Rago Auctions

“Mannerism” is a term that doesn’t get around much anymore. It used to be a key concept in art history, like Baroque and Rococo, referring both to a specific movement and to a stylistic tendency. The original Mannerists lived in the sixteenth century: the painter Parmigianino, the architect Giulio Romano, the goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini. They were fated to grow up in the shadow of the high renaissance. Some were even able to watch the ageing Michelangelo, as he completed his Sistine Chapel frescos. They reacted to all this intimidating greatness with surprising confidence—indeed, overstatement. Master technicians, they twisted matter into impossibly refined and improbably elaborate forms. Their style was exaggerated; the emotional pitch of their work, high.

The greatest exponent of the Mannerist impulse is Albert Paley. This is partly a matter of style—his way of drawing in space, at once attenuated and muscular. 

Like other style descriptors (Impressionist, Fauvist and Cubist included), Mannerist was not originally intended as a compliment. The term implies a certain overwroughtness, a negative connotation which has perhaps led to its falling out of fashion. Yet it remains a useful concept, and not only for understanding the sixteenth century. Art Nouveau, for example, is clearly a Mannerist style: the pots of George Ohr, the furniture of Hector Guimard, the glass of Emile Gallé. So too is Bebop, with its articulate variations on—and deformations of—previous jazz standards.

In our own day, the greatest exponent of the Mannerist impulse is Albert Paley. This is partly a matter of style—his way of drawing in space, at once attenuated and muscular. But it is not only that. Paley shares much more with his forebears of one and five centuries ago. First, unlike modernists and classicists, he has no interest in hard-and-fast rules. His compositions are intuitive rather than “correct.” They obey only their own logic. His formal maneuvers replicate themselves in breathtakingly extended series, each a riff on all the others, like a physically manifested Coltrane solo. 

Second, Paley’s objects are excessive, and purposefully so. They explore the outer limits of ornamental intensity. This is particularly evident in his furniture, because he allows the nominal function (that of a table, plant stand, or candelabrum) to be almost—but not completely—overwhelmed in a surfeit of embellishment. Utility functions for him like a diver’s springboard, a familiar footing from which his imagination can leap into free space. Look particularly at the way his vertical forms, such as standing lamps and candlesticks, whirl upwards into being like dust devils made of steel.

Paley has been able to infuse forged iron—that most elemental and recalcitrant of mediums—with such sophistication. He has breathed new life into an old idea: when attempting to do justice to the possibilities of art and craft, too much is never enough.

Paley also registers as Mannerist in his self-awareness regarding precedent. He is deeply knowledgeable about decorative art, and an accomplished collector of Art Nouveau. Like the artists of the sixteenth century, his creative intelligence is highly attuned to past achievement, including in his own discipline of metalsmithing. The aforementioned Cellini, and other historic blacksmiths like Samuel Yellin, are ever-present echoes in his work; the selection at Rago includes some decisive nods to the past. Paley didn’t come out of nowhere. He is an artist with a well-positioned rear view mirror.   

The Mannerist mode is worth holding on to partly because of just such intelligent relations with the past, but also because it manifests, in extreme form, a crucial creative formula: the desire to master materiality in order to transcend it. It is remarkable that Paley has been able to infuse forged iron—that most elemental and recalcitrant of mediums—with such sophistication. He has breathed new life into an old idea: when attempting to do justice to the possibilities of art and craft, too much is never enough.

Take a walk through center city Philadelphia, you’ll find evidence of Jane Korman’s vision all around you: on Arch Street, the innovative textile studios and galleries at the Fabric Workshop and Museum will be abuzz with creativity, with thought-provoking exhibitions on view. On Walnut Street, you’ll pass the Jane & Leonard Korman Respiratory Institute at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital—an initiative inspired by her own experience as a lung cancer patient who never took the ability to breathe for granted. Each November at the nearby Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show welcomes thousands of eager shoppers whose purchases support both the livelihoods of the artists displaying their work, and the Museum’s ability to acquire important works of contemporary craft. Korman was a longtime supporter and member of the Board of Directors of this annual event through the Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she also served on the Modern and Contemporary Art Committee. And if you venture a bit further afield to the northwest corner of the city, you’ll reach the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, where Korman was a Trustee and chair of the Fine Arts Committee. There, she spearheaded the creation of a permanent installation for children called Out on a Limb: A Tree Adventure Exhibit, complete with a nest of giant robin’s eggs and a Squirrel Scramble. It was designed as a fully accessible place for children and adults to explore and revel in nature, and to help them see that “we need trees, and trees need us.” 

These efforts have something important in common...for Jane Korman, art, life and nature were not separate entities, but deeply intertwined facets of a life well lived.

These efforts have something important in common: breathing deeply and enjoying nature in every season, celebrating art and creativity in all its forms, and sharing the wonder of exquisite craftsmanship with the historic city she loved, all demonstrating that for Jane Korman, art, life and nature were not separate entities, but deeply intertwined facets of a life well lived. The diversity and exceptional quality of the works of art in this important sale speak to this sense of interconnectedness, and reflect her eye for idiosyncratic beauty and adventurous form. From the playful wit of Judy Kensley McKie’s furniture to the trompe-l'œil everyday objects created in clay by Marilyn Levine, Korman’s collection demonstrates reverence for material mastery, an appreciation for originality and non-traditional forms, and enjoyment of the unpretentious humor that animates craft’s whimsical side. It also offers proof of her artistic foresight: McKie’s Table With Dogs was featured in the American Craft Council’s exhibition New Handmade Furniture: American Furniture Makers Working in Hardwood back in 1979.

She believed that like food and nature, works of art, craft and design are part of our shared feast, and should be enjoyed, not tucked away for “someday.”

Korman was well known as a connoisseur and philanthropist, but she was also a gallery owner and published author. Her 2010 book Splendid Settings: The Art + Craft of Entertaining captured the spirit of her much-beloved collection. On the cover, a bouquet of peonies keeps company with a pair of elegant champagne flutes and three brilliantly glazed works by Toshiko Takaezu; this could only be Jane Korman’s table. Born in Philadelphia, she earned a BA in fine arts from Arcadia University, married Leonard Korman in 1957, and they raised three daughters together. In 1977, she established a gallery dedicated to contemporary American craft called Sign of the Swan in Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood. She later opened Swan Gallery near Rittenhouse Square, overseeing both spaces until 1989. Her passion for craft and expertise only grew as she became a trustee of the American Craft Council, and the Museum of Arts and Design, both located in New York, among other organizations. Splendid Settings explains how her varied passions overlapped: nearly 70 recipes, both her own and those shared from friends and artists, are presented against the vibrant backdrop of tables featuring Korman’s collections. She believed that like food and nature, works of art, craft and design are part of our shared feast, and should be enjoyed, not tucked away for “someday.” 

To build a collection that encompasses works from such a wide array of genres, time periods, and materials suggests that Korman was inspired by something akin to artistic hospitality. Her collection includes quite a few greats: delicate vessels by George Ohr, vibrant and modern forms by Lucie Rie and Ruth Duckworth, and luminous Toots Zynsky bowls that seem to radiate color and light from their fused glass threads. Rudy Autio’s Blue Horse and Rider shows a woman clinging to the side of a vessel as though it were a wild steed, linking the two distinct forms of pottery and sculpture as though they couldn’t live without one another. Also striking is the number of works obtained directly from the artist, or even commissioned specifically for the Kormans, like Wendell Castle’s sculptural sets of dining tables and chairs. 

Jane Korman admired beauty, but didn’t insist on a narrow definition of it.

Jane Korman admired beauty, but didn’t insist on a narrow definition of it. She felt a kinship with artists, being one herself, and understood them through a shared language. Many of the works in her collection are straightforwardly lovely, like Wayne Higby’s serene Landscape Bowl from 1980 or Harvey Littleton’s nearly-edible Ruby Sliced Descending Form from 1985. Others possess a kind of rugged beauty that can only be truly appreciated with an understanding of artistic intent and preternatural skill. Observers might have glanced at Marilyn Levine’s 1984 KCP Bag and seen an ordinary useful object—sturdy, but worn a bit past its prime. Jane Korman saw Levine’s artistic devotion to capturing the contours and details of a personal item freighted with meaning, something that deserved to be realized through careful attention and virtuosic skill. Like nature, artistic inspiration takes infinite forms, and what strikes most people as traditionally beautiful represents just a narrow band of human creative endeavor. As long as a work of art was a triumph of technique, keenly observed, and authentically inspired, it was welcome at Jane Korman’s table. 

Sarah Archer is a design writer based in Philadelphia who has authored several books and contributed essays to exhibition catalogs for the Print Center New York, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, the Portland Art Museum, the Milwaukee Museum of Art, and the Museum of Arts and Design. She served as senior curator at the Philadelphia Art Alliance from 2011 through 2014 and was the 2017 Jentel Visiting Critic at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana.