Lot 76
  • 76

Kem Weber

Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Kem Weber
  • An Important and Rare Vase
  • impressed SILVER STYLE/Kem Weber/DESIGN/E.P.N.S./1E4 and a D within a circle
  • electro-plated nickel silver
  • from the "Silver Style" line produced by Friedman Silver Company, Brooklyn, NY

Literature

Studio Yearbook of Decorative Arts, 1931, p. 156 (for related models)
Bevis Hillier, The World of Art Deco, New York, 1971, p. 77 (for the archival photograph showing the model)
J. Stewart Johnson, American Modern 1925-1940:  Design for a New Age, New York, 2000, pp. 2 and 50 (for the model in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Jewel Stern, Modernism in American Silver:  20th-Century Design, New Haven, 2005, pp. 54, 62, 64, 89, 107, 148 n.1, and 345
John Stuart Gordon, A Modern World:  American Design from the Yale University Art Gallery, 1920-1950, New Haven, 2011, p. 159  (for the model in the John C. Waddell Collection, promised gift to Yale University Art Gallery)
Christopher Long, Kem Weber: Designer and Architect, New Haven, Yale University Press, forthcoming 2014, pp. 81-83

Condition

Overall in very good original condition. This piece retains its original electro-plated nickel surface and shows very minute evidence of rubbing and some light discoloration consistent with the natural aging process and very gentle handling. There are a few minute surface scratches and scattered minute pitting, all consistent with age and the plated surface. There is a very minor bruise to the top rim aperture. The vase is very slightly off center along one axis. The interior is not plated and shows some very light discoloration and residue. This work is an extremely rare design to appear on the auction market, with only three other known examples, two in museum collections. This model exemplifies the skyscraper aesthetic of the period and this work stands as defining statement of the design ideology of the period.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

Kem Weber designed this vase for the Friedman Silver Company in Brooklyn, New York, in 1928.  Weber was then living and working in Los Angeles.  He had spent the previous six years as the chief designer for Barker Brothers, then the largest furniture retail business in the United States, with an eleven-story store in downtown Los Angeles.  But Weber was unhappy with the limitations Barker’s imposed on his work (after 1925 he had become increasingly determined to pursue modernism), and at the end of 1927 he resigned from the company.  He came to New York in January 1928 to make arrangements for his display of interiors (a full six-room apartment) at the Macy’s “International Exposition of Art in Industry,” slated to open in the late spring of that year.  While there, he met with the managers of Friedman’s.  After returning to California, he produced two lines of silver-plated housewares for the company, “Silver Style,” with telescoping forms, and “To-Day,” with reeded bases.  Most, if not all, of the extant pieces from the two lines appear to have been executed in 1928 or early 1929.

This vase, from the “Silver Style” line, is a rare example.  In addition to the present lot, only three examples are known to exist, and two of them are erroneously stamped with a “To-Day” mark.  This vase, correctly marked, is thus rarer still.  Only three examples of the model are known:  one is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the second is a promised gift to Yale University Art Gallery, and the third is in a private collection. 

The “Silver Style” line included several other designs, including a cocktail shaker, a four-piece tea set, a “bread or cake stand,” a butter dish, a fruit bowl, a covered vegetable dish, a bon-bon dish, a flower basket, and another, rather more squat vase, with a wider base.  The Weber archive at the University of California, Santa Barbara, preserves photographs of these pieces.  It is unclear, however, whether all of them were put into production; the photographed examples in some instances may merely be prototypes.  There are also extant drawings for another covered bowl and a pitcher, but there are no photographs of these pieces. Aside from the cocktail shaker (which appears on the market now with some regularity), it is not known if any of these designs were made in larger numbers.  

Weber included a number of the Friedman pieces in an exhibit of his work at the California Art Club in 1929. A review noted that “fifteen pieces” were then on the market (though without specifying which), with many others forthcoming.  No other designs from the company appeared, however.  It is uncertain whether Friedman, possibly disappointed with sales, suspended production, or whether there were other reasons.  The onset of the Great Depression at the end of 1929 probably played some role in Friedman’s decision to stop making the designs, but it seems that the company may have already scaled back or halted production earlier.  It is possible simply that Weber’s designs were too far in advance of public taste, especially for a more upscale market, since the pieces would have been relatively expensive to produce and carried hefty price tags.

The design of the vase is a classic of the period, a perfect visual symbol of where the modern American aesthetic had been and where it was headed.  Weber doubtless intended for the vase’s tall, narrow profile to evoke the step-back forms of contemporary skyscrapers.  But its rounded contours also were a harbinger of the coming fascination with streamlining that would dominate modern American design a few years later and would become a stock-in-trade of Weber’s work of the early to mid 1930s.  It is thus a pivotal work both for Weber and for American design.

-Christopher Long

Sotheby's would like to thank Christopher Long and John Waddell for their assistance in cataloguing this lot.