“Chairway to Heaven” Presented at Art Museum

The New Britain Museum of American Art is showcasing the craftsmanship of Shaker Furniture and inviting the public to a lecture on this practical art form.

“This one-of-a-kind exhibition explores Shaker chairs and chair production and features both custom-made chairs from various Shaker communities,” the Museum says, “as well a range of production examples from the Shaker’s factory at Mount Lebanon, New York.”

The exhibition, Chairway to Heaven: A Celebration of Shaker Seating Furniture, is on view at the Museum through January 15, 2020.

The Museum says that,

The United Society of Believers, known today as the Shakers, came to the United States from England in 1774. In 1787, their first fully formed, self-supporting community was established at New Lebanon, New York, only a few miles west of the Massachusetts border. Within two years of this founding, the Shakers began making custom chairs for use within the community along with a small number to sell to the outside world to generate funds.

After 1867, the Museum says, the Shaker community expanded into factory production of their chairs, “that featured standardized sizes, interchangeable parts, and assembly line construction.” They built a factory building that still standing in Mount Lebanon.

They manufactured eight sizes of chairs and, the Museum says, “Chairs could be ordered from the Shakers with or without arms, or rockers, with slatted or taped backs, with the rear posts topped with finials or connected by a cushion rail, and in a variety of finishes.”

In addition to the Chairway to Heaven exhibit, the Museum is also offering Museum visitors the opportunity to sign-up for a lecture on the Shaker chair-making craft. The lecture will be by Dr. M. Stephen Miller, the Curator of the exhibit, and Dr. Don Wartella.

Their lecture will be on October 5, 2019.

The New Britain Museum of American Art says that it,

is the first institution dedicated solely to acquiring American art. Spanning four centuries of American history, the Museum’s permanent collection is renowned for its strengths in colonial portraiture, the Hudson River School, American Impressionism, the Ash Can School, as well as the important mural series The Arts of Life in America by Thomas Hart Benton. The singular focus on American art and its panoramic view of American artistic achievement, realized through the Museum’s extensive permanent collection, exhibitions, and educational programming, make the New Britain Museum of American Art a significant resource for a broad and diverse public.

The Museum is located at 56 Lexington Street, adjoining the historic Walnut Hill Park.