Today, painting the swirls of wood grain. The University of Houston presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
Why would anyone want to paint the curving lines of one wood grain on top of a totally different type of wood? This was a common practice in the 19th century, and two main reasons emerge. The first one is easy to guess. A skillful painter, known as a “grainer,” could make an inexpensive pine chair look like it was made of a much more expensive wood. A careful observer might detect the masquerade, but you could still decorate a room with the colors and patterns of the latest styles and fashions. Grainers could paint the deep browns of mahogany or tiger maple’s shimmering stripes.
A c. 1816 chair with realistic hand-painted graining is on view in the Chillman Parlor of Houston’s Bayou Bend Collection. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Bayou Bend Collection, museum purchase funded by The Brown Foundation, Inc. B.20007.2. Photograph © The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: Thomas R. DuBrock https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/85167/side-chair?ctx=83029459021059b5ffd06bbfda41f2387a09e31c&idx=0
Books of the early 1800s described techniques and tools for painted graining. They also gave recipes to make the paints, stains, and varnishes that were needed. But they offered no illustrations to assist students. In 1872 two American books devoted entirely to graining changed that by including detailed color lithographs. John Masury included 14 in his American Grainer’s Handbook. Charles Pickert’s The Art of Graining surpassed that with 42 high quality color images. The intricate curls of his French walnut grain delight the eye with their lavish complexity. And that visual pleasure leads us to the second type of 19th century graining, where artisans used their skills to create works with no pretense of imitating nature. Such work, often called “imaginative” or “fancy” graining, adorned chests, cabinets, doors, and mantels with colors and patterns rooted in the natural world, but exaggerated or extended to form a new and exciting reality. Unexpected colors painted in curves, dots, and dashes highlight traditional furniture forms, while also undercutting them with their fantasy.
This c. 1825 blanket chest with exuberant “imaginative” graining is in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum. https://collection.folkartmuseum.org/objects/402/blanket-chest?ctx=48a46cf9992a5658e055c236ad9d0be373dc727d&idx=3
A pair of doors painted in the 1850s for an Odd Fellows lodge building in New York State form a rare example where both types of graining were used in the same work. One side of each door is painted with traditional “realistic” graining. The other depicts ominous, almost abstract twisting clouds looming over two trees, one upright and one broken close to its base. Like other fraternal organizations, the Odd Fellows developed symbols and instructional rituals that fostered bonding among members. The two types of graining on these doors clearly represent the two worlds inhabited by the lodge members. The realistic graining embodies the prosaic outside world, while the imaginatively charged swirls on the other side express the symbolic environment in the lodge room—powerful images emerging from the patterns of wood grain.
Pair of doors, c. 1850-1860, from an Odd Fellows lodge building, now on display in Bayou Bend’s Folk Art Room. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The Bayou Bend Collection, museum purchase funded by Mrs. James Anderson, Jr., B.2009.10.1,.2. Photograph © The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: Thomas R. DuBrock https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/137293/pair-of-doors-from-an-independent-order-of-odd-fellows-meeti?ctx=d898602e6e4cdd86c919ef706e92c9af83f1d93f&idx=0
I’m Margaret Culbertson at the Bayou Bend Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where we too are interested in the way inventive minds work.
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The two 1872 books on wood graining described in this episode are in the collection of the Kitty King Powell Library, Bayou Bend Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In Houston, one may make arrangements to view the books by calling the Powell Library, 713-353-1542, or emailing mculbertson [at] mfah.org (mculbertson[at]mfah[dot]org).
Bibliography:
Pickert, Charles, The Art of Graining. New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1872.
Masury, John W., The American Grainer’s Handbook. New York; John W. Masury & Son, [1872].
Schaffner, Cynthia Van Allen. “Furniture, Painted and Decorated.” In Encyclopedia of American Folk Art, edited by Gerard C. Wertkin, 181-187. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Schaffner, Cynthia V. A. and Susan Klein, “Two-Toned Finishes: American Grain-Painted Furniture, 1790-1880. Folk Art (Spring 1998), 36-43.
Adele, Lynne, and Bruce Lee Webb, As Above So Below, Art of the American Fraternal Society, 1850-1930. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015.
Hollander, Stacy C. and Aimee E. Newell, Mystery and Benevolence, Masonic and Odd Fellow Folk Art from the Kendra and Allan Daniel Collection. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2016.
Eichelberger, Elaine, “The Brevity of Life and the Certainty of Death:” Odd Fellows Iconography on Bayou Bend’s Folk Art Doors. Bayou Bend Provisional Docent Research Paper, 2019. (Available through the Kitty King Powell Library and Study Center, Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens.)
This episode first aired November 26, 2024.