Princeton University Art Museum, Gift of Roland Rohlfs, son of Charles Rohlfs
Huntington Library, Botanical Gardens and Art Galleries, Promised Gift of American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation in honor of Joseph Cunningham Dallas Museum of Art, Promised Gift of American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation in honor of Joseph Cunningham
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Promised Gift of American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation in honor of Joseph Cunningham
home anddesign
Clockwise from above: [ Charles Rohlfs and Anna Katharine Green Desk Chair from the Rohlfs Home (Oak;1898–99) Rocking Chair (Oak; ca.1899) Tall-Back Chair from the Rohlfs Home (Oak; 1898-99) Corner Chair (Oak; 1898-99) ]
The home is a focus of yet another exhibition, this one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs,” on view through Jan. 23, features 50 examples of the highly individualistic furniture (and related items) of Rohlfs, an American turn-of-the-20th-century figure who designed only a few hundred works in his brief career. Initially, they were for his own home in Buffalo, N.Y. Metropolitan Museum of Art There, neighbors and guests began asking him to make his Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street; richly carved furniture—incorporating elements of the Arts 212-535-7710; metmuseum.org and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements, as well as Chinese and Japanese carvings—for them as well. Rohlfs’ reputation zoomed for a time, but as tastes changed his following declined and he virtually abandoned furniture-making. Bringing together examples from public and private collections, this show adds a new fillip, the result of recent research: Rohlfs’ early designs, it seems, were the products of collaboration with his wife, the artist and successful mystery novelist Anna Katharine Green, whose own activities are also part of the show. n Karin Lipson, a former arts writer and editor for Newsday, is a frequent contributor to The New York Times. Her last article in Promenade was on the Abstract Expressionist show at MoMA.
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