There are, on occasion, that I don't have an answer to give our guests. While on tour a very nice New Jersey lady the other day she asked about an occasional chair in the Canton room on the second floor. I told her I would gladly do some research and get back with her about the piece. The best resource was a book that Barry R. Harwood wrote...The Furniture of George Hunzinger: Invention and Innovation in Nineteenth-Century America. Brooklyn, New York: Brooklyn Museum of Art, 1997. 168 pp.; 10 color and 189 bw illus., bibliography, index. $29.95. For the sake of accuracy, I used passages from a piece written by Milo M. Naeve, Field-McCormick, Curator Emeritus of American Arts, Art Institute of Chicago. So, here you are ma'am...
"George Jakob Hunzinger (1835–1898) gradually has gained recognition as being among those New Yorkers of the late nineteenth century whose furniture was innovative in construction and significant in design."
"...Success rested on “fancy” chairs, folding chairs, platform rockers, and lounge chairs as accents to other domestic furniture. To an unknown degree, Hunzinger offered tables and suites of chairs in different sizes, settees, and daybeds. No furniture can be identified with patents for extension dining tables, folding beds, and chair-tables, although a table combined with chairs and a game table with a revolving top are rare survivals from other patents. Analysis of all of these sources leads to Harwood’s conclusion that Hunzinger ingeniously manipulated elements of form, decoration, finish, and upholstery for a wide range of variations and budgets."
"Hunzinger’s simple furniture offers similarities in design to midtwentieth-century modernism."
"George Jakob Hunzinger (1835–1898) gradually has gained recognition as being among those New Yorkers of the late nineteenth century whose furniture was innovative in construction and significant in design."
"...Success rested on “fancy” chairs, folding chairs, platform rockers, and lounge chairs as accents to other domestic furniture. To an unknown degree, Hunzinger offered tables and suites of chairs in different sizes, settees, and daybeds. No furniture can be identified with patents for extension dining tables, folding beds, and chair-tables, although a table combined with chairs and a game table with a revolving top are rare survivals from other patents. Analysis of all of these sources leads to Harwood’s conclusion that Hunzinger ingeniously manipulated elements of form, decoration, finish, and upholstery for a wide range of variations and budgets."
"Hunzinger’s simple furniture offers similarities in design to midtwentieth-century modernism."
"Harwood’s book is a significant record of Hunzinger’s unique engineering and original designs. His taste, as the exhibition demonstrated and the book reveals through selected examples, influenced his contemporaries. Harwood’s new perspective on Hunzinger will not soon be dated. His research is thorough, and his analysis of it is perceptive."
After reading over a few pieces, this one was the best...written for the museum exhibition, of course. By the books description, it's definitely going to be on the list to read during the winter! Please, contact the museum to find the book (it's a museums passion, to the core)
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