576: PHILLIP LLOYD POWELL, Occasional table < Modern Design, 14 May 2021 < Auctions

Modern Design 14 May 2021

New Hope Modernism

The Collection of Martin Brooks

Rago is honored to present an important collection of works by Paul Evans and Phillip Lloyd Powell from the Powell-designed home of Martin Brooks.

Born in 1931, Martin Brooks grew up with parents who were gardeners and he developed a passion for horticulture from a young age, eventually choosing it as his life’s profession. He earned a degree in ornamental horticulture at Delaware Valley Agricultural College in the 1950s and by the end of the decade had established himself as a well-respected landscape architect, designing major projects for Ed and Audrey Sable (owners of NFL Films) and award-winning landscaping for over two dozen public businesses. Brooks had a unique talent for recognizing the value of rare and unusual plants and he became particularly popular among the rich and famous crowd in The Hamptons.

The collection for Martin Brooks comprises some of the very best designs by two of the most important craftsmen working in New Hope in the 20th century.

Brooks first met Phil Powell around 1955 at the Philadelphia Convention Center, where Powell was selling DIY furniture sets. The two quickly struck up a friendship. Brooks loved Powell’s furniture, and Powell needed landscape work done, so they came to a mutually beneficial agreement. As Brooks recalls, “Phil designed my house and the furniture, and I did his gardening, mowed his lawn, and even put in a waterfall.” They became close friends and Brooks often supplied Powell with wood that he found during his landscaping jobs. It was through Powell that he met Paul Evans—“I met Paul through Phil. I always had a cigar, and Paul always had a cigarette”—with whom he struck up a similar arrangement: in exchange for landscaping, Evans designed furniture for his home.

The collection for Martin Brooks comprises some of the very best designs by two of the most important craftsmen working in New Hope in the 20th century.

Phillip Lloyd Powell 1919–2008

Celebrated American furniture maker and designer Phillip Lloyd Powell was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1919. Powell is best known for his innovative and hands-on approach to the production of studio furniture that disregarded industrial mass production methods in favor of creating limited runs of meticulously detailed, hand-carved pieces.

A self-taught natural at the craft of woodworking, Phillip Lloyd Powell began creating custom furniture for friends and family as a teenager. Looking to further develop his craft, he enrolled at Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University) in 1939 to study mechanical engineering. His academic career was cut short in 1940 when he was drafted into the Army Air Corps. During his service as a meteorologist, stationed in Great Britain, Powell dreamed of returning home and settling in the quiet, river town of New Hope; his dream came to fruition in 1947 when he purchased an acre of land in the Bucks County artists’ community. Powell built his own home and earned a living selling works by noted mid-century designers such as Herman Miller and Isamu Noguchi.

At the urging of his friend George Nakashima, already an established studio furniture maker, Powell began designing his own furniture. He established a showroom in the heart of New Hope in 1953, open only by appointment and on Saturday evenings. In 1955, he began sharing his studio with Paul Evans. The two artists shared a creative space until 1966, growing their businesses and collaborating on select furniture designs. In addition to his detailed woodworking, Powell also created pieces in stone, metal and slate.

Though Powell began his work in the middle of the 20th century, his designs stand apart from the archetypal clean, sharp lines of many other mid-century makers. Along with his fellow Delaware Valley Modernists, George Nakashima and Wharton Esherick, he sought to elevate the natural form of wood and preferred organic curves and materials. A classic example of this is the singular, sculpted fireplace now on permanent exhibition, along with several other important pieces, at the Michener Museum of Art in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. But Powell’s work was also inspired by his love of world travel; The Powell Door, an intricately carved and brightly painted pine door (also at the Michener Museum of Art) suggests the influence of India, Spain, Portugal, Sicily, and Morocco.

Owing to the intricacies of his designs and his preference to work alone, Powell is estimated to have produced less than 1,000 pieces before his death in 2008.

Auction Results Phillip Lloyd Powell