Shop One masters highlighted in RIT exhibit

The year was 1953, when four local artisans had the unusual idea of opening a shop to exhibit and sell their work.

That may not sound so novel today. But at the time that Tage Frid, Ron Pearson, Jack Prip and Frans Wildenhain opened Shop One in the Corn Hill neighborhood, the only other store in the country dedicated to selling fine crafts was America House in the heart of Manhattan.

“Shop One: Then and Now,” an exhibit at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Bevier Gallery through Nov. 8, explores the influence Shop One’s founders — and their partners through the years — had on the development of the craft movement.

Many of the Shop One artists also had a profound influence on RIT’s School for American Crafts. Among the artists are big names such as Hans Christensen, Wendell Castle, Nancy Jurs, Albert Paley, Hobart Cowles, Richard Hirsch and William Keyser.

Shop One closed in 1976, but Shop One2 — named to pay homage to the original store — opened a few years ago in RIT’s Global Village and continues to sell fine crafts and art.

Forming a movement

“When I heard about Shop One, I thought it was a perfectly dumb idea,” says Bruce Austin, director of RIT Press. “How they lasted so long, for a quarter century, I wonder. It was much more than a labor of love; the enterprise was ambitious. Exposing the population to craft, elevating these items, putting them on pedestals where they belong — that’s what Shop One was really about.”

And that’s what made the idea — and these masters — so significant, despite the “dumbness” of trying to run a store on top of leading an artistic movement.

Austin wrote Frans Wildenhain1950-1975, Creative and Commercial Ceramics at Mid-Century as part of a 2012 retrospective exhibit of the ceramicist’s work. Wildenhain, born in Germany, had studied with masters at the famed Bauhaus, where he was introduced to a method of teaching he brought to RIT — a method he rebelled against at times. As part of Bauhaus instruction, a technical master is paired with an artistic master, and students are encouraged to achieve technical mastery first.

Wildenhain joined RIT’s faculty in 1950 and taught there for 20 years. He was among three of the four Shop One founders who joined the faculty of the School of American Crafts as it was just taking off and helping to elevate crafts from a lower-case to upper-case “C.”

Wildenhain’s colleague Jack Prip, who trained at Copenhagen (Denmark) Technical School, taught jewelry design and metalsmithing. Prip partnered on some of his jewelry creations with Ron Pearson, who became the first Shop One manager. Woodworker Tage Frid, born in Denmark, came to the United States in 1948 to teach at the School of American Craftsmen when it was located at Alfred University. He moved to RIT when the school did in 1950. (It was renamed the School for American Crafts.) He helped create Fine Woodworking Magazine and was the magazine’s editor for several years.

These four founders made Shop One more than a store. It became a meeting place for students and faculty, quickly outgrowing its original space on Ford Street. It moved above a carriage house at 77 Troup St. and later to Alexander Street.

Shop One thrived for 15 years as a cultural hub, if not a financial one. While researching his book, Austin uncovered one of Wildenhain’s tax returns from around the time Shop One moved from Troup to Alexander Street. Income from the operation was only $2,000 in that year.

“I don’t think the venture made them rich, but part of the educational component was to learn to earn a living as artists,” Austin says.

The shop closed in 1976. But as the new exhibit makes clear, its influence was vast.

Connecting the artistic dots

Thanks in part to Robert Bradley Johnson, who had purchased many pieces at Shop One and, in 2010, donated them to the college, RIT has an extensive collection of the artists’ work to display. The exhibit also includes pieces purchased at Shop One by some of the artists whose work is also on display.

“Wildenhain and Hobart Cowles taught together at RIT. Cowles served as technical master and Wildenhain, the artistic,” Austin says. “Nancy Jurs, Rich Hirsch and Alec Hazlett, whose works are included in the exhibit, were students of Wildenhain and Cowles.

“A teal blue teapot by Hobart Cowles, purchased by Nancy Jurs, is on exhibit, and several other pieces in the show are here because their students — now well-known artists themselves — collected their work.”

Elizabeth Burkett, co-curator and Bevier’s gallery coordinator, installed the exhibit to emphasize the relationships and influences between artists. It showcases works by founders in the inner square of the gallery and works by artists affiliated with Shop One on its outer walls.

“Shop One: Then and Now,” is a connect-the-dots of artistic influences from one generation to the next and from artist to artist. Its interest is more historical than aesthetic, as the reflection of an era that was and how it came to be.

Austin says viewers of “Shop One: Then and Now” will have an opportunity to experience local art that has had an impact worldwide. “Our visitors are presented with the history of craft, the cultural impact of these artists and their relationship to RIT,” he says.

The scope of the work is impressive. Some of the pieces on display include:

• An elegant walnut table design by industrial designer and woodworker Frid.

• A sublimely crafted silver tea service by Prip.

• Triptych cabinets, made in 1970 with ramin wood, by Keyser.

• Calyx candleholders made in 2001 by Paley.

• Clay paintings Nothing #31 and Nothing #39 by Hirsch.

• Gilded fiberglass furniture by Castle.

Carrying on the tradition

The master artist tradition continues at RIT, both in the School of American Crafts and Shop One2.

Inspired by the original Shop One, the school opened Shop One2 in 2010 as a fine arts and crafts store in the Henrietta campus’ Global Village. The exhibit space is devoted to showcasing RIT-affiliated artists as both an homage to the original and as a new model, says manager Wendy Marks.

“We retrofitted an original Shop One logo to connect us to our predecessor,” Marks says. “Our space is not artist-run, but it is unique because of its location — within a college setting.”

And as homage, it connects current artisans to those who helped create an appreciation for fine crafts. “Rochester was the epicenter of the craft movement — hand-made usable goods, masterfully crafted,” Marks says. “In this evolution, Shop One2 comes full circle, displaying artists works in the place where they were made, or where those artists once studied.”

De Palma is a Rochester-area freelance writer.