Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

For information you'd like to share - Post it here - not for questions
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

TROPHIES

By Frederick W. Coburn


Image

A large silver polo trophy, lately exhibited at the rooms of the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, was more truly Greek in spirit than most prizes and trophies shown in shop windows of the American Athens. The Hellenic youth, victor at Olympia, bore away a sculptured or beaten prize which, exhumed, is held a priceless treasure of the modern museum. The American-made cups, mugs and punch bowls of commerce, which the successful competitor brings from the contest, are often so bad that his wife refuses to give them house room. A painter, who is likewise a yachtsman, keeps his costly gold and silver trophies in a dark cupboard, laughingly referring to them as the skeletons in his closet. Thus far apart have art and athletics been ever since the great decadence of all the arts of design in the nineteenth century.

Embodying a reaction against the tameness of the traditional trophy the S. D. Warren Memorial Cup of the Dedham, Massachusetts, polo club has more than ordinary significance. Wishing to memorialize a foremost member and benefactor of the club, the late Samuel D. Warren, president for some years of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, a committee of polo players in the spring of 1911 raised a few hundred dollars with the understanding that it should be invested in a manner that would have pleased Mr. Warren.

Consultation with Frederic Allen Whiting, then secretary of the Society of Arts and Crafts, led to the making and submitting of a sketch by C. Howard Walker, architect and designer. The scheme was for a silver bowl, seven inches high by 14 inches in diameter. A conventionalized polo stick appeared in each of the flutes dividing the exterior surface. Around the bowl ran a series of low-relief plaques, each with heads of horses and horsemen, the composition representing a characteristic incident of polo play. The whole space devoted to ornamentation was small, in contradistinction to the profusion of meaningless motives covering the trophy of commerce. Each motive in this design was related to the sport in question and hence was logical in subject.

Image

Mr. Walker's sketch having been accepted, an order for the cup was given to Arthur J. Stone, silversmith of Gardner, Massachusetts, maker of the cup given to President Eliot of Harvard University on his seventieth birthday, the vase and salver presented to William Gericke, retiring from the leadership of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and many other important works in silver. Mr. Stone, a master craftsman of the Society of Arts and Crafts, learned the silversmith's craft at Sheffield, England, worked for some years in American commercial establishments until impelled by aversion to factory methods to set up his own shop. The trophy conceived by Howard Walker was made in this establishment after the processes followed prior to the age of machine production and subdivided labor. On the bowl the names of the victors in the first annual competition have already been inscribed. Whatever polo club finally gets the piece will have a trophy that is out of the trivial, that is, at least, as well meant as any prize ever contested for at Olympia.

The energy with which the secretary of the Society of Arts and Crafts went after the business is, professionally speaking, a moral of the Dedham cup incident. The polo club's committee was complaisant, but, though it was composed of educated men, it had to be shown. And the lesson is that there are others of the same generally favorable disposition—members of the countless associations of golfers, tennis players, yachtsmen, canoeists, marksmen, fly casters, baseball players, militia men and other devotees of competitive sport. Their trade almost invariably goes to the factory, but only because the factory's representatives go for their trade, while the artist does not. Too often the artistic craftsman bewails conditions unfavorable to his emulating the great metal workers of old, whereas in reality a committee of his own golf club might upon persuasion give him an opportunity such as would have rejoiced the master workmen of other days.

Image

Competition, at all events, for the athletic associations' work has been encouraged of late. In 1908, through representations of members of the Society of Arts and Crafts, the committee managing the Bermuda Yacht races was induced to let Mr. Walker submit a design for four cups, all of which were to be of the same pattern. These cups, executed by as many craftsman, gave to many a new notion of artistic possibilities in the trophy. Following the Bermuda committee's example yachtsmen in charge of the international Sonder Classe races of 1909 established a competition among craftsmen for the cup offered by President Taft. The award for a design went to Gustave Rogers, a metal worker of Marblehead, Massachusetts, who, in modeling the eagles and the mermaid heads that served as handles, had the cooperation of Louis Potter, sculptor, of New York City, and, in beating up the bowl, of Richard Dimes, a veteran English silversmith, resident in Boston. Mr. Rogers has also designed and executed prizes for local yachting events. The athletic sports of healthy young men and young women, with their interplay of bodily rhythms, easily stir the artistic imagination—as they have stirred it from the Olympic games usward. The visual thrills of intercollegiate football; the springy curve of the half-back's body as he makes the final wrench to get one yard more; the picturesque contour of the wizard baseball pitcher; the nice establishment of unstable equilibrium between the canoeist and his outrigger on one side and the taut tackle of his racing machine on the other; the centaur-like harmony between pony and polo player—nowhere are decorative motives suggested by these lines of life and activity more appropriately worked out than on the trophies with which successful effort is rewarded. Within the limitations fixed by the material of the cup or bowl or other designated prize the artist, and he alone, may embody in permanent form a gratifying reminder of fleeting and beautiful combinations on the athletic field.


Source: Art and Progress - September 1912

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

Image

Handwrought silver from the Arthur J. Stone workshop as shown by Leah K. Curtiss at the Gallery of Mrs. Tysen.

Source: Country Life and The Sportsman - May 1938

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

CHICAGO

The Art Institute inaugurated its season of Oct. 1 with the annual exhibition of industrial art. The show compasses a wide scope of products. The catalog has 1,252 numbers. The tapestries from the Herter looms elicit interest. The Rockwood Pottery, Newcomb College of Embroidery, and various arts-crafts shops in all large cities, and in many industrial centers in many States, are splendidly represented. The display of jewelry is exceptionally good. The wives of copper miners of Calumet, Mich., show remarkable examples of handcrafts. Arthur J. Stone, of Gardner, Mass., leads in the display of silverware, in variety of work and in number of articles. Elizabeth Copeland, of Boston, is well exampled in jewelry.


Source: American Art News - 10th October 1914

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

A teapot exhibited by Arthur J. Stone at the Boston Tercentenary Fine Arts and Crafts Exhibition - 1930:


Image

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

An advertisement for an exhibition of the work of Omar Ramsden and Arthur J. Stone held at New York in 1995:

Image
The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts - New York - 1995

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

An Alms Bason by Arthur J. Stone:

Image

This image is from 1907.

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

A chalice by Arthur J. Stone:

Image

This image is from 1907.

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

Image
The Little Gallery - New York - 1930

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

Image
Mrs. D.D. Addison - Brookline, Mass. - 1908

Image
Mrs. D.D. Addison - Brookline, Mass. - 1908

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

Detail regarding a ciborium and monstrance by Arthur J. Stone and William Blair:

Image

The gold and jeweled ciborium and monstrance shown in the frontispiece is one of the most remarkable examples of modern craftswork which has come to our attention and for this reason particularly it is gratifying to know that it was designed, modelled and executed by members of an arts and crafts society, and formed the central attraction in the ecclesiastical exhibit of a year ago in Boston. The design was from the architectural office of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, and was in the main the work of Frank E. Cleveland whose experience in designing many important pieces of ecclesiastical work, lends special value to his appeal on page 29. The plaster model was by I. Kirchmayer, who is: widely known for his work as a modeller and wood carver, and the goldsmith work was by Arthur J. Stone and his assistant, William Blair, representing nearly seven months of exacting work. The beautiful piece of craftmanship was presented to the Church of the Advent, Boston, by Miss Catherine Tarbell as a memorial to her father and mother. It is fifteen and one-half inches high and weighs eighty-five ounces. It is made entirely of gold, the structural part being eighteen carat while much of the ornamental detail is twenty carat.

We are indebted to the 'Gardner News' for the following detailed description:

"This pyx, as it has been sometimes called, is designed after the manner of the reliquary of the middle ages — beautiful examples of which are still extant in the churches of Italy, and it is late Venetian Gothic in style. The structure is hexagonal; the base rises to the knop in chalice form, and is surmounted by a box which contains a smaller inner box, the ciborium, in which are kept the un-consecrated wafers. Rising from the cover of the ciborium and attached at its center is the monstrance with its watch-like crystals in which are the lunettes to hold the host, or consecrated wafer, away from its sides. The monstrance is enshrined in a canopy, the supports for which rise from the corners of the outer or ornamental box. The base is ornamented with a crucifix, medalions with the symbols of the four evangelists and a large amethyst, each forming the central feature of its section. Surrounding these, and clothing the entire base is a running pattern of overlap ornament of passion flowers, grapes and tendrils, and Gothic leafage. The structural beauty of the form is accented and enhanced by the exquisite grace of this delicate tracery. The inscription around the base line is an incised Gothic lettering.

The knop has three tiny cameo-like medallions with the instruments of the passion, these alternating with amethysts. The same overlaid tracery of vine and leaf covers' the knop and encloses the jewels. Lattice-like trusses of the same ornament edge the hexagonal corners of the box, the upper border of which is of tiny passion flowers with diamond centers. The bottom of the box is embedded in vine and leafage, which disappears in an artistic tangle as it reaches underneath toward the knop.

The six panels of the box are set with a brooch- like arrangement of one large amethyst and four diamonds. The crystals of the monstrance are held by an inch band of rich overlaid ornament in which are set three of the largest diamonds.

The angel figures upholding the canopy, with out-stretched wings, tip touching tip, have each a tiny diamond set in the hair, and over the head of each is an ornate canopy with a small diamond held in the leafage. Spanning the spaces between the small canopies are shell-like arches, centering in angel s heads, and rising from the structure at this point, enclosing diamonds at their pinnacles are many foliated finials of the true Gothic style. Suspended from the canopies is a crown set with diamonds and ornamented with alternate fleurs-de-lis and crosses.

All this is completed by a hexagonal dome, the foliation extending upward along the ribs, and joining at the base of a cross, set in diamonds, which surmounts the whole."


Source: Handicraft - April 1910

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

Boston Society of Arts and Crafts Holds Annual Meeting and Awards Bronze Medals

Boston, Mass., March 1.—The 19th annual meeting of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts was held at the 20th Century Club, 3 Joy St., Feb. 28, and was preceded by a supper, at which over 100 members and guests were present. Various committees reported on the work of the year, and the report of the treasurer, H. P. Macomber, showed that the sales for the year had been the largest in the history of the society, amounting to almost $80,000.

The chief event of the evening was the award of the society’s bronze medals of honor by the president, Professor H. Langford Warren. The recipients this year were Miss Elizabeth E. Copeland, of Boston (enamel work on silver); Mr. and Mrs. L. B. Dixon, of Riverside, Cal. (jewelry), and James T. Woolley, of Boston (silver). Thirty-three craftsmen members were advanced to the grade of master craftsman, and the following five directors were elected for a term of three years: Huger Elliott, Lois L. Howe, Louis C. Newhall, Arthur J. Stone, H. Langford Warren.

The first of the individual exhibitions for the year was opened Feb. 24 in the gallery at 9 Park St., and will continue until today. Mrs. Katheryn E. Cherry, of St. Louis, is exhibiting a very interesting group of herdecorated china, including bowls, vases, jars, trinket boxes, plates, etc.


Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 8th March 1916

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

Boston Society of Arts and Crafts Shows Notable Jewelry and Silverware at Second Exhibition

Boston, Mass., April 5—By special invitation of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts on Thursday, April 3, opened in the Forecourt Room at the museum a notable exhibition, the second of the kind under the society’s auspices. It will continue three weeks.

Original designs in silverware and jewelry are special features of the display. There are also some remarkably good examples of wrought iron work, ecclesiastical carvings of rare beauty, beautiful pieces of pottery, a stained glass window for the Princeton Club of New York, laces and embroideries, mirrors, lanterns, tiles and concrete ware in artistic variety.

Conspicuous in the exhibit is the wrought iron work of Frederick Krasser, including a gate for the town of Arlington, Mass., and work for the synod house of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York city, from plans by noted architects.

Among the silver shown is a complete service made by Arthur J. Stone, loaned by the wife of Gov. E. N. Foss; also a church service by James T. Woolley, and a service by F. J. R. Gillenberg. A gold bowl by George C. Gebelein is in the collection.

Superb jewelry pieces are in the display, among the more prominent makers being Mrs. Josephine H. Shaw, Margaret Rogers, Jessie Ames Dunbar, Mr. and Mrs. L. B. Dixon, Herbert Kelly of New York, Mrs. F. W. Rockwell, Frank Gardiner Hale, Horace E. Potter, Mabel Luther and other handicraft workers.


Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 9th April 1913

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

Image
The Little Gallery - New York - 1920

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

A 1915 advertisement for 'The Little Gallery' in New York, a noted outlet for the work of Arthur J. Stone:

Image
The Little Gallery - New York - 1915

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

BOSTON ART NOTES

Arts and Crafts

Several exhibits may be seen at the Society of Arts and Crafts on Park Street. They include solo displays and a general show.

Of particular interest is the assemblage of tools and equipment used in the craft of silversmithing. Mr. Arthur J. Stone, master craftsman, provided the materials. They are arranged, tools in conjunction with silver, so that the layman may follow step by step the method of procedure. The vase, bowl, pitcher or platter wrought from silver is the result of a complicated process. We see the starting point, a thin disc of metal, which is raised by crimping or hammering from the center to the outer edge. The silver must be kept malleable by many heatings as the final shape is brought about. The properties of the metal must be heeded at every moment and care must be taken that the beauty of texture and luster be maintained. The eventual piece of handicraft has subleties of surface which can never be achieved in the mechanical product.


Source: The Christian Science Monitor - 14th June 1933

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

Saint Louis City Art Museum

A moving picture entitled "The Silversmith," will be shown at the museum tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 o'clock. The film, in two reels, presents the famous craftsman, Arthur J. Stone, fashioning a bowl from a plain disc of silver, and a spoon from a ribbon of the metal.

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch - 20th April 1934

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

JEWELRY AND SILVER

At the Little Gallery are some well designed and well executed pieces of silverware by George C. Gebeleln and Arthur J. Stone. Baby sets of knife, fork, and spoon of dwarfed size but sturdy proportions have been created by the latter to meet the wholly modern need of providing utensils of all kinds in scale with the weight and Inches of a baby. The handles of the more elaborate patterns are pierced with elephant; hound, and rabbit designs, but there is nothing trivial about the effect. The surface of Mr. Stone's silver is perhaps too nearly impeccable. One loses the charm of delicate reflections which, of course, is the only reason to desire tool marks. It is supposed by many who follow the craftsman ideal from afar that he leaves his work unfinished in order to assure his public that It is " hand-made," the most contemptible excuse that could be invented for him. As a matter of fact, the variety of surface gained by intelligent manipulation of the 'tool Is one of the most valuable qualities the metal worker can command. He is practically doing; what the sculptors of Florence did. in their bas-reliefs, letting light and shadow play caressingly over their material and win the observer by its beauty.

Mr. Gebelein is perhaps less certain in his control of his design than Mr. Stone, but his craftsmanship has just this aesthetic merit. He has not descended to display his tool marks for their own sake, but his surfaces are full of delicate variety and expressiveness.

In the same gallery Miss Margaret Rogers is showing her jewelry, and certain pieces are exquisite. A necklace of moonstones In a gold setting with an accent of black enamel is a fine example of the judicious use of black with evanescent color. With gold alone the moonstones would almost inevitably look somewhat thin and watery, but against this sober note of black the refinement of their floating pallid blues is felt at Its full value.


Source: The New York Times - 26th April 1914

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

ARTS AND CRAFTS GUILD OF PHILADELPHIA

March 1911 — Exhibition of Guild work; National League of Handicraft Societies' Traveling exhibition; special exhibition of silver by Arthur J. Stone, of
Boston.


Source: American Art Annual - 1911

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

Arts and Crafts at Little Gallery

The recent removal of the Little Gallery from E. 40 St. to 4 E. 48 St. emphasizes the growth of its business, whose owner is to be congratulated on her new and spacious quarters. The interior decoration of the new gallery and the general arrangement of the objects exhibited strike the same artistic note so much appreciated by the friends and patrons of the former 40 St. location.

An inaugural exhibition of handwrought silver is now on in the new gallery and will attract all lovers of the art of the silversmith, for the artists represented in the display have reproduced many of the finest models of Colonial and other antique silver ware. These master craftsmen — Arthur J. Stone, James T. & Samuel R. Woolley, F. R. J. Gyllenburg, George J. Hunt, Lamprey, and the Old Newbury Crafters have all contributed fine examples of their work.

Concurrently with the silver shown there is an exhibition of hand-embroidered linens and of Tenafly weavings in beautiful colors and designs, in addition to bronzes, Japanese prints, handwrought jewelry, and a number of the artistic Graffito mirrors and frames, executed by a well known Boston artist.


Source: American Art News - 27th April 1918

Trev.
dognose
Site Admin
Posts: 59003
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:53 pm
Location: England

Re: Arthur J. Stone - Further Information

Post by dognose »

BOSTON

An exhibit of handwrought silver art ware from the workrooms of Arthur J. Stone is now on exhibition at the Arts and Crafts Society display rooms, 9 Park St.


Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 5th October 1910

Trev.
Post Reply

Return to “Contributors' Notes”