"Donating this collection to Cooper-Hewitt ensures that a new and broader audience will be exposed to these staircase models and enables the first significant research and scholarship on these objects to be published in English," stated the renowned collector and retired dealer Thaw. The majority of the staircase models are from 19th-century France and were produced in the meritocratic system for craftsmen known as "Compagnonnage."Â The staircase models represent exercises in technical virtuosity used by apprentices to demonstrate their knowledge of cantilevering, balance, forms of rotation, styles of balusters and other architectural details. In their combination of design and structural, architectural and cabinetry skills, the staircase models and accompanying drawings demonstrate the relationship between formal training, modeling and technical mastery.
More than two dozen staircase models, a selection of technical elevation drawings and related illustrated instructional manuals from the National Design Library at Cooper-Hewitt will be on view. Highlights include a few examples of models made by apprentice carpenters, such as a stairway turning at right angles. The exhibition also will include classic models made by experienced master carpenters, such as the elaborate double revolution stairway, a spiral stairway with two revolutions and a domed model with a double staircase.
"Eugene and Clare Thaw's significant gift enriches the museum's holdings in the product design and decorative arts department. The staircase models represent an important movement in design and craft and wonderfully illustrate the connection between the museum's collection of architectural design works to objects of design and craftsmanship," added Sarah Coffin, curator of 17th- and 18th-century decorative arts and head of the product design and decorative arts department, who's organizing the exhibition with Thaw.
"Made to Scale" is the fifth in a series of small one-gallery exhibitions in the Nancy and Edwin Marks Gallery. Guest interpreters, including artists, journalists, authors and designers, are invited to develop themed exhibitions and create installations interpreted in their own voice. Previous guest curators have included novelist, design critic and public radio host Kurt Andersen; innovative Dutch designer Hella Jongerius; and Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare. Eugene Thaw serves on the board of trustees of the Morgan Library, the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is the former president of the Pollock- Krasner Foundation and the Art Dealers Association of America. He lives in Sante Fe, N.M. with his wife Clare.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a 20-page illustrated brochure, made possible by the Getty Foundation.
By www.cooperhewitt.org
Posted January 3rd, 2007 by ruzik_tuzik
