Paul Evans
Paul Evans (1931-1987) was among the most important members of the American Studio Craft Movement, a maker who treated furniture in metal as sculpture.
He departed from the traditional values of the designer-craftsman, with their respect for materials and their functional simplicity. The Cityscape pieces are among the most successful and admired of his designs, their luxurious, modern look a direct result of the materials he chose.
Biography
Born in Newton, Pennsylvania, Evans studied at the Philadelphia Textile Institute, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the School for American Craftsman and the Cranbrook Academy of Art. In 1955 he was drawn to New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he collaborated with Phillip Lloyd Powell and shared a showroom with him until 1966. A new phase of his career began in 1964, when he started working for the Directional Furniture company, which gave him a route to selling his work throughout the US and a reason to keep introducing new lines.
Together with artists such as Wharton Esherick and George Nakashima, Evans helped make the Philadelphia region a prominent centre for studio craft in the late 1960s. In those years he began to make furniture in metal, and sculpture, manipulating the material to achieve expressive surface effects. Through the 1970s he replaced those crusty, textured surfaces, patinated with paint and acid, with dazzling reflective metal that was sometimes mixed with woods. His line proved too expensive, and by the end of the decade he ended his relationship with the company. On 6 March 1987 he shut down his business and died the next day of a heart attack.
Models and collaborations
Evans drew strongly on the Viennese Art Deco designer Paul Frankl (1886-1958), whose work resembles the architecture of New York skyscrapers. His own interest in the haptic quality of a design was visible early in his career and was realised above all in metal and chrome.
Powell's woodwork and Evans' metal craftsmanship combined into a creative partnership. The oeuvre Evans left behind is impressive in size, the more so because every piece was made by hand.