An important gift of American Shaker furniture from the late nineteenth century joins the NGV Collection with a group of six adult and two children’s chairs that were produced by the Shaker communities for sale to the outside world. The works were generously donated to the NGV by Peter and Eloise Smyrl. Here, they share with us why Shaker design captivates them and how these works represent a significant aspect of the Shaker community.
NGV Director Tony Ellwood and others from NGV came to see our Shaker furniture collection in 2019. While discussing the importance of the Shakers’ contribution to design, Tony said, ‘I want NGV to have the best collection of Shaker objects in the Far East so that people don’t have to travel all the way to the USA to learn about the Shakers’. At that time, the NGV had already acquired several iconic Shaker items and was in the process of making a wish list of Shaker furniture.
We have been collecting Shaker furniture for about fifty years. There is much to learn about the people who made and used this furniture. The Shakers (there are three left) are a Christian, communal, pacifist and celibate society started by former Quakers in England in the mid 1700s. They came to the United States in 1774 and by the early 1800s had established communities in the New England states, Ohio and Kentucky. Their worship included ecstatic, ritual dances from which the name Shaking Quakers or Shakers derived. Originally persecuted because of their religious beliefs and pacifism, the Shakers remained distant from the rest of society. Unlike many, they believed in gender and racial equality. At their peak in the mid 1800s, there were about five thousand Shakers. Gradually, through the 1800s, they became more accepted by society and their commercial dealings with the outside world grew.
They developed a reputation for the quality of their products and their honesty. They made and sold many things, but their packaged seeds, patent medicines, bentwood oval boxes (the NGV has acquired one of the finest stacks of multicoloured oval boxes) and chairs are among their best known products.
One item on the NGV wish list was a Shaker production chair, so called because it was produced for sale. By comparison, community chairs, were not made for sale, but were produced for use within the Shaker communities. (The NGV Collection has a community rocking chair.)
The production chairs were made later and are a refinement of the community chairs. Production chairs were made from standardised parts, assembled in a variety of ways to make chairs that were essentially similar, but with many options. The first option was size. Chairs came in eight sizes numbered from 0 to 7. A customer could also choose a chair with or without rockers, with or without arms, with wooden slat backs or a cloth tape back, and with or without a shawl bar between the top of the back posts – to support a shawl or blanket to reduce drafts and provide an extra layer of softness.
Eloise and I offered to try to assemble a set of eight production chairs, one of each size and within the set have all of the options represented in the NGV Collection. Each would be finished with a different coloured cloth tape seat duplicating what the chair might have looked like when it was new. We already had three chairs of different sizes. A Shaker collector friend added a fourth. John Keith Russell, the most active Shaker antique dealer, and the one who has helped us build our personal collection, was able to add the other four, including one with an original taped seat and back in good enough condition to retain. All the chairs were made between 1870 to 1930. The chair business ended in the 1940s as the Shaker membership declined. In the final years, two elderly Shaker sisters ran the business. One made the chair parts and assembled the chairs and the other wove the tape seats.
Shaker production chairs are among the most readily available Shaker-made objects and gathering the set of eight was a perfect pandemic project. Years ago, we began our Shaker collecting with a #7 production rocker. That led to a lifetime of collecting and learning about Shaker culture. As our collection grew to include chests, cupboards, tables and other forms, so too did our understanding of how this small religious community has influenced so much of modern design. Classic Shaker furniture reflects the Shaker lifestyle. It is functional, honest and not pretentious. It has no fancy veneers or excessive ornamentation. We were drawn to its simplicity and adaptability. It looks good in almost any setting. It was made to be used and we continue to use ours every day.
Many others have been inspired by Shaker values and design. Modern Scandinavian designers and American craftspeople such as George Nakashima acknowledge the Shaker influence on their work. We hope that many NGV visitors will have the opportunity to see the Gallery’s growing collection of Shaker objects and be inspired to learn more about them.
Peter Smyrl and Eloise Symrl are based in Pennsylvania, United States. The NGV gratefully acknowledges the generous donation of Shaker production chairs by Peter and Eloise.
This article was commissioned for NGV Magazine and appeared in Issue 32, Jan–Feb 2022.