Mar

Behind-the-Scenes: Bringing Art, Science, and History to Cranbrook’s Tables

Eric Perry photographs work from Megha Gupta (CAA Ceramics 2023) alongside collections from the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Smith House and eggs from Cranbrook Institute of Science.

If you walked into Cranbrook House, Saarinen House, or Smith House this week, you might have noticed some surprising guests have arrived at the table. Your Center for Collections and Research team have been busy installing Brought to the Table, the fifth intervention of new work by Cranbrook Academy of Art students and Artists-in-Residence in our three historic homes.

This year’s virtual exhibition is a Cranbrook-wide collaboration that brings site-specific work from across the Academy’s eleven departments into conversation with objects from Cranbrook’s Cultural Properties, Art Museum, and Institute of Science collections.

Kiwi Nguyen (CAA Metals 2023), Iris Eichenberg (Metals Artist-in-Residence), and Kevin Adkisson (Center Curator) strategize in the Saarinen House studio.

Brought to the Table engages with the long tradition of functional art at Cranbrook and pairs new works of art with objects from the Cranbrook collections made for dining tables, coffee tables, desks, or side tables. Before the exhibition kicks off at the Virtual Opening and Lecture on March 27th, I’d like to give you a sneak peek at the exhibition process.

This was my first experience curating contemporary art and I was grateful to learn from my capable co-curators, Metalsmithing Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Iris Eichenberg and Center Curator Kevin Adkisson.

Cameron Wood (Cranbrook Institute of Science Curator for Collections) and Iris Eichenberg (Metalsmithing AIR) examine eggs from the Institute’s oological collection.

From planning with Kevin and Iris; coordinating with our wonderful Academy artists; selecting objects with colleagues at the Institute of Science and Art Museum; installing with the help of students; and assisting with photography, this exhibition took me all over the Cranbrook campus.

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Jun

Taste, Grace, and Elegance: The Cannon Returns

Today, Cranbrook Art Museum opens its newest show, With Eyes Opened: Cranbrook Academy of Art Since 1932, surveying the history of the Academy since its founding. For the exhibition, the Center for Collections and Research worked closely with the Museum, researching in the Archives, contributing essays for the 600-plus page publication that chronicles the history of this storied institution, and coordinating the restoration and reinstallation of the Academy’s cannon.

Yes, I said cannon.

From 1966 to 1971, Julius Schmidt, Artist-in-Residence of the Sculpture Department (1964-1970), and his students, designed, sculpted, and cast a working cannon. Before Schmidt arrived at Cranbrook, there had not been a forge on campus for students to use. It was constructed in 1964, in the open space east of Carl Milles’s large studio. (You can read more about the forge in a previous Kitchen Sink blog: Photo Friday: Iron Pour.)

How do you move a cannon? Very carefully–and with a lot of assistance from a hydraulic arm! Steve Kerchoff, the Cranbrook Mechanic, hooks the cannon to the backhoe for placement. June 15, 2021. Photograph by Kevin Adkisson, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

Titled simply Cannon, it is composed of a cast iron wheels, cast iron cannon body, and bronze field carriage. I should say, an extremely heavy carriage, cannon body, and wheels. It took a number of people to get Cannon reinstalled, including artist Scott Berels who restored the wheels with funds from Cranbrook Art Museum, Cranbrook Facilities, who helped move and install the piece, the Center’s Associate Curator Kevin Adkisson, and the Art Museum’s Head Preparator Jon Geiger and Registrar Corey Gross. Vital to the reinstallation was the heavy equipment and sturdy straps of the Facilities team—it isn’t often we use a John Deere backhoe to move art!

Moving field carriage from storage.
Art Museum Registrar Corey Gross moves Cannon’s wheels.
Corey Gross, Jon Geiger, and Kevin Adkisson install Cannon’s wheels.
Kevin Adkisson and Steve Kerchoff install the field carriage.
Corey Gross and Steve Kerchoff install the cannon body.
Thanks to Cranbrook Facilities for the assist on the installation!
Detail of Cannon.
Cannon, 1966-1971.

We are excited to have Cannon back on campus in time to celebrate the history of the Academy in the Art Museum exhibition. Associate Curator Kevin Adkisson marked the cannon’s its return in his most recent Live at Five presentation on Facebook:

Associate Curator Kevin Adkisson takes you on a tour of Cannon on June 16, 2021. Courtesy Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.

Cannon features a lot of imagery, including a number of protest-related images, which is in keeping with the times in which it was forged. One line I especially like: beneath the cannon’s trunnions (where it connects to the carriage) is the (perhaps ironic) inscription: “TASTE GRACE AND ELEGANCE.” Indeed!

Inscription on the interior of the cannon carriage.

There is still so much to learn about Cannon. We are excited to look into the iconography on the piece, and research the many student artists whose names are seen on the cannon. If you have a cannon-related story, or were involved in its construction or casting, please let us know! Look for more blogs in the future about this heavy, heavy part of the Cranbrook campus.

Congratulations to the team at Cranbrook Art Museum on the opening of the new exhibition. Book your tickets today on the Museum’s website, and don’t forget to walk over to experience Cannon while you’re here!

– Leslie S. Mio, Associate Registrar, Cranbrook Center for Collection and Research

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Oct

Photo Friday: Iron Pour

As the fountains around Cranbrook are drained and the chilly air sets in, I thought we could warm up with a little molten iron.

In 1962, Julius Schmidt was appointed artist-in-residence after the departure of Berthold “Tex” Schiwetz from the Sculpture department. Schmidt received his BFA from Cranbrook in 1953 and his MFA in 1955, working under Schiwetz. Schmidt worked almost exclusively with iron, a rough and difficult material previously unexplored at the Academy. Early in his tenure, he set about raising money from Detroit-area tool and die companies to build Cranbrook a foundry.

Iron pour in the new foundry, November 1965. Paul Reuger, photographer.

Constructed in the open space to the east of Carl Milles’ large studio, the concrete block and glass curtain wall forge building was the first physical addition to the Academy campus since Saarinen died in 1950.

Julius Schmidt, Head of Sculpture, (center) with students at commencement, May 1966. Harvey Croze, photographer.

As reported in the 1964 Cranbrook Academy of Art News Letter, the new foundry featured six furnaces capable of casting up to 1,000 pounds of molten iron or bronze. The foundry also included electric hoists, a bridge crane, grinder, mueller, electric oven, acetylene and arc welding equipment, and pneumatic grinding and finishing tools.

Schmidt and some students used the forge extensively for their work, perhaps to the disadvantage of students who didn’t want to work with iron. In 1966 students working under Schmidt designed, sculpted, cast, and then fired a cannon featuring a caricature of Zoltan Sepeshy’s nose and mouth. Schmidt left Cranbrook in 1970, and I can’t find evidence of iron pours after his departure (today, students who wish to cast their own iron participate in an annual pour at the College for Creative Studies.) In the forge now is the Academy’s metal shop as well as equipment for 3D printing, laser cutting, and vacuum forming–all situated around the forge equipment.

Cannon being fired out of the foundry, May 1966. Paul Rueger, photographer.

If you would like to visit the foundry, join me on the Behind-the-Scenes tour: Saarinen House: Presidents/Residents, next Saturday, October 27th. This is the final date for this tour that includes a visit to the exhibition at Saarinen House, the studio space of Wallace Mitchell, the foundry, Cranbrook Archives, as well as several other stops. Click here for more information.

– Kevin Adkisson, Collections Fellow, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

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May

A Final Reflection (2002-2018)

The “bananas went a-missing” and Kingswood School’s Chiquita Banana Scholarship. The thief who stole the (attributed to) Rembrant Peale portrait of George Washington and the mysterious return of Perseus on the porch of the Thornlea Studio Archives. Gates and andirons and architectural details like the lead conductors at Cranbrook House designed by New York metalsmith Oscar Bach. Cranbrook’s mid-century modern Edison House, the House of the Poet (never realized thank goodness!), Chanticleer Cottage (which used to be the chicken house), Walnut Cottage, Tower Cottage, and Brookside Cottage (also known as the Honeymoon Cottage or Stonybrook) which evolved from the original pump house.

Unidentified man on bridge (no, it is NOT George Booth) with the pump house in the background, ca 1915

And the people! The Italians who literally moved mountains of dirt and rocks, graded the roads, and built the stone walls and beautiful rock gardens that lined the campus.

Landscape architect Edward Eichstaedt, who designed the original planting plan around Jonah Pools and later worked on landscape design for Eero Saarinen’s General Motors Technical Center. The women who left their mark at Christ Church Cranbrook – Kathryn McEwen, Hildreth Meière, and silversmith Elizabeth Copeland. Cranbrook School’s art teacher John Cunningham and his mosaics (which can still be seen today) Kingswood School’s French teacher, Marthe Le Loupp, and Brookside’s dietician Flora Leslie.

Eichstaedt’s 1934 Planting Plan for the Lower basins

Notable national celebrities connected to Cranbrook: Leonard Bernstein, Dave Brubeck, Amelia Earhart, Henry Ford, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh to name just a few. But perhaps most interesting to me was learning the stories of those not so well known: Ebba Wicks Brown – the first registered female architect in the state of Oregon who came to Cranbrook to study architecture with Eliel Saarinen. Colonel Edwin S. George, a Detroit businessman and philanthropist who was affiliated with Cranbrook in a variety of ways – most notably for his contributions to the Institute of Science. Myrtle Hall – the first African American model at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Cleo Dorman – another model who was infamous for collecting paintings of her done by famous artists. And so many, many more names still swirling around in my brain.

Curatorial scholars at work

Perhaps my greatest joy here has been to help researchers find the answer to their questions, and to guide them towards collections that they might not have thought of – which has often led to a change in the course of their research. I am very proud of the fact that Cranbrook Archives has an international reputation for exemplary service and for being so organized and easy to use. I will miss working with the many students, faculty, staff, researchers, and scholars as you have taught me as much, if not more, than I have taught you. Thank you for that.

And, thank you to the Cranbrook Kingswood Senior May students and the many archival graduate students who have worked on projects over the years, and a special thanks to the most amazing volunteers! We couldn’t have accomplished all that we have without you.

Graduate student (left) and dedicated volunteers at Thornlea Studio Archives

I will close my final Cranbrook blog post by doing what I have tried to do my entire 16 year career here – promote Cranbrook Archives. In the archival profession, one constant issue many of us face is how to demonstrate to our institutions and constituents the importance of an archives – why archives matter. I could wax on, but instead I leave you with this article in the hopes that all who read it will have a new appreciation for the work that archivists do every day to preserve institutional memory. History matters. Archives matter. I am proud that I played a small role in preserving Cranbrook’s rich history.

And on that note, I bid adieu.

Leslie S. Edwards, Head Archivist (2002-2018)

Jan

Metals & Cranbrook House

George Booth was a connoisseur. As an avid collector of beautiful objects, he acquired decorative and fine art to adorn his home, Cranbrook House (and later, the various Cranbrook institutions). One of the most collected categories: metal objects.

He was, after all, descended from a line of copper and tinsmiths. At fifteen, George Booth started a two-year apprenticeship at the Red Foundry in St. Thomas, Ontario, where he learned the fundamentals of the millwright and blacksmithing trades. He expanded his interest in craftsmanship through investment into an ornamental ironworks firm in Windsor (Evans and Booth) soon thereafter.

While he sold his share of the iron business in 1888, Booth continued sketching designs for metal products throughout his life. They’re collected in his sketchbooks . Some of his sketches for gates, furniture, and decorative elements were realized by Samuel Yellin of Philadelphia, while others were completed by local forges, and some simply ideas.

In examining photographs of Cranbrook House from Booth’s lifetime, I’m struck by the careful arrangement of art objects, specifically art bronzes, in the space. In the image above, on the table sits Albin Polasek’s 1917 sculpture Woman with Moon, still on view in the house. (Click images to enlarge)

If you look at enough images of the house, you will realize Booth was constantly rearranging his collection. Here, Eli Harvey’s 1904 work Recumbent Lioness is on the mantelpiece.

Starting in 1915, Booth loaned decorative and fine artworks to the Detroit Institute of Arts, including many bronzes previously on display in his home. In 1919, he gifted ninety-six of these objects (in iron, ceramics, wood, silver, and bronze) to the DIA, where many are still on view. You can flip through the DIA’s 1919 Bulletin describing Booth’s gift (in text and images).

Once Booth began developing the Cranbrook campus, he spent less energy collecting for Cranbrook House. However, the house has on occasion welcomed contemporary design, like the 1950 competition for Cranbrook Academy of Art students for the design of Packard automobiles and hood ornaments.

Cranbrook Academy of Art students admiring designs for the Packard Motor Competition on display in the Cranbrook House Library, December 1950. Harvey Croze, Photographer. Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

Next week, students and alumni of the Academy’s Metalsmithing department will be gathering in Cranbrook House to show their work in the context of the Booth home in an exhibition organized by current students, A Line of Beauty: Cranbrook House Inhabitation. Taking their work out of the typical museum gallery setting (and off of the usual white pedestal) will provide a new framework in which to understand and view their pieces, and will also be a continuation of what George Booth did in his own lifetime: bring new art into the home to be placed among other items of beauty.

I mentioned that George Booth was a connoisseur. Curator and educator Charles Montgomery, who in the mid-twentieth century helped professionalize the genteel ideas of connoisseurship, wrote that the budding connoisseur must learn “to approach every object with an inquiring mind as well as with an inquiring eye.” He continued that “when first looking at an object, it is important to let oneself go and try to get a sensual reaction to it. I ask myself: Do I enjoy it? Does it automatically ring true? Does it sing to me?”

What I look forward to in the pop-up exhibition with the Metalsmithing department is not only the opportunity to see work from students and alumni, but also to view the many objects already in the house in a new light. Montgomery recommends looking at objects with half-closed eyes and from various angles, and next Friday night, I plan to do the same.

Ye Triumphe Ship, 1918 Henry Brundage Culver, with Untitled, 2017, Adam Shirley, CAA Metalsmithing 2010

A Line of Beauty: Cranbrook House Inhabitation will take place Friday, January 26th from 5:30 to 8:30pm. The presentation is curated and organized by the Cranbrook Academy of Art Metalsmithing Department, and is presented at Cranbrook House through the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research. All are welcome.

– Kevin Adkisson, Collections Fellow, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

Editor’s Note: New works shown are by Adam Shirley, Alberte Tranberg, Natalia Sarrazin, and Iris Eichenberg.

Jul

Nunsense

Over the past few years, I have listened to researchers in the Archives and visitors to the museum describe works of art as divine or heavenly, but I don’t remember those words used to describe the artist. Until now. Did you know that during the 1950s-1960s there were several artists who studied at the Academy of Art who were also members of a divine order? Admittedly, I have not had much interaction with nuns in my lifetime, but I have a keen fascination (cue: “The hills are alive with the sound of music..”).

Sister Mary James Ann Walsh, BVM (Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary) was one of several nuns to study at the Academy where she received her MFA in painting in 1955. In 1953, Sister Mary was the First Prize Winner of the 9^th Annual Iowa Water Color Show for her piece, “Ecce Homo.” That painting is now part of the Sioux City Art Center’s permanent collection. In addition to her Cranbrook degree, Sister Mary studied at the State University of Iowa and the University of Colorado. In 1959 she became head of the Clark College department of Art in Dubuque, Iowa.

Sisters at work in the metal shop, 1954. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.

The photo above shows Sister Mary Grace Esther Mehren, BVM, and Sister Mary Barbara Cerny at work in the metal shop in 1954. We are still looking for information about Sister Mary Barbara, but according to the Chicago Tribune (15 Jun 1958), Sister Mary Grace Esther was appointed to oversee construction of an eleven-story Scholasticate on the campus of Mundelein College. The building houses lecture halls, classrooms, a dining hall, and a chapel.

Another CAA alum (Metalsmithing ’49), Sister Helene O’Connor, O.P. (Dominican Order of Preachers), founded Studio Angelico in 1935, at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan. Studio Angelico, the art department at Siena Heights, was named for the 15^th century Dominican painter, Fra Angelico. Sister Helene chaired the art department, taught classes, and directed community workshops. An accomplished sculptor, ceramicist, weaver, and muralist – her work has been exhibited at the Portland Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Sister Marie Gertrude’s, “Mother Hen,” Bay City Times, 27 Sep 1964.

Also of the Dominican order, Sister Marie Gertrude Lohman, O.P., received her MFA in Sculpture from the Academy in 1966. Several of Sister Marie Gertrude’s sculptures display in Illinois, including a statue of St. Catherine of Siena at the Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Chicago and a statue of St. Albert the Great in the student courtyard at St. Rose Priory. Sister Marie Gertrude studied in Schifanoia, Italy, and her work has been exhibited in Chicago and Dubuque. In 1964, her work, “Mother Hen,” was displayed at the Studio 23 space at the Arts Center in Bay City, MI.

This research has only deepened my fascination of the divine sisterhood. I wonder what drew the sisters to Cranbrook? There were several other nun-students at CAA – I look forward to learning more about their contributions to Cranbrook and the art world.

– Gina Tecos, Archivist

Aug

Photo Friday: Who’s That Man?

It’s Arthur Nevill Kirk! Wooed by George Booth, the famed silversmith arrived at Cranbrook in 1927 to head the metals department at the Academy of Art. Kirk also taught at the Art School of the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts and Cranbrook School for Boys. His specialty was the design and execution of ecclesiastical silver, of which Cranbrook still has many pieces in its collection. During the Great Depression, lack of funds curtailed the use of precious metals and the department closed in 1933. Kirk went on the help establish the Artisans’ Guild, and organized the metal department at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he taught until his retirement in 1957.

~Robbie Terman, archivist