Philadelphia Antiques Show 2018

27 Barry Gordon, with Norm Sartorius and Phil Jurus, “Emil Milan: The (re)-introduction of a seminal American woodworker,” Woodwork Magazine 64 (Winter 2010): 64. 28 Gordon, 65. 29 Conrad Brown, “Emil Milan,” Craft Horizons 17, no. 3 (May/June 1957): 38, http://digital.craftcouncil.org/digital/collection/p15785coll2/ id/4470/rec/70. 30 Gordon, 67. 31 Gordon, 66. 32 “The Emil Milan Research Team,” Emil Milan Research Project, accessed February 23, 2018, https://www.emilmilan.org/team/. 33 “Rediscovering Emil Milan and His Circle of Influence,” Exhibitions, The Center for Art in Wood, accessed February 23, 2018, https://cen- terforartinwood.org/exhibition/rediscovering-emil-milan-and-his-circle-of-influence/; “The Publication,” Emil Milan Research Project, accessed February 23, 2018, https://www.emilmilan.org/the-publication/. 34 Rowena MacPhail (owner of Bowl , whose children donated it to the PMA), interview with Phil Jurus of the Emil Milan Research Project, April 8, 2010. Emil Milan, American, 1922 - 1985 Bowl c. 1950 Walnut 4 × 12 × 33 inches (10.2 × 30.5 × 83.8 cm) Gift of Peter R. MacPhail and Wendy MacPhail-Brigham in memory of their mother, Rowena M. MacPhail, 2015 2015-111-1 L ike Toshiko Takaezu, Emil Milan (1922–1985) was influenced by the modernist currents of the 1950s and 1960s and worked in a manner that straddled the line of functional and decorative. Making use of the GI Bill, Milan studied at the Art Students League of New York for several years after World War II. 27 He came to adeptly use the same abstracted language as contemporaneous modern sculptors, but chose to apply the styles and techniques of modern art to make usable pieces of wood. 28 Though Milan’s works were often displayed and collected as craft, he saw no need to confine his work to the categories of craft, fine arts, or decorative arts. 29 This Bowl , for example, was put into service as a functional bowl, but also can be seen as an abstracted sculpture of a bird, fish, or leaf, depending upon the direction from which it is viewed. Milan presented tablewares and other practical wares as sculptures in and of themselves. Bowl , shaped in a manner which emphasizes the grain of the walnut, is characteristic of Milan’s respect and appreciation for his medium. Milan designed his pieces around the qualities of the wood he used, harnessing the decorative features inherent in the material, such as its size, shape, grain and the distinction between its heartwood and sapwood. 30 Milan had a dedication to teaching and sharing his appreciation for wood, working as an instructor at the Peters Valley Craft Center in New Jersey, at a program designed to revive craft skills among rural Pennsylvania farmers during the 1960s through the 1980s, and in a USAID program in Honduras. 31 Although in his later years he retreated to a rural Pennsylvania farm, his work and methods have proven to have a strong influence on other wood carvers throughout the second half of the twentieth century. 32 The work of a team of researchers, and a recent exhibit at the Center for Art in Wood in Philadelphia, “Rediscovering Emil Milan and his Circle of Influence,” revived interest in his work among a broader audience, culminating in a soon to be published biography. 33 The donors of this piece, whose mother purchased Bowl directly from Milan after she curated a show of his works at a gallery in the 1960s, were introduced to Elisabeth Agro, the Nancy M. McNeil Curator of American Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, through the efforts of the Emil Milan Research Project. 34 Emil Milan, Bowl W 126 W