Design History: Dirk Van Erp

This essay will discuss the life of Dirk Van Erp in the first part, in the second part it will discuss his contribution for the Arts and Crafts movement in America and then my opinions about what makes him interesting.


Image 1

Dirk Van Erp, who you can see at image 1, was born into family of coppersmiths in Leeuwarden (Netherlands) on January 1, 1860. In 1866 he immigrated to America and then he settled down in California. Because he started hammering brass shell casings into vases, which was something different, he became popular and he opened Art Copper Shop in Oakland. As Koplos et al. (2010) pointed out in 1910 he moved his shop to Sutter Street in San Francisco, where it became an institution. The Copper Shop operated for sixty-seven years, closing in 1977, when William van Erp, his son, died.

Image 2

He is known as a master craftsman and coppersmith, who produced hand made lamps (image 2) and another furnishings like vases (image 3) candlesticks, bookends, and table accessories in the Arts and Crafts style. The aim of Arts and Crafts designers, as Obniski (2008) notes, was to improve standards of decorative design. They believed that they will be replaced by mechanization, so they called for an end to the division of labor and advanced the designer as craftsman. Dirk van Erp's field in Arts and Crafts was interior design. His electric lamps, like Koplos et al. (2010) says, had vaselike base and they are often similar to Chinese pottery as you can see at image 3. The lamps were typically formed from flat sheet of copper and shades of transparent mica to give them original look. Van Erp didn't add any extra colours in his design, he used only the colours from the materials. These were variations of reds and deep chocolate browns and the top of the lamp was done with reddish orange mica.

Image 3

This is the thing what makes him interesting for me. There is kind of homemade feeling from his works. As you can see in video by MyNorthMedia (2010), thanks to his lamps, the atmosphere in the room is very nice and pleasant. The light is nicely soft, it doesn't hurt to your eyes and it has also very romantic atmosphere. In this time it was really something new, and "ultramodern" like Koplos et al. (2010) note in their book. And people like it.

Image 4

The lamps were actually expensive in the time of their production, they cost about $25 to $150. Today they are well collected and they can be sold for more than 500times their original price as you can see at Antiques Roadshow (no date), the appraiser David Rago says "If I was going to put this (image 4) at auction, I would estimate it for about between $40,000 and $50,000." But the question is, why the are so valuable? They were valuable at that time and they are valuable now as well. The reason is in their quality.

Image 5

Same as Koplos et al. (2010) assert, I would assert that his copper lamps are icons of the movement. "Even today, when somebody wants a handsome photograph of Arts and Crafts furniture, they’ll put a Van Erp lamp on the Mission table and plug it in."

References:

Koplos, Metcalf, J., Bruce (2010) Makers:A History of American Studio Craft. Ebrary [Online]. Available at: http://site.ebrary.com/lib/pcollege/docDetail.action?docID=10405075&force=1&p00=erp+dirk (Accessed: 1 March 2011).

Collectics (no date) Dirk Van Erp Arts & Crafts lamps and metalwork information & history [Online]. Available at: http://www.collectics.com/education_dirkvanerp.html (Accessed: 1 March 2011).

Obniski, M. (2008) The Arts and Crafts Movement in America. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. Available at: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/acam/hd_acam.htm (Accessed: 3 March 2011)

Antiques Roadshow (no date) Available at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/2704A44.html (Accessed: 3 March 2011)

List of visuals:

Images:

Image 1: Van Erp [Online]. Available at: http://www.theageofelegance.com/info/links/dirk-van-erp.jpg (Accessed: 3 March 2011).

Image 2: Van Erp, D. (1910) Circa [Online]. Available at: http://www.theantiquetraders.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/dirk-van-erp.jpg (Accessed: 2 March 2011).

Image 3: Voorhees Craftsman Antiques (no date) Voorhees Craftsman Mission Oak Furniture [Online]. Available at: http://www.voorheescraftsman.com/img-i-32004/Dirk%20Van%20Erp%20Large%20Vase,%20%20Closed-Box%20Mark-32004.jpg (Accessed: 2 March 2011).

Image 4: Chinese pottery [Online]. Available at: http://image2.sina.com.cn/cj/imgtable/U248P31T88D506F2016DT20040924210233.jpg (Accessed: 2 March 2011).

Image 5: Van Erp, D. (1910) Dirk Van Erp Lamp [Online]. Available at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/images/wa200704A44_00.jpg (Accessed: 2 March 2011).

Videos:

Rago, D. (2011) 'Episode: Appraisal: Dirk Van Erp Copper Lamp, ca. 1925', PBS video. Available at: http://video.pbs.org/video/1754702881/# (Accessed: 1 March 2011).

MyNorthMedia (2010) Tour Northern Lights & Lifestyles, Featuring Arts and Crafts. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otam_FqRAIk&feature=player_embedded (Accessed: 1 March 2011).

Research:

1860 - 1933
Dutch American artisan, cooper smith, metal smith
Best known for lamps

Early lamps bearing the signatures of both D’Arcy Gaw and Dirk Van Erp are not only the rarest of all Van Erp lamps, they tend to be the most perfectly proportioned. D’Arcy Gaw was a gifted designer, and the lamps produced under her tenure with Van Erp were made taking advantage of both her design talents and his coppersmithing skills. After D’Arcy Gaw left the Van Erp studios, Van Erp designs rarely rose to this level. The lamps I have seen bearing the D’Arcy Gaw/Van Erp signature have started at $20,000 for small lamps, with most going to the $50,000 and higher range. Only lamps bearing the full D’Arcy Gaw name were made in the 1910-1911 period. (Note: Many lamps have a shadow of the D’Arcy Gaw name in the logo, or a few letters that are faint; these lamps were made after her name was stricken from the die stamp and are not 1910-1911 vinatge.)

http://www.artsncrafts.com/dirkvanerp/hammeredcopperlampvalues/

Dirk Van Erp was a clamp designer who immigrated from Holland to San Francisco in 1886. Van Erp's lamps consisted of hammered copper bases and shades of translucent mica (also called isinglass) treated with shellac to give them an amber cast. He arrived at his extraordinary handmade designs through a slow process of trial and error.

His early copper pieces were crafted from shell casings that he brought home from his job at the Mare Island Naval Shipyards. Initially, he gave them away to friends; later he sold them through craft shops and fairs. The positive reception to them encouraged him to give up his job and to open the Copper Shop in 1908. The lamps that he began to market around 1911 were immediately successful.

http://anc.gray-cells.com/p_dv.html

Dirk Van Erp was a San Francisco Bay Area metalsmith. He defined what coppersmithing was for the Arts and Crafts movement in America. He had many people who followed in his wake, but this fabulous wrought copper mica schist lamp was what Dirk Van Erp was known to have created and popularized. This is an early version of a Van Erp lamp. He made them for a number of years, starting at around 1908. His son was still making them into the '30s and '40s, from what I'm told. There's several ways we know this is an earlier lamp. Number one, the structural detailing. You see the way these straps or struts come up to the top...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200704A44.html

Dirk Van Erp was born in 1860 and died in 1933. He opened his own studio in 1908 in Oakland, California. He moved his studio to San Francisco in 1909 and the studio remained under the direction of his son until 1977. Van Erp made hammered copper accessories, including vases, desk sets, bookends, candlesticks, jardinieres, and trays, but he is best known for his lamps. The hammered copper lamps often had shades with mica panels.

http://www.kovels.com/Price-Guide/Dirk-Van-Erp.html

Emigrating from the Netherlands, California Arts and Crafts metalworker Dirk Van Erp was known for his metal lamps. In 1910–11, Van Erp entered into a brief partnership with Elizabeth Eleanor D'Arcy Gaw, a designer who studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and C. R. Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft. This lamp features a mica shade that crowns the hand-hammered baluster-shaped base of a rich reddish brown copper. The lamp was not produced before 1910 and it is likely to have been a collaboration between the two designers. After c left, Van Erp's studio continued to produce the designs.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1989.129

Dirk van Erp was a native of Leeuwarden in the Netherlands where he learned his craft working in the family hardware business. van Erp emigrated to the United States in 1886, traveling to San Francisco where he began working metal forms by hand hammering vases from discarded brass military shell casings while employed at the Mare Island Naval Shipyards. He gave some pieces away to his friends but increasingly sold them at crafts fairs, creating positive word of mouth and growing success. He opened his first retail store, The Copper Shop, in Oakland, California in 1908, and he established Dirk van Erp Studios in San Francisco in 1910, producing primarily lamps with hammered copper bases and mica shades. Dirk van Erp used only the very highest quality materials and adhered to the principles of hand working with simple tools and limited production of items. These principles distinguished van Erp work from similar styles produced by Roycroft which evolved into more of a mass market operation. In addition to lamps, van Erp manufactured an assortment of hand hammered trays, bowls, candlesticks, bookends, desk accessories, and vases according to the same principles of quality and craftsmanship. Most work was in copper although brass, iron, and other metals were also used. The van Erp mark of a windmill (reminding him of his origins in Holland) over the name Dirk van Erp appears on most all Dirk van Erp Company production.

http://www.collectics.com/education_dirkvanerp.html