Lot 396: GEORGE GRANT ELMSLIE AND WILLIAM GRAY PURCELL

possibly manufactured by George Niedecken and Company, Milwaukee

ca. 1914

oak with curduroy upholstery

36 1/2 in. (92.7 cm) high

Art & Enterprise: American Decorative Art, 1825-1917, The Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, June 12-September 12, 1999

ILLUSTRATED
Donald C. Peirce, Art & Enterprise: American Decorative Art, 1825-1917, The Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection, Atlanta, 1999, pp. 384-385 (for this chair and a period photograph illustrated in The Western Architect, January 1915, showing this chair and companion sofa model)

PROPERTY OF THE HIGH MUSEUM OF ART, SOLD TO BENEFIT THE DECORATIVE ARTS ACQUISITIONS FUND

This armchair was part of the interior designed in 1914 by Purcell and Elmslie for Lawrence H. Lucker's Minnesota Phonograph Company, a retail store in Minneapolis. The overall design of this chair is derived from a square, which is echoed in the seat, back, sides and dramatic linear moldings. Like Frank Lloyd Wright and other Prairie School architects, the firm employed the square as a recuring device throughout the interior scheme and exterior façade of the store, creating a unified total environment. Purcell and Elmslie designed other phonograph store interiors in Chicago, San Francisco and Kansas City. As George Niedecken and Company executed their designs for a phonograph store in Chicago, it is likely the two firms collaborated on this commission.