Bookcase
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Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1986 Modern Times: Aspects of American Art, 1907-1956, no. 45.
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1989, From Architecture to Object Masterworks of the American Arts and Crafts Movement, no. cat.
Beginning their practice in Pasadena, California, the Greene brothers were commissioned in 1907 to design a large house and its furnishings for Robert R. Blacker, including this bookcase for the living room. True to the principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Greenes paid careful attention to the bookcase’s construction, executed by the Peter Hall Manufacturing Company. The bookcase’s joinery also functions as a decorative device: ebony pegs hide the screw heads, and thin, horizontal strips of ebony reinforce major joints. Chinese and Japanese influences contributed to the Greenes’ distinctive aesthetic. Here, the L-shaped brackets at the top corners of the doors and the stepped ebony bands on the drawer front imitate the cloud-lift motif associated with Japanese design.
Robert R. Blacker, The Robert R. Blacker House, Pasadena, CA, 1909;
With The Arts & Crafts Shop, Sausalito, CA by 1991;
Purchased from The Arts & Crafts Shop by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1991.
Randell L. Makinson, Greene & Green: Architecture as Fine Art, I, (Salt Lake City, Peregrine Smith, 1977), 150-154.
Randell L. Makinson, Greene & Green: Furniture and Related Designs, II, (Salt Lake City, Peregrine Smith, 1979), 56-67; 58-60 (repro.).
Modern Times: Aspects of American Art, 1907-1956, (New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1986), 53 (repro.).
Wendy Kaplan, Eileen Boris, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Art That Is Life: The Arts & Crafts Movement in America, 1875-1920 (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1987), 403 (repro.).
Darrell Peart, Greene and Greene: Design elements for the workshop (Fresno CA: Linden Pub., 2006), 82 (repro.).
David Mathias and Robert W. Lang, “Greene & Greene: Details and Joinery,” Popular Woodworking, no. 171 (October 2008): 70-76; 73 (repro.).
