themselves an unusual feature otherwise only found in Oxford college chapels. The walls of the nave were originally intended to display memorials and artwork, but the latter idea was revised due to the objection that it would bring a museum feel to a house of worship.
Aisle stalls in left side of sanctuary. June 23, 1946. Photographer, Harvey Croze. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.
Added in 1930, the aisle stalls offer a fine perspective from which to observe the grisaille, and Bonawit’s elegant craftmanship brings with it a history of monastic inspired light. Since a life without beauty is only half lived, the artistic eclecticism of Christ Church offers all those who enter the opportunity to embrace the other half both in its resplendency and in its simplicity.
– Laura MacNewman, Associate Archivist, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
With Laura MacNewman’s Kitchen Sink blog entry of May 2019 serving as an excellent guide to the Women’s Window of Christ Church, Cranbrook, it seems worthwhile to take a more detailed look at the individual panels.
Panel 16, Actresses: Sarah Siddons (English, 1755-1831); Sarah Bernhardt (French, 1845-1923); Mary Anderson (American, 1859-1940); Ellen Terry (English, 1848-1928). Tom Booth, photographer. Copyright Christ Church Cranbrook 2010.
Though the window was the gift of Florence Booth Beresford and her husband James, the choice of women to be included was made by the Reverend Samuel S. Marquis, the first rector of the church. What is intriguing is how or why the Rev. Marquis chose the women who appear. Since no documentation has yet come to light, we can only look at who the women are as well as how they are depicted. Marquis aimed to cover mostly western culture through the ages up to his present day, the 1920s, and clearly was choosing exemplary members of the categories. Thus, we find that the actresses under study here, except for one, are well-known to this day in the French and English-speaking world.
The profession of actress almost until the present has had a bad reputation. A woman was not supposed to put herself on display or seek approval. Odd then that the quotation from Proverbs 31:28, 31 enters the window as the dedication to women: Her children rise up and call her blessed … and her works praise her in the gates. These works would not include appearing on stage or screen.
Shakespeare’s women were played by young men who aged out of the roles into male leads if they were lucky. The comedic role where the young female lead must disguise herself as a man then becomes an interesting part to watch, especially if the young actor, appearing as a young woman, must pretend to be man playing a woman as in As You Like It.
The first woman to appear on the English stage in her own right was reputedly Margaret Hughes in the role of Desdemona in 1660 after the restoration of Charles II. Our window’s first actress (from the left) is the Welsh actress Sarah Siddons, born 1755, older sister of the great John Kemble and aunt of also great Fanny Kemble. Siddons was a tragic actress, scorning comedy as buffoonery beneath her talents. Her great roles were Lady Macbeth and Volumnia from Coriolanus. These are two of Shakespeare’s nastiest ladies, beloved of actresses everywhere. As critic William Hazlitt said of Siddons, “Passion emanated from her breast.”
Stuart, Gilbert; Sarah Siddons, nee Kemble; National Portrait Gallery, London.
She was possibly the first actress superstar of the modern world, so famous she was painted by all the great portraitists including Gainsborough and our own Gilbert Stuart. All the paintings, even the stained-glass version, show off her famous Kemble nose.
The next actress is Sarah Bernhardt born in 1844 in Paris to the Dutch mistress of an aristocratic lover who sent young Sarah off to the Paris Conservatoire, then a partly government-sponsored school of acting. Bernhardt graduated into becoming a member of the Comédie-Française, where she found the techniques old-fashioned. Always a tearaway, she was dismissed for slapping a senior actress.
Bernhardt did not need the national theater to become one of the most famous actresses of all time. She was an exceptional self-promoter and entertained all the society men of her age, numbering the future Edward VII of England and Victor Hugo amongst her lovers. She had a mass of wild hair, big blue eyes, perfect teeth, and with her good looks and purity of diction and a voice variously described as silvery or golden she attracted enormous crowds to any theater. She made Victor Hugo cry in a performance of one of his own plays.
Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet, June 1899, by James Lafayette, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Her roles were again mostly tragic playing Cordelia in Le Roi Lear, Hamlet, Desdemona, Joan of Arc, Racine’s Phèdre. Her offstage behavior was just as spirited; she slept in a coffin to prepare for roles and abandoned the corset.
She founded her own theaters, toured the United States nine times, toured the world, built and worked in a hospital in World War I, played a young man of twenty when she was fifty-five, took on all the great tragic roles, faced, fought and surmounted anti-Semitic slurs all her life, appeared in silent films and melodramas. She lost a lung, a kidney, a leg but still trod the boards.
Bernhardt incarnated the French wife of an English artist in Detroit in the play The False Model on November 25, 1916, but there is no record of any Booths attending.
Next is English actress Ellen Terry, born in 1847, contemporaneous with Sarah Bernhardt, but not the quite the world player. Beautiful Terry, teenage actress and the artist’s model, married pre-Raphaelite painter G.F. Watts but went off to live with architect-designer Edward William Godwin where she caught the eye of renowned actor Henry Irving. Irving sought luxurious stage settings and a beautiful actress to complement his own great talent. In addition to appearing in all the great female roles of Shakespeare and more humble parts, Terry entered into a lively correspondence with George Bernard Shaw who cast her in roles he had written for her.
The unrivaled team of Irving and Terry lasted 24 years. Even today, to be able to say that your great-great grand relatives had seen them onstage together is still impressive. Terry and Irving appeared in Detroit 25 through 27 January 1900. We find in Ellen Scripps Booth’s diary for Friday, January 26: “I went to see Irving and Terry tonight in Robespierre.” Mrs. Booth makes no comment on Terry’s performance of loving wife Clarisse, but the Detroit Free Press of the next day praised Terry for her “characteristic grace” and “personal charm” in a not very demanding role. There were many curtain calls.
The “half” actress who owns the little face inserted between Bernhardt and Terry is Mary Anderson, born 1859, the American tragedian here, who also took on comedic roles. Her claim to fame was playing two parts (Perdita and Hermione) in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale which bought her great acclaim. Audiences raved over her, while critics appreciated her beauty but found her lacking in feeling. By contrast with the others her star burned for a much shorter time. She toured extensively but withdrew from the public eye in 1889 due to exhaustion and the offer of marriage and a home in England.
Stained-glass artist James Hogan’s pre-Raphaelite influence can be seen in the depictions in the window, but he is not copying from any standard image. Siddons appears in one of her classical roles, Bernhardt as Phèdre, and Terry in her signature red lawyer’s robes as Portia from the Merchant of Venice playing a man.
What unites these women is their ability to stand up and be counted as women of talent at a time when they were more regarded as curiosities. Of the three greats, not one of them had a happy love life. Two of them famously had children out of wedlock and all three were regarded as unworthy by the men who should have revered them. All three nineteenth-century actresses played the roles of men. Considering their unconventional lives, it is surprising perhaps that Rector Marquis chose them, but then all the women in the window were unusual because they stood out as pioneers in some way. Who was the most famous? From the 1870s on there were two well-known women: Queen Victoria and Sarah Bernhardt, in no particular order.
– Lynette Mayman, Collections Interpreter, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
![Window rubbing by Thompson Art Glass, June 19, 1995. [CCC4.] Window #9 [3 and 4 of 5].](https://cranbrookkitchensink.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/ccc4_3and4.jpg)
Cranbrook Kitchen Sink 