American Furniture 2024 is the thirty-first volume of the journal and the first to appear following the decades-long stewardship of founding editor Luke Beckerdite. Thanks to Luke’s vision and commitment, volumes one through thirty (see endpapers) have consistently invigorated the field with ground-breaking articles that have uncovered fresh material relating to the production, ownership, and larger societal contexts of furniture made and used in America. Many have also broken with standard interpretive models and applied new frameworks from which to derive meaning. From rigorous connoisseurship and scientific analysis to social history and conceptual artwork, American Furniture has embraced a variety of interdisciplinary approaches that challenge existing precepts and encourage creative exploration, all the while adding to our cumulative body of knowledge.
In his introduction to the inaugural volume in 1993, Luke summarized the previous century of scholarship. Today, a similar recounting for the ensuing years would be replete with articles published in American Furniture. Some of the more memorable articles are those that shocked, those that turned previously well-accepted precepts on their heads: looking at familiar forms from the point of view of previously marginalized communities; upending the basis of attribution for large groups of furniture; openly revealing furniture fakes; and creating imaginative reinterpretations of compromised forms. Meticulously and voluminously researched studies and those that ambitiously address large swathes of material culture are breathtaking in their depth and expanse. Astonishing too is the use of seemingly unrelated disciplines such as mathematics and contemporary art to unearth truths hidden in furniture. Numerous articles have enlarged and fine-tuned our understanding of individual makers and regional schools; still others, by asking new questions, have extrapolated insights into the lives and mentalities of people in the past and the worlds they inhabited.
Luke’s contributions to American Furniture have not been limited to editing. He has authored or co-authored seventeen articles in the journal, most centered on the art of carving, to which he has brought his knowledge as a skilled practitioner. Beginning with a study of New York’s Rococo carving in the inaugural issue, Luke has identified the work of numerous carvers—some whose names are known, others who are known solely by their surviving handiwork—and for many, their background and training abroad. His article on pattern carving (2014) was the first to examine evidence from molds and iron castings in a comprehensive discussion of Philadelphia’s leading carvers during the Rococo period. Above all, Luke has penetrated and illuminated the world of the eighteenth-century carver and shown the importance of understanding the process of creating; from design re-creation and adaptation to drawing and tool use, the multiple layers of a carver’s skill set informed the finished product. As is most explicitly discussed in his “The Concept of Copying” (2020), the professional milieu and mindset of the creator is crucial to interpreting, attributing, and ultimately understanding the carver’s art.
Beyond Luke’s editorial oversight, the articles in American Furniture have been enhanced and amplified by the journal’s presentation, its distribution, and steadfast support from the Chipstone Foundation. In thisand recent volumes, copyeditor Richard Lindemann and Peggy Scholley have refined each article for readability, consistency, and grammatical accuracy, an exacting process that in years past has also been performed by Mary Crittendon, Alice Gilborn, and Fronia Simpson. Jo Ann Langone’s expert typesetting has brought elegance to every page and the journal's usefulness as a research tool is due to Robie Grant’s painstaking compilation of the index. Much of the new photography owes its excellence to the talents of photographers Gavin Ashworth (1993 to the present) and Michael E. Myers. Their images are not only striking but provide visual detail crucial to the arguments in the accompanying text. These are supplemented by David Hooks, who has worked tirelessly to source and secure the rights for secondary images.
The journal’s award-winning design was created by Wynne Patterson for the 1993 inaugural issue. Since then, she has masterfully brought together all these component parts to produce the beautiful bound volumes and online versions at https://www.chipstone.org. Her artistry is also evident in original artwork (as seen on the cover of the 2024 edition) that has greatly added to the journal’s visual impact. The production of both hard copy and digital formats allows for maximum outreach and reflects the Chipstone Foundation’s commitments to promoting new research and fostering education in the decorative arts. Since he assumed the position of director of Chipstone in 1999, Jonathan Prown has played an integral role and provided valuable guidance in publishing American Furniture. He was also instrumental in the establishment of subsequent journals, Ceramics in America (2001) and Material Intelligence (2021), and he continues to give his unwavering support to all three publications. The combined endeavors of these individuals and Chipstone have succeeded in achieving the goal stated in the 1993 introduction: “to make American Furniture the journal of record for its subject.”
The 2024 volume thus follows an impressive legacy. While Luke may have retired as editor, his authorship continues with an in-depth look at the evidence from architectural and furniture carving from mid-eighteenth-century Edenton, North Carolina. Daniel Kurt Ackermann presents a dis-tinctive group of chairs from the same time period, and in doing so he identifies a coherent shop tradition from Annapolis, a city that has long been overlooked in the scholarship of Maryland’s decorative arts. Baltimore’s vibrant painted forms from the early nineteenth century are the subject of Lance Humphries’ discussion of a remarkable suite of furniture. His detective-like pursuit of clues and his vivid description of the material world inhabited by patrons of the Finlay shop provide enlightening correlations between a furniture commission and social status. What began as an investigation of the work of Salem cabinetmaker William King by Brock Jobe and Kemble Widmer has resulted in the identification and documentation of the practices of at least four other contemporaneous shops working in the area during the late eighteenth century. Dean Thomas Lahikainen continues with Salem craftsmanship in the early nineteenth century. Drawing upon a treasure trove of surviving furniture and documentation, he presents a holistic view of cabinetmaker and patron in his masterful narration of the story of Mark Pitman and his supply of goods for three generations of women in the Ropes-Orne family.
I am honored to be entrusted with the editorial oversight of American Furniture and look forward to continuing its record for excellence in scholarship, in embracing new strategies, and in enlarging the field.