This evening I attended a talk at the Haston Library sponsored by the North Brookfield Historical Society; the subject was the architect Elbridge Boyden, designer of Worcester’s magnificent Mechanics Hall, with its world-class acoustics and innovative construction materials and methods.  The speaker Rich Gardner was born and raised in North Attleboro and lived most of this adult life in Knoxville, Tennessee, before returning to Massachusetts a few years ago.  He was fairly low-key but provided a wealth of interesting facts about this remarkable nineteenth century figure, whose legacy survives in our town, throughout Worcester County, and farther afield into the other New England and mid-Atlantic states.

Born on the Fourth of July, 1810, in Windham County, Vermont, Elbridge Boyden was a true son of the American Revolution, as his father Amos fought in the Revolutionary War in a company of men from Sturbridge.  The Boyden family eventually settled in Orange, where the father operated a sawmill; the son began working in the family business at an early age.  While still in his teens and working as a carpenter on a church, Elbridge fell off the roof; as he lay in bed recuperating, he studied two books on architecture by Asher Benjamin and his life course was altered: he decided he would become an architect.  In 1849, when he was 39, he went into business with engineer Phineas Ball, a partnership that would prove productive even after he formed his own company.  In 1854, Elbridge Boyden was listed as one of only four architects in all of Masssachusetts.  Eventually, Elbridge’s son George joined his firm, which was then renamed Elbridge Boyden & Son.  More than half a dozen young men who apprenticed with Elbridge Boyden went on to become respected architects in their own rights.

Boyden was a prolific worker and accepted commissions for a wide variety of buildings: churches, civic buildings such as town halls, courthouses, and post offices, libraries, jails, hospitals, factories, schools, theaters, railroad depots, and private homes.  He was also inventive in his use of materials and was awarded several patents on such items as windows, blinds, and screens.  He continued working well into his eighties and died a few months short of his 88th birthday.  He lived in Worcester, at 14 Harvard Street, most of his adult life, and is supposedly buried in the cemetery on Grove Street (I think I know the address, but I can’t picture the site).

The speaker showed so many slides of the buildings that I couldn’t write fast enough to get them all down.  Here are a select few of them:

• 1851 Taunton State Hospital, Taunton, Massachusetts
• 1855 Mechanics Hall, Worcester, Massachusetts
• 1857 Bulfinch Courthouse remodel, Worcester, Massachusetts
• 1858 Town House, Sherborn, Massachusetts
• 1862 Damon Mill, Concord, Massachusetts
• 1863 First Congregational Church, Spencer, Massachusetts
• 1863 East Worcester School-Norcross Factory, Worcester, Massachusetts
• 1864 North Brookfield Town House, North Brookfield, Massachusetts
• 1867 Fenwick Hall, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts
• 1867 Jerome Marble House, Worcester, Massachusetts
• 1868 Washburn Shops, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts
• 1869 Cambridge Street School, Worcester, Massachusetts
• 1871 Universal Preservation Hall, Saratoga Springs, New York
• 1872 Crocker House, New London, Connecticut
• 1874 Cathedral of Saint Paul, Worcester, Massachusetts
• 1875 Hubbardston Public Library, Hubbardston, Massachusetts
• 1879 Grafton Street School, Worcester, Massachusetts
• 1880 Channing Memorial Church, Newport, Rhode Island
• 1885 Conant Hall, Nichols College, Dudley, Massachusetts
• 1893 Webster Street Firehouse, Worcester, Massachusetts

Some of the above buildings have been demolished by now (they weren’t expected to last more than a century or so), and we also have drawings he did for buildings that never got built.  In addition, architects in those days were not the rock star professionals that they are today, and we cannot necessarily find detailed records documenting all of the building projects that were either planned or completed.  When looking at buildings, architectural historians note stylistic or construction details that are characteristic of a particular person’s work.  In the case of Elbridge Boyden, these would be keystone arches, corner quoins, modillions, urns, terracotta column capitals, and faux-stone base courses.

Our Town Hall has been described as “Italianate meets Second Empire.”  I’d post a photo of it, but it’s currently under construction (it has actually been condemned) and looks terrible.  Of course I knew of its pedigree, but I didn’t realize that Elbridge Boyden also designed the Congregational Church in the neighboring town of Spencer.  Next time I’m driving past the church on Route 9, I’ll stop and photograph some of its details and then post the pictures here.

Benton Museum of Art

A couple weeks ago, I signed up for a guided tour of UConn’s Benton Museum sponsored by The Last Green Valley, an organization active in promoting natural and cultural amenities in the Quinebaug-Shetucket Rivers watershed.  I knew that the drive to UConn is about the same distance as my commute to UMass; the tour was scheduled to start at 1:30, so I was on the road shortly after noon.  When I arrived, the campus seemed deserted, and I figured that UConn students had started their Spring Break at the same time as our students.

The William Benton Museum of Art is actually an “official State of Connecticut art museum” (who even knew there was such a thing) and has a rather interesting history.  The building now housing some 6000 art objects was originally the college dining hall; it was known as the Beanery.  It was converted into a museum in 1967, with a new gallery added in 2005 at the same time as other major renovations were completed.  Mr Benton, for whom the museum is named, was a senator from Connecticut and also a UConn trustee.

Over the years, the museum’s permanent collection has grown significantly from the original works of mostly American art donated by UConn president Charles Lewis Beach.  The museum also features changing exhibitions, lectures, recitals, and readings.  Admission is free to both students and the general public, but of course, donations are most welcome.

We were a big group of over 20 people, so we split into two smaller groups.

Nancy, one of the two personable and knowledgeable docents on duty today, took us through the galleries in which the changing exhibits were displayed.

Making the Movement Move: Photography, Student Activism, and Civil Rights is a photography exhibit featuring the work of two very different photographers, Ernest Withers and Danny Lyon.   The Civil Rights Movement began in this country more than fifty years ago, which means the photographs date from the fifties and early sixties.  Ernest Withers, born in 1922, was an African-American who grew up in Memphis, trained in the US Army as a photographer, and later came to know all of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement through his photography work (eventually it became clear that he was also a paid FBI informant).  Danny Lyon was a 20-year-old history student at the University of Chicago when he was given the opportunity to jump into the thick of the protests; he worked for two years in the Civil Rights Movement and went on after that to photograph other subjects.  Both photographers’ images are aesthetically striking and eloquent reminders that these momentous events which precipitated a sea-change in race relations took place in my lifetime.

Persepolis grew out of the “UConn Reads” program.  The campus chose to read this graphic novel written by Marjane Satrapi, who was born in 1970 and grew up in Iran; she was a rebellious teenager when revolution broke out in 1979.  I know my readers don’t remember, but the animated movie Persepolis, written and directed by Ms Satrapi, appears on my “Best of 2008” list which I posted to this blog in January 2009; click on the link to see for yourself!  This exhibit considers the question of text versus images and depicts how words and pictures have been combined in historical and contemporary works.  Owing to the importance of calligraphy in Islamic culture, the focus on Iranian artists is certainly fitting.  Works by Shirin Neshat (a name which even I recognize), Afarin Rahmanifar from ECSU, cartoonist Ardeshir Mohassess, Pouran Jinchi, and Hadieh Shafie are displayed, but so also is the work of American artists such as William Gropper, a twentieth-century cartoonist and muralist who is best known for his radical politics.

Mary Kate, the other docent, then led our group on a tour of the Evelyn Simon Gilman Gallery, which houses the Museum’s permanent collection; this current selection of works is titled From Old Masters to Revolutionaries: Five Centuries of the Benton’s Best.

As one might expect, American and English artists are well represented, but there are also works by artists from Continental European countries such as the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and France.  The works include a range of subject matters, from portraits to landscapes to still lifes, executed in a variety of media, from oils and watercolors to woodcuts and lithographs to sculpture.  I was pleased that I recognized the major stylistic trends: portraiture, Impressionism, Expressionism, abstraction, primitivism, Ashcan School (“life as it is lived”).  I couldn’t even pick a few favorites, though I have to say that I was in the mood by then for lovely and elegant, so was glad to admire the Reginald Marsh paintings, of which the Museum has a good selection.