Newsletter
May Day: Newcomb Chapel and Fountain, watercolor, c. 1915, 19" x 17"
Born in New Orleans in 1887, Sadie Irvine joined Newcomb College in 1903, where she remained until her retirement in 1952. Sadie was the best known of all Newcomb’s decorators. Her talents ranged from pottery decoration to embroidery, from block prints, pastels, pen-and-ink drawings, book illustrations, bookplates, Christmas cards, and portraits to her thoughtful and delicately sensitive watercolors. A highly skilled figurative artist accomplished in the challenging medium of watercolor, her subjects embraced the playful, dreamlike, and idyllic, as well as organic interpretations of nature. The blue tonality of many of Sadie’s images suggests a certain serene, artistic quality, as alluded to in a March 5, 1969, letter to Robert Blasberg: “I respond emotionally to subtle tones, delicate close values, rainy evenings, twilights, fogs in the park, reflected lights in wet pavements perhaps because I am an introvert…”
In the Newcomb College: Arts and Crafts Sales Exhibition catalogue (1998), author Jean Bragg describes Sadie as "a small frail woman of ninety-three pounds who was quiet and loved her garden and friends. Professor Ellsworth Woodward, founder of Newcomb College, said she took on a form of immortality – she was incapable of making a mistake in design!"
The Two Red Roses Foundation is delighted to own several of Sadie Irvine’s ceramic vases, boudoir lamps, and woodblocks, but is particularly proud to possess six of her wonderful watercolors.
Mary Rosenblatt and her Younger Sister Ellen, watercolor, 13 ½” x 9” |
Watercolor and pencil on drawing tablet (watercolor board), c. 1920, 19” x 13” |
We did not want just another ‘ho-hum’ museum store, but a beautiful retail space to showcase some of the finest contemporary crafts and reproductions of Arts and Crafts antiques. We hired the well-known retail design firm Bergmeyer (who recently completed Boston’s Restoration Hardware Design Gallery) to help us create a space that complements, reflects, and reinforces the Two Red Roses collection.
The store will appeal to thousands of museum visitors looking to make that special purchase that resonates with and enhances their museum experience. Products will include furniture, art pottery, and metalware, as well as rugs, textiles, frames, tiles, clocks, lighting, and jewelry, and range from the very affordable to more higher-priced items to be displayed in the charming Artisan Room. In a few days, we will be attending the Grove Park Conference in Asheville, North Carolina, and look forward to talking with many of the country’s finest artists, artisans, and craftsfirms who display interpretations and accurate replicas of Arts and Crafts antiques. We hope to begin discussions with many of these artists to create the museum store’s product line and to establish relations for our future purchasing and consignment program.
The Endless Possibilities:
Arts and Crafts Tiles from the Two Red Roses Foundation
by Dr. Susan Montgomery
From individual tiles, large and small, to running friezes, wainscots, fireplaces, panels, and entire room and outdoor installations, the book investigates and speaks to the ideals of tile design, craftsmanship, competition and production against the backdrop of the financial challenges and realities the tile makers faced.
More than six years in the making, this handsomely designed, 360 page catalogue contains hundreds of high-definition color images, historic facts and figures. An extensive bibliography and index makes it a most valuable reference for collectors and scholars.
See what they're saying:
"Like two earlier Two Red Roses Foundation books, this lavishly-illustrated, 360–page hardcover book has set the standard by which all other Arts and Crafts books will be judged. It comes as close to publishing perfection as is possible, from the weight of the paper and the design of the layout to the depth of the research and the brilliance of the photographs. In short, it is the book every tile collector and enthusiast will love to own.” - Bruce Johnson, The Arts and Crafts Collector, February, 2016.
In the last two years, the foundation has produced catalogs of its furniture and metalwork, and its new study, The Endless Possibilities: American Arts and Crafts Tiles From the Two Red Roses Foundation” by decorative-arts historian Susan J. Montgomery, reveals some colorful back stories of pottery.” - Eve M. Kahn, Antiques Writer for the New York Times, January 28, 2016.