Hirschl & Adler Host The Gothic Revival in America

Saturday, 27 May 2006 11:03

New York City - In the years 1800–1860 Americans of culture and taste embraced a new architectural style that was already sweeping through England.  The Gothic Revival, a style rooted in ecclesiastical symbolism and steeped in intellectualism, found its expression in American public buildings and private homes, and its decorative vocabulary—pointed arches, crockets, and clustered columns—was applied to furnishings and vernacular objects.  The fashion for Gothic vanished with the Civil War, and today, the style is largely overlooked and poorly understood.  Hirschl & Adler Galleries hopes to shed new light on this brief but fascinating era with In Pointed Style: The Gothic Revival in America, 1800–1860, the latest in its line of exhibitions devoted to the decorative arts of early nineteenth-century America.

In Pointed Style, which runs through June 9, is the first comprehensive study of the Gothic Revival since the large exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 1976.  In the last thirty years, exhibitions of broader focus at major American institutions have included examples of decorative arts in the Gothic taste, but as a whole, the style has remained a vastly understudied minefield for art historians and decorative arts scholars, with meaningful and sustainable attributions rare.  In Pointed Style will explore the complex relationship between English and American Gothic Revival for a better understanding of how the style captivated America beyond just its wealthiest patrons.  Through publications of the period and papers left behind by some of the key figures of the day, In Pointed Style offers new insight into America’s passion for the Gothic taste, a style traditionally associated with the English upper class, but gracefully indigenized by such American progenitors of the style as architect and designer Alexander Jackson Davis (1803–1892) and his friend and colleague, Andrew Jackson Downing (1815–1852).

The exhibition’s title, In Pointed Style, is derived from a descriptive nickname used by A. J. Davis, whose life work culminated with the popularization of the Gothic style.  Architectural renderings, furniture designs, and notable examples of furniture intended for select Davis commissions will be exhibited side-by-side with fine and decorative arts by other artisans, designers, and craftsmen of the period.  Even Duncan Phyfe’s furniture workshop appears to have offered its customers decorative options in the Gothic taste!

Comprising In Pointed Style are approximately 100 works of fine and decorative arts—paintings, drawings, furniture, lighting, porcelain, glass, silver, and metalwork—by many of the leading artists and artisans of the time.  In addition to works of art from the gallery’s own collection, many objects are being lent by distinguished private collections and public collections, among them The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Newark Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of the City of New York, the National Academy Museum, The New-York Historical Society, Grace Church in New York, the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, and Mead Art Gallery, Amherst College.

In Pointed Style: The Gothic Revival in America, 1800–1860 is organized by the father-daughter team of Stuart P. Feld, one of the leading authorities on nineteenth-century fine and decorative American art, and Elizabeth Feld, who has considerable expertise in the English and Continental sources for nineteenth-century decorative arts in America.

Hirschl & Adler Galleries began with modest quarters in the Marguery Hotel at 270 Park Avenue.  From 1958 to 1977 it was located at 21 East 67th Street, and since 1977 has occupied a landmark townhouse at 21 East 70th Street, a few doors from the legendary Frick Collection. Hirschl & Adler Galleries has traditionally specialized in European and American paintings, works on paper, and sculpture from the eighteenth century to the present, but beginning in 1983 the gallery has also had an active interest in American decorative arts from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, from Neo-Classicism to the Arts & Crafts movement.  In the last eighteen years the gallery has organized five other exhibitions primarily devoted to the decorative arts.

Visit Hirschl & Adler Galleries at : http://www.hirschlandadler.com/

In Pointed Style: The Gothic Revival in America, 1800–1860 will be accompanied by an impressive catalogue in which all objects will be documented by individual essays and illustrations.  A comprehensive introductory essay by Gothic Revival scholar David B. Warren will deal with the history of the Gothic Revival both abroad and in America.  The catalogue will be available in the gallery for $40.00, or $45.00 post paid in the United States.