Roycroft Owl Bookends

Roycroft Engraved Owl Bookends:  Copper, Height 4 inches. Inscription: Roycroft

In 1895 Elbert Hubbard founded the artistic community of Roycroft in the upper New York state village of East Aurora.  Mr. Hubbard established a print shop in East Aurora after a visit to William Morris and the Kelmscott Press. The success of the print shop and its publications, which defined a burgeoning interest in what is known as the Arts and Crafts Movement, led to the establishment of shops – a bindery, leather shop, metal working shop and furniture shop. Click this link for an excellent summary, The Roycroft Community, by Hilary Davis on The Arts & Crafts Society website.

Roycroft became a collection of workshops dedicated to producing household items according to the principles of the budding Arts and Crafts Movement.  Accordingly, bookends were designed and fashioned by artists working by hand.  Most of the bookends were made in an L shape from sheet copper, and these are the design of Roycroft and other metal workshop bookends from that era that we generally see today.

Most of these early bookends were decorated in low relief, or not decorated at all, but relied on their exposed construction for decorative appeal.  The bookends shown here exhibit curled corners, hammered surface, and exposed rivets that fasten the upright to the base. In addition,  we see an engraved owl against  a background of fine stipples in the metal.  Collectors appreciate the handwork even though the bookends do not stand out at a distance.

Legend:Roycroft early mark.  Roycroft used four marks.  The earliest mark was used from about 1909  through about 1920.  Later marks can be seen in our 2013 book, BOOKENDS, Objects of Art and Fashion.

Hand engraved Owl Face on Roycroft Bookends

 

Bullfrog Bookends

Bullfrog Bookends:  Ceramic.  Height 8 inches.  Contemporary.

Frogs have been frequent subjects for bookends since early times, probably because they are grotesque and interesting creatures.  These pottery frogs are not very remarkable, but they are big so we will call them bullfrogs.

 

BEEP! BEEP! Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner Bookends

 

Roadrunner and Coyote Chinese bookends:  Probably resin, Height 7.5 inches, weight 8.5 pounds per pair. There is a label reading Made in China on the bottom of each bookend.

The first Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated cartoon, Fast and Furry-ous, featuring Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote  was released in 1949 and featured the famous tunnel through the mountain scene.  Coyote wishes to capture and eat Roadrunner, as usual, so he paints an entrance to a non-existing tunnel on a mountainside and expects Roadrunner to knock himself unconcious when he runs into the false entrance.  To Coyote’s frustration, Roadrunner passes through the entrance and runs down the tunnel.  Coyote tries to follow Roadrunner through the tunnel entrance and the tunnel, but he smashes himself on the painted entrance.  The tunnel sequence starts at 3:31 of the  7 minute video.

The embedded Merrie Melodies cartoon is from the dailymotion website.

The bookends are marked Made in China and clearly reproduce the cartoon.  All previous Chinese-made bookends we have seen have carried American nineteen-twenties or thirties realistic bookend subjects.  Here the Chinese maker is appreciating and replicating zany American humor.  Perhaps this presages a new wave of novel Chinese bookends.

These bookends are very substantial – large, heavy, and with eleven accurately-applied colors with paints that are not affected by water, detergent, or wax.  AND ….. it is clear that anyone of a certain age that sees them covets them.

 

 

 

“Trecking West” Prairie Schooner Bookends

“Trecking West”, Painted Iron. 6″. Circa 1930. Cincinnati Artistic.

From the 1840s to the 1860s, wagons called Prairie Schooners, Covered Wagons, Conestoga Wagons, or the Camels of the Prairies provided the transportation of migrating families, merchants, gold-seekers, and more, across the plains and the mountains of the western United States.  This bookend pair is cast in low relief, but it is busy. The artist has managed to include one covered wagon, two pairs of yoked oxen, two people, and the title – “Trecking West”.  The title honors the American “Trek”, a word borrowed from the South African Boers’ depiction of their migration in the 1830s to the more northerly territories on the African Continent.

Reverse of “Trecking West” bookends showing Cincinnati Artistic and Patent Appl. For inscriptions

The foundry that made “Trecking West” is more than likely Cincinnati Artistic Wrought Iron Works Co. This company operated from the late 1890s until August of 1995 when as Artistic Wrought Iron it sold off it’s remaining stock with an advertisement in the “antiques” classifieds of the Cincinnati Enquirer.  It was known for it’s quality lamps and other architectural wrought iron items during the 1930s. A lamp from Cincinnati Artistic Wrought Iron Works was appraised by David P. McCarron on the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW in 2010. Click here to reach that appraisal video.

Several Western bookends feature covered wagons. Hubley made at least 2 different versions, one of which is shown below. W.H. Howell’s contribution to the genre is documented in the BOOKEND REVUE, Fig. 194, Seecof & Seecof, and in Gerald P. McBride’s book, A Collector’s Guide to CAST METAL BOOKENDS, on page 108.

Hubley Mfg’s version of Prairie Schooner bookends. 3.75″, Iron. Circa 1927.

Covered Wagon. 4.5″, Iron, Circa 1926. W.H.Howell co.

Electroformed bronze Covered Wagon bookends signed by Paul Herzel and attributed to Pompeian Bronze can be found on page 48 of BOOKENDS: Objects of Art and Fashion, Seecof & Seecof, 2012.

The Covered Wagon. 5.5″, electroformed bronze. Signed Paul Herzel. Attrib. to Pompeian Bronze. Circa 1920.

 

Blenko Glass Bookends

As mid-century modern design becomes ever more popular, BLENKO glass bookends are popping up frequently in antique shops.  BLENKO items are well known to glass collectors, as expressed in this Modernism Magazine article, but have not received much attention from bookend collectors.  Here we have two representative pairs of BLENKO bookends, both of them solid and heavy.

Abstract pyramids:  Cast glass.  Height 4.5 inches. BLENKO glass Company.  Black by reflected light, but green by transmitted light.  A BLENKO factory label is glued to one bookend.  Designed by Wayne Husted or Joel Myers (verbal communication with factory spokesperson).  Issued in 1963, catalog # 6319. A picture of these bookends can be found in the 1965 Blenko catalog.

Abstract teepees:  Cast glass. Height 6 inches.  BLENKO Glass Company.  Designed by Don Shepherd (verbal communication with factory spokesperson).  Issued in 1970.

The BLENKO Glass Company, established in 1893 and continuing to produce glassware today, is located in Milton, West Virginia. BLENKO bookends appear frequently on internet auctions and sales.  A person could make an attractive collection of BLENKO’s colorful bookends. A good resource for dating bookends are the catalogs on the BLENKO Project website.  Below is a screen shot of the 1969 Catalog, pg. 13 from that website.

Bookend array from 1969 BLENKO Catalog. Screen-capture from http://www.blenkoproject.org

 

Tile Bookends by Ben Prins

There are many pottery bookends available from famous artists or foundries, and these sell for high prices because of demand from pottery collectors.  These bookends are generally in low or high relief or entirely figural.  Instead of these common techniques, pottery bookends using tiles are sometimes prepared by cuenca or cuerda seca, terms which describe modifications of the surfaces to be glazed.  Much less common are pottery bookends that are painted with glaze and then fired with no modifications of the flat pottery surface.  These bookends present as  paintings on smooth surfaces.

Here are bookends painted with glaze on a smooth tile surface by Benjamin Kimberly Prins (1902-1980), a listed artist and illustrator,  According to the Saturday Evening Post website, Prins completed over 33 Cover and Inside illustrations for this magazine.

Stork.  Ceramic tile in copper frame.  Inscription: Prins B.   Circa 1930.

 

Cowboy and Indian Salute Bookends

Cowboy and Indian Salute.  Electroformed bronze.  Height 8 inches.  Armor Bronze,  Taunton, MA foundry, Taunton Armor Bronze labels on both felts.  Circa 1935.

There are dozens of Indian bookends and fewer cowboy bookends, but fewest of all are bookends featuring both cowboys and Indians.  This pair of bookends, produced by the Taunton, Massachusetts foundry of Armor Bronze around 1935, is one of the rare pairings.

By 1935 the film industry had thoroughly imprinted the American movie-going public with the heroics of the West. The biggest movie stars were the likes of Gene Autry, Tim McCoy, Tom Mix, Buck Jones, and Will Rogers. Some of these stars were part Indian. The “Indian” in the movies had moved from always being the enemy to being portrayed, in part, sympathetically and even sometimes heroically. Click here to see the New York Times Movie Review, Sept. 1932, of WHITE EAGLE.

As with other bookend sets, these bookends of a cowboy and an indian with their rearing horse salute, reflected the changing attitudes in American culture.