Burton Wasserman, May 2014
A versatile artist-artisan, Paul Evans was equally at home composing distinctive forms in various metals, by themselves or in combination with other materials. Many of his original sculptures, tables, chests and bookcases could easily serve as text-book illustrations for minimalist expression and functional utility. Characterized by commanding authority, his robust productivity stands at the summit of deeply meaningful accomplishment, alongside the heroic achievements of such masters of contemporary form as Harry Bertoia, Charles Eames, George Nakashima and Eero Saarinen.
At the present time, a major retrospective exhibition of selections by Evans in the areas of serious sculpture and interior furnishings for use in the home, office and the marketplace, are on public view at the James A. Michener Art Museum on Pine Street in Doylestown, PA. Titled Paul Evans: Crossing Boundaries & Crafting Modernism, the show is scheduled to remain there until June 1, 2014.
Constance Kimmerle, Curator of Collections said, “We are proud to present this first comprehensive survey of Evans’ creative vision. It documents his dynamic career, evolving from metalsmith to furniture maker to designer, along with his…new approaches to metal and his shifting focus from the New York craft scene to the national world of design. Evans’ significant achievements demand that his work be written into the larger history of studio furniture.”
The overall show includes 62 selections of Evans’ work. Together, they span the artist’s entire career, with choice examples from the early metalwork and jewelry collaborative items, to the later more advanced selections, brought to fulfillment by the mature artist he became in the fullness of time.
In due course, he evolved into a major American conceptual force, working for Directional furniture company. In that capacity, he produced strikingly handsome forms that blurred the line separating distinguished personal expression and sturdy furniture construction.
Incidentally, the overall exhibition also provides a documentary presentation that includes interviews with personnel from Evans’ staff, family members and collectors of distinguished craftware of the Bucks County region.
Evans was born in 1931 in Trenton, NJ. A graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School for American Craftsmen, he won recognition, early on, for his many soundly wrought products, exhibited in New York City. He eventually returned to live, work, and die rather suddenly in 1987.
Many of Evans’ attractive coffee and cocktail tables consist of a supporting structure of metal, given definition in a regular or geometric form, topped with a flat sheet of harmoniously proportioned glass or slate. At first glance, they invariably project an overall appearance, alive with an aesthetic presence that incisively takes hold of a spectator’s attention. And then, on further inspection, the piece manifests an overall sense of balanced order, dignified harmony and sturdy durability. Like the architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the totality of the form is an exquisite lesson in the time-honored art principle that, indeed, less is more.
At the center of his workmanship, there is an expression of a reality in which space, time, spirit and substance all come together in the sincere efforts of a profoundly gifted visionary. Perhaps one of the reasons why Evans’ productive output works as well as it does, arises from the way his surface treatments are so well integrated with the perimeter of his shapes. The lyrically graceful interplay between them is nothing short of poetic magic.
The pieces add up to a superb demonstration of style successfully joined with design discipline at the very point where exceptional excellence moves from ambition to realization.
Shown: Paul Evans (1931-1987), Onion, ca. 1960s. Patchwork steel with applied polychrome finish, 84 x 67 x 18” Private Collection, Perth, Western Australia. Photography by Richard Goodbody
Paul Evans
Dr. Burton Wasserman is a professor emeritus of Art at Rowan University, and a serious artist of long standing.
