Completed a few days ago, my watercolor painting of the Entry Foyer of the Gamble House, built in 1908 in Pasadena, California….It’s a personal favorite of mine because I first saw it as a young man, and it made a great impression on me….This would have been in the late 1960’s, when I was a young teen, and very much interested in architecture….At that time, it was “an old house” already–dark and stodgy, old-fashioned–certainly out of step with the wild 1960’s scene outside….But there was no denying its originality both in terms of design and unique craftsmanship….What struck me was not only the aesthetics and beauty, but the novel ways the pieces of this architecture were put together….without nails basically–instead the builders used finely-crafted cuts and joints like dovetail and mortise and tenon….custom steel straps and fittings each made with care by artisans….leaded glass and custom light fixtures….hand-built furniture….clinker bricks were used extensively–which were the brick factory’s mistakes–something the architects saw as beautiful…. Built by the architects Greene & Greene, the house was designed as a winter residence for the Gamble family of Cincinnati–of Proctor & Gamble notoriety….
The following information is borrowed from the Gamble House website: “Charles Sumner Greene (1868-1957) and Henry Mather Greene (1870-1954) were brothers born in Brighton, Ohio, now part of Cincinnati. The boys spent part of their childhood living on their mother’s family farm in West Virginia while their father, Thomas, attended medical school in St. Louis, Missouri. The brothers developed a love of nature during those West Virginia years that would be ever-reflected in their art. Their father decided for them that the two should become architects, and at his urging, enrolled at the School of Architecture of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then in 1893, their parents, who had moved to the “little country town” of Pasadena, requested that their sons move out to California and join them. The brothers did so, and the cross-country trip proved fortuitous: while passing through Chicago, they stopped at the World’s Columbian Exhibition and for the first time saw examples of Japanese architecture. Their immediate admiration of the style would become a strong influence on their later designs.” Charles was particularly infatuated with Japanese architecture–and it proved to motivate and influence him throughout his career….I enjoyed painting this view as a kind of tribute to the profound impression it made so many years ago….# 6 on my Top Ten List !
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