Upcoming Events

I’ll be offering two free public presentations on Wisconsin decorative arts in the next two weeks. This Wednesday, May 13, I’ll be at the Historic Indian Agency House in Portage for the opening of their new exhibition Functional and Fanciful: Pottery in Early America. I’m presenting an illustrated talk on ceramics made and used in Wisconsin in the 1800s, focusing on three very different stories: fashionable tableware imported from Staffordshire, functional stonewares and earthenwares produced by immigrant craftsmen, and china painting and art pottery created by Wisconsin women artists.

Next week, on Thursday, May 21, I’ll be at the Villa Terrace in Milwaukee to offer a presentation on the Villa’s important collection of work by metal artisan Cyril Colnik. I’ll go beyond Colnik’s own work to consider his influences and some of the other important artisans of turn-of-the-century Milwaukee.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009
7:00 pm
Historic Indian Agency House, Portage
(608) 742-6362

Thursday, May 21, 2009
6:00 pm
Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum
2220 Terrace Avenue, Milwaukee
(414) 271-3656

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Revisiting the Charles Allis & Villa Terrace Museums

Wrought iron grille, Cyril Colnik, Milwaukee, late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

On Thursday I headed to Milwaukee to meet with Martha Monroe, the new curator for the Charles Allis and Villa Terrace Museums. An intern from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will be working with the Villa’s Cyril Colnik collection this summer, so I came out to share some of the research I’d turned up after documenting some of Colnik’s work for the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database just over a year ago. One of the topics we discussed is the connection between Colnik and Samuel Yellin, a metalworker in Philadelphia in the early twentieth century. Both men were trained in Europe and established successful shops in the United States around the turn of the century, both created ornamental ironwork for public buildings as well as private homes, and both worked in a variety of revival styles.

The Villa’s Colnik collection is extensive and impressively comprehensive–it include dozens of examples of work from Colnik’s shop as well as blueprints, drawing, business records, tools, and replicas of some of his metalworking processes (created by contemporary Wisconsin ironworker Dan Nauman of Bighorn Forge). It’s a true gem that, when carefully cataloged (and perhaps someday made fully available online) will provide an invaluable resource for craftspeople, historians and community members.

I’m heading to the Villa again on May 21st to present a public talk on the Colnik collection and the database project.

View my previous blog posts on Cyril Colnik here and here.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

An early Wisconsin wedding gift

Toasting fork, Joseph Jourdain, Green Bay, ca. 1823. Neville Public Museum of Brown County, Green Bay.

Today’s version of the Wisconsin Historical Society’s web feature “This Day in Wisconsin History” coincides nicely with one of the earliest artifacts in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database: a toasting fork made by Green Bay blacksmith Joseph Jourdain as a wedding gift for his daughter Madeline. On March 3, 1823, Madeline Jourdain married Eleazer Williams of New York, who was working as a missionary to Christian Indians in the Fox Valley area. Born in 1806, Madeline (Mary Margaret) was a member of Green Bay’s flourishing Metis society—a blended culture of Great Lakes Indians and Anglo and European fur traders. Her father, Joseph Jourdain, was born in Quebec and came to Green Bay in 1798. Her mother, Marguerite Gravelle, was the daughter of a Menominee woman and a French Canadian man. Joseph Jourdain was a skilled blacksmith who provided iron tools and household utensils for the frontier settlers of Green Bay and created trade goods for exchange with Menominee fur trappers.

According to tradition, Jourdain made this ornate fork and other cooking utensils for his daughter’s household after her marriage to Williams. The initials ARDP among the decorative inlays in the fork’s handle are thought to stand for A Rapides des Pères, a settlement on the Fox River just south of Green Bay now known as De Pere, not far from Williams’ and Jourdain’s new home in Little Rapids. Other kitchen items Jourdain made for his daughter, now in the collections of the Neville Public Museum of Brown County, included a wrought iron toaster and a pot hook.

The story of Eleazer Williams is fit for a soap opera. Williams was a missionary and teacher at the newly established Protestant Episcopal School in Green Bay when he met Jourdain, a student at the school. Albert Ellis, another teacher at the school, vividly describes their meeting and marriage in his memoir “Fifty-Four Years’ Recollections of Men and Events in Wisconsin.” Although period accounts state that Madeline was only 14 years old at the time of the marriage, a little math reveals that she was actually 17. From her Menominee ancestors, Madeline inherited extensive land holdings on the Fox River. In the 1840s, Williams gained national notoriety when he claimed that he was the “Lost Dauphin” of France—the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Although this claim was eventually reputed, the question “Have we a Bourbon among us?” captured the popular imagination for decades.

The Jourdain homestead, where the marriage of Eleazer Williams and Madeline Jourdain is said to have taken place. The original sketch, signed by Green Bay artist Frederika Crane, is in the collection of the Green Bay-De Pere Antiquarian Society. Wisconsin Historical Images WHi-31656.

Now Online: Marathon County Historical Society

26 catalog entries for objects from the Marathon County Historical Society in Wausau are now online, including this whimsical lion (above) made by decorative painter Carl Hummel for the Lemke Photo Studio. Many of the Marathon County objects reveal interesting stories about local people, such as this quilt (below) made by members of the Marathon County Homemakers’ Clubs for Vangel Russell, the county’s Home Demonstration Agent in the 1920s. Russell must have been well-liked by club members, who made this special quilt for her as a parting gift when she married John James of Madison in 1928.

A newsletter update on the University of Wisconsin-Extension’s activities in 1925 reveals the popularity of the Homemakers’ Clubs among Marathon County women:

In spite of a heavy shower of rain in the forenoon and another in the afternoon, more than five hundred people gathered at the farm home of Rufus Runke, near Wausau, for the annual get-to-gether summer meeting arranged in Marathon County by Home Demonstration Agent, Miss Vangel Russell. A good program, enthusiastic people, fine music and delightful hosts made the day one long to be remembered. The Women’s Club of the Town of Maine had charge of the day. The program was carried on almost entirely by local talent, Mrs. Nellie Kedzie Jones, the State Leader of Home Economics Extension, was the only speaker from without the county.

From Among Ourselves: A House Organ for the staff of the College of Agriculture 3:18 (University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture, 1925). Via the State of Wisconsin Collection.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Now Online: Colnik Collection at the Villa Terrace

Wrought iron sconce with deer antler, Cyril Colnik, Milwaukee, 1939.

The largest public collection of work by artisan blacksmith Cyril Colnik is housed at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum in Milwaukee. In 1991, Colnik’s daughter Gretchen donated over 200 examples of his work in wrought iron and brass to the Villa Terrace. Many of these important works are currently on view at the museum, along with tools, photographs, examples of metalworking techniques (created by Dan Nauman of the Bighorn Forge), and drawings (gifted to the Villa Terrace by the Kohler Foundation in 2002 as part of the Colnik Archive).

A total of 47 catalog entries for objects from this collection can now be viewed online in the Wisconsin Decorative Arts Database. Together, these pieces show Colnik’s experimentation with a broad range of popular styles. The sconce (above) made from a deer antler wrapped in wrought iron, designed for the Schlitz Brown Bottle Guest Hall in Milwaukee, captures the rustic feel of northern European castles and ale houses. It stands in stark contrast to Colnik’s sleek nickelplated Art Deco candelabra (below).

Two good starting points for more information on Cyril Colnik are Virginia Jones Maher’s article “The Wrought Iron Artistry of Cyril Colnik,” Wisconsin Academy Review 44:3 (1998) (available online through the University of Wisconsin) and the DVD Forged Elegance: The Lifework of Master Blacksmith Cyril Colnik, 1998, produced by Dan Nauman.

Nickelplate candelabra, Cyril Colnik, Milwaukee, 1910-1955.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Object Photography at the Marathon County Historical Society

After my visit to Portage, I headed further north to Wausau, where I photographed collections at the Marathon County Historical Society. I spent the day with volunteer curators Kathy Jansen and Linda Forbess, who sifted through the Society’s extensive holdings for some interesting artifacts, including a wafer iron made by a local blacksmith and several examples of crochet and other needlework. One of the most exciting things I got to see was a group of books printed by the Philosopher Press, a fine printing press operated by Helen Van Vechten and William Ellis in Wausau around the turn of the twentieth century. The Marathon Historical Society recently acquired several books produced by this important press, including a gorgeous full-color version of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (the book’s frontispiece is shown above).

While in Wausau, I also had the chance to get a sneak peak at the Yawkey House (below), which reopens to the public this weekend after an extensive restoration by the Marathon County Historical Society. The house was built in 1901 by Milwaukee architects Henry Van Ryn and Gerrit de Gellke, but remodeled in 1908 by George Maher, resulting in an unusual combination of a Classical Revival-style exterior and an Arts and Crafts interior.

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Milwaukee metalworker Cyril Colnik

The Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum in Milwaukee is home to a major collection of work by Cyril Colnik, an Austrian-born artist who worked in Milwaukee from 1893 until his death in 1958. Colnik is best known for the intricate wrought iron gates and architectural ornaments he made to decorate the mansions of Milwaukee’s elite, but he also made smaller household goods, like candlesticks and doorknobs, in cast and wrought iron and cast brass. Last week I worked with Villa Terrace curator Laurel Turner to photograph several dozen examples of Colnik’s work, including his wrought iron “Masterpiece,” which won a blue ribbon at the 1893 World’s Columbian exposition (detail below).

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer.

Milwaukee’s Victorian Interiors

Last week I returned to the Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee, where I worked with curator Jodi Rich-Bartz to photograph several examples of Milwaukee-made Victorian furniture–part of the original furnishings designed by the Matthews Brothers when they decorated the Pabst family’s grand new home in 1892. I set up my temporary photo studio in the first-floor hall and brought in furniture from the neighboring dining room, music room, and “ladies’ parlor.”

I also had the chance to shoot (and move) an extraordinary (and extraordinarily heavy) plant stand made by Cyril Colnik, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century Milwaukee artist known for his ornate work in wrought iron. Colnik’s ornamental ironwork gates, fences, and other architectural elements can still be found on private homes and public buildings throughout Milwaukee (see Virginia Jones Maher’s 1998 article “The Wrought Iron Artistry of Cyril Colnik,” in the Wisconsin Academy Review  for images).

Posted by Emily Pfotenhauer. 

House Museums in Milwaukee

Two weeks ago I visited two major historic house museums in Milwaukee to find out about potential contributions to the database as well as possible object loans for an upcoming exhibition of Wisconsin decorative arts at the Milwaukee Art Museum (more on the exhibit later).

Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion
Most of the interiors and furnishings at the Pabst were designed by the Matthews Brothers Company, a Milwaukee manufacturer. In true Victorian fashion, the Matthews Bros. furnished the mansion in an array of historical styles, from the dark and heavy Venetian Renaissance in the music room to the gilded frills of the French Rococo in Mrs. Pabst’s parlor. The Pabst’s senior historian John Eastberg and curator Jodi Rich-Bartz are interested in contributing to the database and I’ll return in 2008 to photograph some of their furniture.

Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum
Most of the objects at the Villa Terrace are European decorative arts collected by the Smith family, but they do have a major collection of works by Milwaukee metalworker Cyril Colnik. The Colnik collection was reinstalled this summer by Dan Naumann, a professional blacksmith as well as a Colnik expert. The collection is supplemented by an archival collection of Colnik’s drawings, a recent gift from the Kohler Foundation. I’ll be returning soon to work with curator Laurel Turner to document the Colnik collection.