Queries

Magazine Antiques, May, 2005 by Remi Spriggs

COLONIAL FRENCH WEST INDIAN FURNITURE, including pieces demonstrating English, Dutch, or Spanish influences, is the subject of a forthcoming book. Anyone owning photographs, illustrations, or written records of such furniture, as well as information about the location of extant examples, is encouraged to contact:

Michael Connors

Connors * Rosato Gallery

39 Great Jones Street

New York, New York 10012

mike.connors@verizon.net

THE LITCHFIELD HISTORICAL SOCIETY in Litchfield, Connecticut, is in the preliminary stages of research for a forthcoming catalogue and exhibition of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Litchfield County furniture. A number of important furniture makers were active in this region, including Joseph Adams (1767-1856), Silas E. Cheney (1776-1821), George Dewey (1790-1853), John Dewey (1793-1844), Benjamin Doolittle (w. 1819-1820), Lambert Hitchcock (1795-1852), Erastus A. Lord (1792-1860), and Moses Stoddard Jr. (1741-1831). Anyone owning or knowing the whereabouts of photographs, documents, or examples of works by these makers, as well as other pieces attributed to Litchfield County, is asked to contact:

Jeannie A. Ingram

Curator of Collections

Litchfield Historical Society

P.O. Box 385

Litchfield, Connecticut 06759

jingram@litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org

IN PREPARATION for a publication on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Cincinnati silver, the Cincinnati Art Museum is especially interested in any primary documentation of the Cincinnati silver trade, including catalogues, trade cards, and other forms of advertising. The museum is also seeking information about Cincinnati hollowware in public and private collections. Information about American silver manufacturers or retailers that dealt with firms in Cincinnati also would be appreciated. Readers with pertinent information are requested to contact:

Amy Miller Dehan

Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts

Cincinnati Art Museum

953 Eden Park Drive

Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

amy.dehan@cincyart.org

ORVILLE BULMAN (1904-1978), a self-taught artist, was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In 1905 his father, Elvah O. Bulman, established a small factory that manufactured twine and dispensers for paper bags used in grocery and dry-goods stores. In 1910 he incorporated the business as the E. O. Bulman Manufacturing Company. After graduating from high school, Orville moved to Chicago for one year to work for a newspaper as a cartoonist. When he returned, he managed the successful family business during the 1920s and 1930s. In the late 1930s he went to New York City, where he exhibited his paintings at the Society of Independent Artists in 1937 and other venues in the late 1940s. Orville painted gritty realistic scenes of the city as well as dark, haunting pictures of old barns and churches. During the early 1950s, he painted "regionalist pictures." By 1954 he was president of the family business but continued to paint. That same year, he had a one-man show at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, entitled A Businessman Paints: Thirty Oils by Orville Bulman. His canvases portray stark neglected town scenes and tropical scenes of Haiti. In the late 1950s, after sustaining recurring injuries to his neck, Bulman moved to Palm Beach, Florida, where his colorful paintings became popular in the 1960s and 1970s. By 1975 Bulman had exhibited in forty one-man exhibitions and sold some two thousand paintings. In Bulman's own words, he painted because "when I first started to paint years ago, there was so much sadness, strife and outright mayhem ... back then, that I decided to bring, if I could, some laughter into painting." For a forthcoming monograph on the artist, his works are being sought and people who knew him are asked to contact:

Edward and Deborah Pollack

205 Worth Avenue

Suite 202

Palm Beach, Florida 33480

deborah@orvillebulman.com

THE FOLK PORTRAIT PAINTERS Susanna Paine (1792-1862) and Issaac Augustus Wetherby (or Wetherbee; 1819-1904) are the subjects of forthcoming articles. Both artists have left documentation that greatly adds to our knowledge of early nineteenth-century American folk portrait painters. Paine spent her adult life as an itinerant artist along the East Coast from Providence, Rhode Island, to Portland, Maine. Considered one of the first artists to paint on Cape Ann, Massachusetts, she worked in both pastels and oils. In 1854 she published an autobiography that tells a fascinating story of an artist who succeeded despite the many obstacles faced by a single woman at the time. Wetherby began painting in 1835 at fifteen in Norway, Maine. Until 1842 he worked in the Boston region. After his marriage in 1846, he moved to Roxbury, Massachusetts. In 1854 he went to Iowa City to establish a daguerreotype studio, but after a few months he moved to Rockford, Illinois, where he lived until 1857. After two years in Eureka, Iowa, he and his family settled in Iowa City. His account book, which survives, provides a detailed record of his artistic output. Wetherby is particularly noted for his large children's portraits, but he also painted miniatures and landscapes. Anyone with knowledge of the whereabouts of either of these artists' works is asked to contact: