Lockwood de Forest

Lockwood de Forest was an American painter, interior designer and furniture designer. A key figure in the Aesthetic Movement, he introduced the East Indian craft revival to Gilded Age America.

As a young man, de Forest first worked as a painter, taking the lessons of his Hudson River School contemporaries. In 1879, de Forest began his career in the decorative arts working at Associated Artists along with Louis Comfort Tiffany, before starting his own decorating business that he ran for thirty years. Upon his retirement, de Forest moved to Santa Barbara where he returned to his love of painting while still taking design commissions from local patrons.

In his mid-twenties, de Forest became interested in decoration and architecture after browsing Church's extensive library at his Persian-style home, Olana, in New York. De Forest's first major interior design project was to remodel his parents' New York townhouse in 1876.

In 1879, de Forest became a partner of the design firm Associated Artists, with Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), Samuel Colman (1832-1920), and Candace Wheeler (1827-1923) where he directed the production of architectural woodwork. Associated Artists lasted only four years, however the firm was one of the most influential decorating companies in the 19th century, and at the forefront of the American Aesthetic Movement emphasizing hand work, intricate color and texture, and tasteful but exotic design themes.

The same year he joined Associated Artists de Forest married Meta Kemble and the newlyweds visited British India on their honeymoon. During what became a two-year trip, de Forest collected furniture, jewelry and textiles as he and his wife raveled through Bombay (Mumbai), Surat, Baroda (Vadodara), Ahmadabad, Agra, Delhi, Amritsar, Lahore, and Srinagar. In Ahmadabad de Forest met Muggunbhai Hutheesing, a philanthropist with an interest in the arts, and together the two men opened the Ahmadabad Woodcarving Company. This studio became crucial to supplying Associated Artists with carved architectural elements and furniture. While in India de Forest also became good friends with John Lockwood Kipling (father of Rudyard Kipling), who shared de Forest's passion for Indian art. Together, the two men organized a display of works by the Ahmadabad Woodcarving Company at the Lahore Museum in 1881.

After Associated Artists closed in 1882, de Forest opened his own design business in New York with a lavish showroom at 9 East 17th Street. In addition to managing the design, production and import of Indian goods, de Forest continued to design his own furnishings and architectural ornaments. His work was exhibited at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886 and at the World's Columbian Exposition seven years later. De Forest's offerings at these fairs attracted an impressive array of clients, including the industrialist Andrew Carnegie (de Forest designed Carnegie's bedroom and library in the Andrew Carnegie House, now the Cooper-Hewitt Museum), transportation magnate Charles Tyson Yerkes, Chicago businessman Potter Palmer, and author Mark Twain.

In 1887, de Forest bought 7 East 10th Street. He had the architect Van Campen Taylor design a plain, basic house that he then proceeded to decorate with intricately carved teak elements made in India. The home was featured in a New York Times article in 1895, where it was written: "The De Forest house surpasses all others in the completeness and harmony of its Oriental character… [The architectural elements and furnishings] are as wholly East Indian as though they were furnishing a Hindu instead of a New-York apartment." Today, this home is the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at New York University.

While working in the decorating business, de Forest had continued to paint at home and he exhibited his work frequently at the Century Association and the National Academy of Design. In 1898, de Forest was made a full member of the academy and it was around this time, with a declining market for exotic interiors, that de Forest became a prolific painter again.

Text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2024