Shaping a Collection: Recent Acquisitions in the Decorative Arts

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Shaping a Collection: Recent Acquisitions in the Decorative Arts

December 18, 2004 - March 20, 2005

Shaping a Collection: Recent Acquisitions in the Decorative Arts will be on view at the Georgia Museum of Art from December 18, 2004, through March 20, 2005. (left: Eulala Amos, fish plate with silver inlay, 1946. Earthenware with alkaline blue glaze, 25 1/2 inches (diameter). Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, gift of Dr. Elizabeth T. Sheerer, GMOA 2004.44)

Featuring the recent additions to the museum's young and rapidly expanding collection of decorative arts, this exhibition will showcase 17 pieces of period silver flatware. The Georgia pieces all are made by mid-19th-century silversmiths and include a ladle made by H. P. Horton who worked in Savannah.

Ashley Callahan, curator of decorative arts, says the primary collecting focus of the department is to assemble works made in, or related to, Georgia. Callahan, a specialist in textiles, has added two rare examples of this medium to the collection, which will be on view: an 1834 Masonic apron and a wool and cotton quilt, c. 1956, found in Hart County and made by an unidentified African American maker. The apron features embroidery and watercolor on silk and originally belonged to a physician in Macon. This ceremonial textile is highly decorated with symbols important to the Masonic tradition. The African American quilt is made of dark pieces of cloth used in men's suits, and is decorated with brightly embroidered names.

An unusual work related to Georgia is a certificate of merit (1847) executed in watercolor on paper and in its original gilt frame. It is a rare work of art that was presented to a young student from Georgia who attended a female seminary in Washington, D.C.

A large segment of the exhibition is composed of pottery by Eulala Amos (American, 1907-2001). Amos began teaching at the University of Georgia's Lamar Dodd School of Art in 1949 and retired as professor emeritus in 1970. Born in Ohio, Amos attended Ashland College and began teaching immediately after graduation. "The art of pottery runs in Amos's family," says Irja Thurlow, who authored a brochure on Amos. "A Pennsylvania Dutch ancestor made pottery until the onset of the Revolutionary War. One of his works is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art."

Amos's methods were much more contemporary than those of her colonial forebear. Throughout her career, she experimented with different clays and glazes. She was known for her philosophy of "fitting the glaze to the pot." She is recognized for her use of silver inlay, inspired by a trip to the dentist for a filling, which eventually led to her master's thesis at Ohio State.

Another contemporary note in the exhibition is the forged and fabricated steel table (2003) made by Andrew T. Crawford. A native of New Jersey, Crawford has lived in Atlanta since 1971. He founded Andrew T. Crawford Ironworks in 1993 after his graduation from the Rhode Island School of Design, and continues his work there with three full-time craftsmen.

The museum's decorative arts collection dates back to 1999 when the museum started the Henry D. Green Center for the Study of Decorative Arts that now numbers approximately 200 objects. The late Henry Green was an early advocate of the decorative arts in Georgia. All of the works in this exhibition have been either museum purchases or donated to the museum by patrons.

On view in the Martha and Eugene Odum Gallery of Decorative Arts, Shaping a Collection is sponsored by the Friends of the Museum and the W. Newton Morris Charitable Foundation. (right: Andrew T Crawford (American, b. 1970), All Thread , 2003. Forged and fabricated steel, 28 x 18 x 18 inches. Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia.)

Label text and object information from the exhibition:

In 1998 the Georgia Museum of Art held the first meeting of its Decorative Arts Advisory Committee. The following year the committee named the museum's new decorative arts program the Henry D. Green Center for the Study of the Decorative Arts in honor of the pioneer advocate of Georgia's decorative arts, Henry D. Green (1909-2003). The Green Center holds biennial symposia (the first in 2002, the third planned for early 2006); presents decorative arts exhibitions and lectures; and houses the Green Library, the papers of Henry D. Green, and the Georgia Decorative Arts Survey, which was sponsored by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Georgia in the late 1980s.

The Green Center also encourages the acquisition of decorative arts for the museum's permanent collection. Shaping a Collection celebrates these new additions to the collection, many of which have never been presented publicly. This selection of objects reflects the Green Center's collecting mission: the primary focus is on works made in Georgia, such as the Masonic apron and All Thread, and works of significance to Georgia, such as the certificate of merit and the clock, while the secondary focus is on works made in the Southeast, such as the silver sorbet spoons. Subsequent collecting focuses are to acquire works that provide an American and then a European context for the Southern objects. By bringing these works into the museum's permanent collection, the Green Center is endeavoring to place them in a context in which they can be studied and to maintain them for future generations.

The Green Center appreciates the generous donors of both objects and funds who have made these recent acquisitions possible.

-- Ashley Callahan

Curator, Henry D. Green Center for the Study of the Decorative Arts

The study of nineteenth-century Georgia silver is complicated by the fact that many wares from the North were imported to the South and marked with the name of their retailer. Determining whether a particular object was crafted or just retailed in Georgia often is difficult or impossible. Regardless of the place of origin, though, the items with Georgia marks indicate that consumers in this state purchased wares that were consistent stylistically with production in other parts of the country. An important reference book documenting silversmiths and retailers in Georgia is George Barton Cutten's The Silversmiths of Georgia (1958), which was reprinted in 1998 with the addition of an article from The Magazine Antiques by Katharine Gross Farnham and Callie Huger Efird titled "Early Silversmiths and the Silver Trade in Georgia" (1971). The Georgia Decorative Arts Survey documents additional marks of silver makers and retailers working in Georgia.

F. & H. Clark (American, active Augusta, Georgia 1830-1840)

Mustard ladle, c. 1830-40

Silver

4 5/8 x 15/16 x 5/8 inches

Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; museum purchase with partial funds provided by Betty Myrtle, 2002 Volunteer of the Year, and M. Smith Griffith

GMOA 2004.27

This ladle originally belonged to the mother-in-law of Athens silversmith A. K. Childs.

David B. Nichols (American, 1791-1860, active Savannah, Georgia c. 1815-1855)

Set of four teaspoons, n.d

Silver

approximately 5 5/8 x 1 1/8 x 1 3/16 inches each

Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; museum purchase with partial funds provided by Betty Myrtle, 2002 Volunteer of the Year, and M. Smith Griffith

GMOA 2004.28-.31

These teaspoons originally belonged to the Taylor family of Athens.

H. P. Horton (American, active in Savannah, Georgia c. 1850)

Ladle, c. 1850

Silver

7 3/8 x 2 1/2 x 5/8 inches

Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; museum purchase with funds provided by the Beverly H. Bremer Charitable Lead Unitrust

GMOA 2004.33

According to the previous owner this ladle and the set of forks descended in the same family. The mark "Horton," seen on the forks, is not included in the book The Silversmiths of Georgia by George Barton Cutten, but it is documented in the Georgia Decorative Arts Survey.

Horton (American, active in Savannah, Georgia c. 1850)

Set of eight forks, c. 1850

Silver

approximately 7 7/8 x 1 x 1 1/16 inches each

Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; museum purchase with funds provided by the Beverly H. Bremer Charitable Lead Unitrust

GMOA 2004.34-.41

Thomas T. Wilmot (American, c. 1804- c. 1850, active Charleston, South Carolina c. 1837-1841, Columbus, Georgia 1844-1845, and Savannah, Georgia 1843-1850)

Two spoons, c. 1840s

Silver

6 5/8 x 1 9/16 x 1 inches each

Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Brian S. Brown

GMOA 2004.18-.19

These spoons originally belonged to Mary Clay Hill, whose monogram is engraved on the spoons. She died in Clarkesville, Georgia.

Newton E. Crittenden (American, 1826-1872, active Cleveland, Ohio, c. 1826-1872)

Tongs, 1856

Coin silver

8 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches

Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; gift of Edgar and Betty Myrtle

GMOA 2004.14

Newton E. Crittenden was active in Cleveland, Ohio in the mid-nineteenth century. These tongs are marked with a patent date of 1856.

Eulala Amos inscribed the following words into one of her pots: "Of clay we are made, and fire. This is true of the pots and of you and me and everybody else who lives and breathes." She brought the passion and dedication to pottery expressed in that quotation to her role as a ceramics professor in the art department of the University of Georgia from 1949 until her retirement in 1970.

Amos is particularly noted for her use of silver in her ceramics. Inspired by a visit to the dentist, she devised a method of inlaying silver in her pottery in a manner similar to adding a filling to a tooth. She drilled holes in the pottery and filled them with silver amalgam. This collection of objects, which represents a wide span of her career, features two works with silver inlay, the plate with the fish design and the vase with the silver and green ornamentation on its exterior.