'Ozark Modern' Exhibition Features Furniture Designed by Architect Edward Durell Stone

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These woven chairs and table were designed by renowned American architect Edward Durell Stone, an Arkansas native. (Photograph courtesy of Richard Berquist.)

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The furniture designed by renowned American architect Edward Durell Stone fascinates Catherine Wallack. Her longtime interest in this short-lived endeavor prompted her to put together an exhibit of Stone’s furniture, opening in January.

Wallack is curator of “Ozark Modern,” an exhibition featuring mid-century modern furniture designed by Stone, on display from Jan. 10 through Feb. 16, 2011, in the University of Arkansas Fine Arts Center Gallery. The exhibition, which occurs as part of the 60^th anniversary celebration of the Fine Arts Center, will underscore the distinctive characteristics of the furniture and illuminate the particular circumstances of its development.

While people respectfully talk about Fay Jones and are rightfully proud of the Arkansas native’s accomplishments in the architecture world, Stone was even more. “On the world stage, Ed Stone was a much bigger figure. He was huge,” said Wallack, an assistant professor of interior design in the Fay Jones School of Architecture.

Most people are familiar with Stone’s post-World War II architectural work. He started as a Bauhaus modernist, creating designs with a more severe look. He went on an influential 1940s road trip and visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin and Yellowstone National Park.

“So he became interested in making architecture that had a greater materiality and was more responsive to context as opposed to the modern International style that was kind of devoid of connection,” Wallack said.

Stone used a very modern plan to design the Fine Arts Center in 1950. Wallack calls the plan a take on a pinwheel, with parts of the building radiating outward in different directions.

Stone was already a prominent architect in the early 1950s when he designed this unique furniture. He had already contributed to such prominent projects as Radio City Music Hall and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York City, and the El Panama Hotel in Panama. Stone’s career and reputation continued to grow with commissions that included the United States Embassy in New Delhi and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Stone was on the cover of Time magazine in 1958 related to his design of the U.S. Pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair.

Stone, who was born in Fayetteville, attended the University of Arkansas for a while before moving to Boston, following his older brother who was an architect there. Stone studied architecture several places, but never graduated from college. Stone was about the same age as Sen. J. William Fulbright, also from a well-heeled Fayetteville family. “They both rose to prominence, almost simultaneously,” Wallack said.

The relationship between the Fulbright family and Stone was integral to enabling Stone’s furniture designs. Fulbright saw the need to diversify two of the family’s companies, the Springfield Wagon Co. and Phipps Lumber Co., due to a decreased demand for wagons. Stone agreed to design furniture on behalf of the company, so workers could produce that instead of wagons. The short-lived venture was called Fulbright Industries and operated from roughly 1950 to 1952.

Stone’s designs capitalized on the company’s existing machinery and skills to create this exceptional furniture line. This tactic led to furniture that was distinctly modern in appearance yet utilized regional materials and techniques in its manufacture.

The furniture line started as outdoor furniture and then grew more extensive and included tables, chairs and stools. Some pieces were sold around town, and many are still in homes here.

“The furniture has that same materiality and even regional character of that period that we don’t associate with the later works of Stone,” Wallack said. “The architecture and the furniture have a real sense of place.”

Workers making Stone’s designs had previously made farm implements — such as wagon wheels and plows. That aesthetic carried over into the furniture design, like in the plow-handle chair, which features chair legs and a partial base resembling unfinished plow handles. The felloe stool was made from felloe pieces — the curved segments that make up a wagon wheel. Instead of being connected in a circle to form a wheel, the short arcs were placed side by side to create a concave, or sunken, seat.

This bench was designed by Stone.  An exhibit of his furniture designs is slated to open Jan. 10. (Photograph courtesy of Richard Berquist.)

Stone’s furniture designs also called on the region’s basket-weaving tradition, with pieces such as the sensuously curved chaise made from woven oak strips by members of the Gibson family. The Gibson family has been handcrafting baskets locally for generations.

The exhibit will include farm implements, like a plow handle and a wagon wheel, to show the comparison and design inspiration to Stone’s furniture. Pieces of furniture, as well as photographs of furniture, will be displayed.

“So you can see a real direct correlation between this farm implement and this piece of furniture, but the furniture looks modern,” Wallack said. “No other American furniture has that regionalism and identity.”

There were many hurdles to the furniture company’s success, Wallack said. In addition to logistics, she thinks there were issues with the workers trying to create Stone’s furniture designs.

“They went from making tools to making high-end furniture in such a short period of time. They didn’t have that culture of craftsmanship and experience. So it was just a lot to ask them to turn into fine furniture makers in two years, even with good ideas,” she said.

To prepare for the exhibit, Wallack contacted Time Life for photographs taken in March 1951 by photographers George Silk and Peter Stackpole. She’s paying for permission to reproduce some photos for the exhibit. The photographs show craftspeople building the furniture, as well as the finished products and comparisons of the furniture to farm implements. This exhibit is possible now because the photos became available in recent years, she said.

Wallack also researched the Fulbright and Stone papers, both of which are in the University of Arkansas department of special collections. Those documents and Ellen Compton, a library archivist familiar with many of the players, were “essential” to her research. Also important was funding by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Department of Arkansas Heritage.

Hicks Stone, Stone’s youngest son, will give a lecture on Stone’s work at 7 p.m. Jan. 27 in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall at the Fine Arts Center. A brief segment of a forthcoming AETN documentary on mid-century modern architecture also will be shown.

In addition, Terry Gibson, a basket maker and descendant of the craftspeople who did the weaving on the furniture on exhibit, will present a demonstration of split-oak basket weaving from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Feb. 8 in the Fine Arts Center Gallery.

Wallack hopes this exhibit is accessible to a wide range of people with varied interests.

“I think sometimes architecture is a little too esoteric, but furniture is accessible. And people who are not aesthetically minded will appreciate the connection of Fulbright, at the very least,” she said.