Patent model for button joint tilter by George O. Donnell (active 1823–1852), Mount Lebanon, N.Y., 1852. Collection of Jane and Gerald Katcher. —photo courtesy David A. Schorsch and Eileen M. Smiles
:When Jean Burks arrived at the Shelburne Museum in 1995, she was already a well-recognized authority on the Shakers. She joined a museum better known for exuberantly decorated furniture and whimsical folk art than for the understated design that is the hallmark of the United Society of Believers, who lived in utopian communities from Maine to Kentucky.
Struck by the contrast, Burks was eager to juxtapose the dramatically different styles that coexisted in the Nineteenth Century, when Shaker communities were at their height. Shelburne's senior curator also wanted to cut through the clutter of clichés about Shaker style, presenting Shaker design in the context of current research.
Burks' complex agenda is summed up in "Out of This World: Shaker Design Past, Present and Future" at the Shelburne Museum, on view through October 28. Organized thematically, the ambitious display relates Shaker design to so-called Fancy furniture of the same period and arrays Modern and contemporary furniture in a sympathetic vein.
"This is the first major museum exhibition to highlight the strong connections between Shaker and contemporary design," says Burks, who organized the show with associate curator Kory Rogers. Included are 150 examples of furniture, paintings, spirit drawings, textiles, household objects, accessories, ephemera and commercial wares made by the Shakers for non-Shakers. The show occupies the entire first floor of the Webb Gallery.
Blanket box made for Seth Wye Wells, unidentified Shaker maker, Enfield, N.H., about 1830. Collection of Bob and Aileen Hamilton.
Shelburne borrowed all but about 20 pieces. Lenders include Canterbury Shaker Village in Canterbury, N.H., the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community in Maine, collectors Robert and Katharine Booth, Jane and Gerald Katcher, Bob and Aileen Hamilton and dealer John Keith Russell.
"Out of This World" also features pieces from M. Stephen Miller's extensive collection of Shaker products and packaging formed over the past 25 years. Miller is the author of
From Shaker Lands and Shaker Hands,
due out from University Press of New England in August. The book is an updated examination of the Shaker Industries, which received their last major treatment in
The Community Industries of the Shakers
by Edward Deming Andrews in 1933.
The exhibition's title, "Out of This World," is a play on words. The Shakers lived apart from mainstream society, what they called "the World." Shaker design, which embodies the sect's spiritual and philosophical values, is distilled from World design but not independent of its influences. The Shakers adapted popular Nineteenth Century forms for their own purposes and developed commercial products meant to appeal to nonbelievers. In the most colloquial sense, Shaker design is considered "out of this world" beautiful by many people today.
