The first major exhibition of furniture and decorative art by influential Buffalo craftsman, artist and designer Charles Rohlfs began its 5 venue national tour at the Milwaukee Art Museum in June. The Milwaukee Art Museum, along with the Chipstone Foundation, and the American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation partnered to put the show together.  It is based on Rohlfs family archives and newly discovered period sources, and it includes over 40 pieces from 10 museums and several private collections. The exhibition's tour finishes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the fall of 2010.  The show will NOT be coming to Buffalo.

Charles Rohlfs' style was related to Art Nouveau along with other historic precedents from around the world that gave it a strange otherworldliness. His work was of the craftsman period but wasn't in the Arts and Craft style.  Rohlfs was known to have more that a few derisive words for his Western New York contemporary and influential Arts and Crafts master, Elbert Hubbard.  His work was his own style and was truly unique.  Though his work did influence the Arts and Crafts movement, he thought of his furniture pieces, as works of art in the way art is a personal expression of its creator. A chair recently presented on PBS's Antique Road Show appraised between $80,000 and $120,000 indicates the growing importance of his work.  Rohlfs is not widely known, but you can bet that his prominence will become much greater in the near future.

Charles Rohlfs lived from 1853-1936. He was the son of a cabinetmaker in Brooklyn. He trained in drafting and design at the Cooper Union in New York City. I believe he worked for a stove maker when he came to Buffalo, where he married famous mystery novelist Anna Katharine Green. They lived in Allentown, in one of the neighborhood's most distinctive houses--designed by Rohlfs of course. 

The exhibition will be at the Dallas Museum of Art through January 3, 2010. It will then travel to the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh from January 30, 2010-April 25, 2010, followed by the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens from May 22, 2010-September 6, 2010 and ending its tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City for a stay, from October 19, 2010-January 23, 2011).

If you can't get to any of these venues you can still purchase the exhibit catalogue titled The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs, by Joseph Cunningham, with a foreword by Bruce Barnes and an introduction by Sarah Fayen. The book is the most comprehensive publication on the artist to date, and includes a complete set of unpublished illustrations of over seventy works. 

The Burchfield Penny Art Center would have been a natural stop for this show. I am not sure how they missed this one.  They have a strong collection of local artists' work, including a large collection of Hubbard's work.  It would then be natural for them to also concentrate on the work of Rohlfs.  I looked around the Internet but could not find anything about their Rohlfs collection except for the fact that they have Rohlfs' candlesticks.  (Still, I am sure they must have more Rohlfs pieces if you want to see his work in person.) You can see more about his house here http://buffaloah.com/a/archsty/a-c/rohlfs/index.html.  Also here are a few more images of Rohlfs work including an amazing picture of his Buffalo Living room, filled with his own designs.