Art Nouveau Bookcases

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In the late 1970s, I was asked to design display cases for a new art glass gallery opening in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. This small, coastal village one hour north of Boston had been a seaport for all of its existence, but was now fast becoming a center for art and creativity. The Art Nouveau display cases that I designed and built for this gallery launched my career, and my signature style.

One client saw these display cases and wanted a similar effect for bookcases in his own residence. Since it was a typical residence, the dimensions would be scaled down, and the individual sections would be more manageable. As in the original Art Nouveau case for Salamandre Glass, the lines of the design sweep across all three sections, unifying the whole composition vertically as well as horizontally. In these bookcases, we were able to design and cast custom hardware that unifies the lower doors and drawers.

The hand-carving on these cherry wood cabinets was much more developed than on the commercial piece. I was able to create a 3-dimensional cornice across the crest and around the sides of the three sections, matched by a similar treatment at the base of the cases. The rolled scroll appears in this carving, which has become a recurring motif in my work. Similarly, the sweeping, Art Nouveau line of the brace in the upper cases has appeared in varying forms across decades of my work.