The first major exhibition of furniture and decorative art by the protean American craftsman and designer Charles Rohlfs begins its five-venue national tour at the Milwaukee Art Museum June 6⁁ugust 23.
The product of an innovative three-institution partnership, the exhibition’s scholarship is based on the Rohlfs family archives and newly discovered period sources, and brings together more than 40 pieces from ten museums and several private collections. The exhibition’s tour concludes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the fall 2010.
“The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs” is organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Chipstone Foundation and American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation. The exhibition is curated by Joseph Cunningham and organized in Milwaukee by Sarah Fayen, curator at the Chipstone Foundation.
With roots in the Aesthetic Movement and an art-for-art’s-sake sensibility, Rohlfs’ style was related to the abstract naturalism of Art Nouveau, but drew on precedents from Asian and Moorish to English and Germanic designs. In turn, his work influenced the pared-down oak forms that became hallmarks of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Rohlfs preferred the terms “Artistic Furniture” or “The Rohlfs Style” that identified his designs not as part of a specific style or movement but, rather, as expressive art made by a single individual.
Featuring the very best works of Charles Rohlfs’ career as a furniture maker, the exhibition of approximately 45 objects is organized chronologically, beginning with the artist’s earliest known works from about 1888. Lenders include the Princeton University Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, High Museum of Art in and several others.
The exhibition will travel next to the Dallas Museum of Art, September 20⁊anuary 3.
The accompanying catalog, The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs , is published by Yale University Press in association with American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation.
The Milwaukee Art Museum is at 700 North Art Museum Drive. For information, 414-224-3200 or www.mam.org .
