Museum accessions.

The designer brothers Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene grew up in Saint Louis, and the British-born ceramist Frederick Hurten Rhead worked in nearby University City, Missouri (now part of Saint Louis), between 1909 and 1911. Thus, the Saint Louis Art Museum is particularly delighted to add examples by these important artists to its collection.

The Greenes, who attended the innovative Manual Training School at Washington University in Saint Louis, later established themselves in Pasadena, California, where they created some of the most beautifully crafted architecture, interiors, and furnishings in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Robert R. Blacker house (1907) there is widely considered the Greenes' masterpiece for the extraordinarily harmonious integration of all its elements, which included the lantern illustrated above. It is one of six designed for the main hall of the house, two of which have been acquired by the museum, along with a mahogany writing desk from the principal bedroom. The Greenes' success was due in part to their close collaboration with the craftsmen who executed their designs, specifically the cabinetmakers Peter and John Hall, who made the teak parts, and Emil Lange, who created the stained glass for the lanterns.

Illustrated above is part of a tile fireplace surround made by Rhead for the residence of John J. Meacham in University City in 1911. Typical of Rhead's work, the stylized landscape is created by incising the design in the clay and then filling the voids with thick mat glazes. The remainder of the surround is made up of more than two hundred blue-green tiles, which fill the jambs and the hearth. Rhead was working and teaching at the time at the art academy of the American Woman's League, begun by Edward Gardner Lewis in 1909 as part of his goal of creating opportunities for women. To this end, he had brought ...