link: The Minneapolis Institute of Arts Unified Vision: The Architecture and Design of the Prairie School
navigation spacer Introduction navigation spacer The Collection navigation spacer Purcell-Cutts House Tour navigation spacer Architectural Tour navigation spacer Comments navigation spacer
The Collection
 All Objects
 Louis H. Sullivan
 objects
 Frank Lloyd Wright
 objects
 William Gray Purcell and George Grant Elmslie
 objects
 George Washington Maher
 objects
 objects by other designers
 objects
 Timeline

 

back to thumbnails
previous  next
Pitcher Pitcher

Clara Barck Welles
Kalo Shop

c. 1917

9 1/2 x 6 1/4 x 8 1/8 in. (24.13 x 15.88 x 20.64 cm)

Gift of Dolly J. Fiterman

Accession #: 97.163.2

The Kalo Shop was founded in 1900 by Clara P. Barck, a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The early handicraft efforts of the Shop were in the area of leatherwork and weaving, but after Clara’s marriage to George S. Welles, an amateur metalworker, her focus shifted to metalwork. Clara Welles continued for decades to impose high standards of quality and craftsmanship in the products retailed by the Kalo Shop in their downtown Chicago location. This pitcher employs the Kalo Shop’s characteristic softly curving, handwrought forms, which strengthened the pieces and also set them apart from the rectilinear forms of European Arts-and-Crafts silver makers such as Charles R. Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft. The simple beauty and quality of Kalo products, from holloware to jewelry to flatware, supports their status as one of the most highly regarded metalworking shops of the Arts and Crafts movement
object 50 of 116

previous  next

Unified Vision Intro| The Collection| Purcell-Cutts House Tour| Architectural Tour| Comments