We appreciate all of our teachers at Cranbrook!
Cranbrook School Faculty, “Formal Portrait,” May 1953. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.
Back row (l-r): John House, Hubert Davis, Rev. Walter Young, Arthur Palmer, Floyd Bunt, Wayne Lawrence. Kneeling (l-r): James Rollier, Carl Wonnberger, James Kelly, Robert Kenny, Carleton McClain, Ben Snyder
The Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research has officially launched our new logo! What follows is a description of where each of the letters comes from in the history of Cranbrook or the location on the campus!
The (first) C in Cranbrook is from the logo George Gough Booth created for the Cranbrook Press in 1901, three years before he and his wife Ellen established their estate in Bloomfield Hills.
The Cranbrook Press (1900-1902) was founded by George Booth in the attic of the Detroit Evening News Building. Booth emulated the work of William Morris and his Kelmscott Press, not just in design but also in the level of hand-craftsmanship.
A view of Diogenes. Photographer, Harvey Croze, 1961.
You might not immediately notice the small bronze statue that sits at the top of Hoey Tower’s stairwell at Cranbrook School. The statue is Diogenes – a Greek philosopher best known for holding a lantern and claiming to be on a quest for an honest man. Diogenes is considered to be one of the founders of Cynicism – a doctrine that supports a life in accordance with nature and rejects convention.
George Booth originally purchased Diogenes for Cranbrook House from the Gorham Silver Company in May 1914. One of the many statues he purchased during his lifetime, he bequeathed it to Cranbrook School upon his death.
Diogenes has been depicted throughout the centuries in paintings, drawings, and sculpture. Our sculpture was created by George Edwin Bissell (1839-1920) in 1906. Bissell, who was born in Connecticut, studied in Paris at the Academie Julian, the Academie Colarossi, the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts. In 1876, he studied at the American Academy in Rome. He also served in the Civil War as a private in the 23rd Connecticut (1862-1863) and as assistant Postmaster for the U.S. Navy (1863, 1865).
– Gina Tecos, Archivist
I have had the pleasure of spending much of my time over the last year going through the Cranbrook Archives in search of information about Pewabic Pottery. This is in preparation for the upcoming exhibition Simple Forms, Stunning Glazes: The Gerald W. McNeely Pewabic Pottery Collection opening December 12. Through the Archives’ amazing resources, including inventories, architectural drawings, correspondence, receipts, historic photographs, and even meeting notes from the founding of Cranbrook School, one of the most awesome discoveries was regarding one of the Pewabic Pottery vases in our collection.
Cranbrook Educational Community Collection, CEC 276
Photographers: Tim Thayer and R. H. Hensleigh
Through inventories we can trace the placement of this vase from during its life in Cranbrook House. It was located in the Living Room in 1921, and by 1933 had been relocated to the Sunset Room. In 1937, George Booth notes the work by its size and a brief description, “14 inch vase- luster- Pewabic.” Cranbrook has 15 Pewabic works purchased during Booth’s lifetime which now reside between the collections of the Art Museum and the Cranbrook Educational Community. While I am still working to place the pieces of the puzzle together to see if we can do this for other work, it may not be possible as some of the receipts and notations are much more cryptic including only “Pewabic Vase” with no dimensions, or description.
It’s treasure hunts like these that make the Archives such a great place to spend my time as you never know what you might find and where it will take you!
–Stefanie Dlugosz-Acton, Collections Fellow, Center for Collections and Research
For many of us who grew up in Michigan, going up north during summer vacation was (and still is) something very special – a way to escape the hustle and bustle of city and suburban life and become one with the natural beauty it has to offer. Throughout the 20th century, Cranbrook scientists, artists, architects, students and faculty, as well as members of the Booth family, took advantage of the native woods, white sandy beaches, and waters of Lake Michigan.
Logo for Pinehurst Inn, Indian River, 1940. Cranbrook Archives.
Shelley Selim, Cranbrook Art Museum’s Ralph and Jeanne Graham Assistant Curator, curated the exhibition Designing Summer: Objects of Escape which features Michigan designers and companies who have contributed to summer innovations including tents, boats, and bicycles as well as a summer home designed by Florence Schust Knoll. In response to the opening of the exhibition on Saturday, June 20th, I opted to post a few highlights of Cranbrook’s ongoing relationship with northern Michigan.
Dudley Blakely painting at group site, Bois Blanc Island, 1938. Cranbrook Archives.
As early as 1929, staff and faculty from the Institute of Science traveled north to conduct studies of animal and plant life on the many islands in Lake Michigan – from Bois Blanc to the Manitous. Reports of these research trips were documented in photographs, field notes, and ultimately published in Institute of Science newsletters and bulletins.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Henry Scripps Booth took his family up north for several summers, often vacationing with friends. One of their favorite spots was Good Hart, where they stayed either at The Krude Kraft Lodge or the Old Trail Inn.
Carolyn Farr Booth and Chauncy Bliss on the Fire Tower at Good Hart, ca 1940. Cranbrook Archives.
Communities like Cross Village, Harbor Springs, and Glen Arbor have been inspirational for Cranbrook artists and architects for centuries. Former head of architecture, Robert Snyder, designed an A-Frame beach cottage for Wally Mitchell, while architecture student Harry Weese designed a trifecta of summer homes (two for the Weese family) at Glen Arbor. “Shack Tamarack” (named after the tamarack logs used in its construction) was built in 1936 and is still used by Weese descendants today. Harry followed that with “Cottage Two” in 1939, a one story house designed with his brother John, and the Pritchard House which spoke to the modern aesthetic Weese experienced as an architecture student at Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Robert F. Swanson and Pipsan Saarinen Swanson spent decades designing commissions up north including the ultra-modern MacDonald Building in Harbor Springs, the L’Arbre Croche Condominium development, and the family’s own summer cottage at Menonaqua (along with son, Bob). Check out Shelley’s blog about Pipsan’s Sol Air furniture which is featured in the Designing Summer exhibition.
While architect Tod Williams (Cranbrook School ‘61) served as project manager for Richard Meier’s Douglas House project also located in Harbor Springs, other Cranbrook-related projects up north include The Munising Design Strategy Matrix – a community design project managed by The Community Design Advisory Program (CDAP). Established in 1987 by Design Michigan, a non-profit, state outreach program housed at Cranbrook Academy of Art, CDAP provided tailored community design and revitalization services to the city of Munising.
And, in 2013, Peter Pless (CAA ‘02) lead a design collaboration between the Human Centered Design Program at Northern Michigan University and the Lloyd Flanders furniture company of Menominee, Michigan.
Thankfully, there is seemingly no end in sight to the inspiration and possibilities of art, architecture, science, and plain old fashioned relaxation one can find up north.
Promotional Literature, Charlevoix Chamber of Commerce, 1941. Cranbrook Archives.
– Leslie S. Edwards, Head Archivist
Academy of Art students bowling. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.
Academy of Art students waiting to reset pins. Courtesy Cranbrook Archives.
Today’s photos show Academy of Art students having some fun bowling! Bowling was popular on Cranbrook’s campus with alleys in both Cranbrook School for Boys and Kingswood School for Girls. Kingswood School, which had the earliest alleys on campus, still uses their bowling alleys as part of the physical education curriculum.
The Academy of Art bowling lanes were located in the basement of the Art Museum and were for Academy of Art student and faculty use. These lanes did not have mechanical pinsetters and therefore had to be manually set. In 1944 the lanes were removed from the Art Museum to allow for more storage for artworks, and relocated to the lower level of the Academic Building at Cranbrook School (now called Hoey Hall) under the study hall.
–Stefanie Kae Dlugosz, Collections Fellow, Center for Collections and Research
In the second week of May, I began my first day at the Cranbrook Archives for my Senior May Project, a program ran by the Cranbrook Upper School to send anxious fourth quarter seniors off campus for internships and adventures. And now, after two weeks of dealing with numerous dusty, yellowed papers (and one suspicious wooden box featuring some dead bugs and cobwebs) my initial excitement only grew.
One of my first projects here was to research the tenure of past Academy of Art faculty and staff members between the years of 1932-1976, and to make a comprehensive spreadsheet on the matter. That project led me to read through old faculty files comprised of payroll information (“how did people survive on $200 a month!” I thought to myself), retirement records, old correspondence—I even came across the first telegram I had ever seen. I wondered, from time to time: “Did the secretary who typed this letter up ever think that a teenaged intern from China would one day behold this work and marvel at its antiquity?”
The first telegram I’ve ever seen. 1943, Cranbrook Art Museum Exhibition Records, Cranbrook Archives.
Cranbrook Kitchen Sink 