The Dallas Museum of Art has acquired a major work for its decorative arts collection: a corner chair with sinuous fretwork design by Charles Rohlfs (1853‱936). It is one of the most inventive and whimsical examples of household furniture by one of America’s most virtuosic furnituremakers.
The Corner Chair, circa 1898‱899, is currently on view, with more than 40 other objects by this iconic American craftsman and designer, in “The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs,” the first major touring exhibition of this turn-of-the-century artist. It will remain on view through January 3.
The chair is a gift to the museum from the American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation in honor of Joseph Cunningham, the curator of the foundation and of the Rohlfs exhibition.
Since the rediscovery of Rohlfs’ work in the 1972 Princeton exhibition “The Arts and Crafts Movement in America, 1876‱916,” scholars have characterized his furniture among the most original produced at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Though obliquely considered a participant within the American Arts and Crafts movement by the nature of his independent studio, dark oak furniture and self-taught approach, Rohlfs often eschewed the rigid lines and “honest joinery” of Gustav Stickley, the Roycrofters and other furnituremakers of this period. Instead, his works exhibit fanciful forms, undulating carving and a particular delicacy that deny easy stylistic association.
Born in Brooklyn, Rohlfs was educated at the Cooper Union “School of Science.” During the late 1880s, he began experimenting with furnituremaking, which was marked by the acclaim his work received at the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 and the Turin International Exposition of Modern Art in 1902.
The exhibition continues its national tour at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (January 30⁁pril 25); the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, Calif. (May 22⁓eptember 6); and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (October 19⁊anuary 23, 2011).
Dallas Museum of Art is at 1717 North Harwood. For information, 214-922-1802 or www.DallasMuseumofArt.org .
