Review of Samuel McIntire, Carving an American Style at the PEM

Samuel McIntire is one of the reasons that Salem has been, and continues to be, a beautiful historic seaport city that people flock to year after year.

With this being the 250th anniversary of the birth of Salem’s renowned architect and woodcutter, Samuel McIntire, a multitude of events (including the summer walking tours and Christmas house tour) have been offered in celebration with Carving an American Style at the Peabody Essex Museum being the focal point. This exhibit ends next Sunday February 24th. If you are a student of Salem history, fine wood artistry or architecture you owe it to yourself to get over to the PEM and see this collection now in its final week. The entire third floor is devoted to the genius of McIntire’s work.

From fine furniture details; carved desks, game tables, bedposts, mirrors and chairs to mammoth structures like the Old North Church, the Washington Arch (formerly at the West gate of the Salem Common) and a plethora of buildings, a great number of original McIntire pieces are on display. Not only are these pieces beautiful, but a portion of the exhibit is devoted to showing you how McIntire build them using traditional tools and methods. Seeing a master woodcarver ply his trade and viewing the example pieces on hand gives you a unique insight and appreciation on how this master must have worked.

An integral feature of the exhibit is exploring the relationship that McIntire had with the Henry Derby family. Derby was this nation’s first millionaire, making his money through trade with the Far East. Derby commissioned a variety of works, and was the first to commission a home designed by McIntire, who had it furnished with pieces he hand-picked, adorned with carvings.

If you are lucky enough to have some time off this week (it is school vacation week after all), spend some time enjoying this exhibit so you can spend more time enjoying Salem and what she has to offer.

Final lecture of the McIntire Lecture Series

In addition to seeing the exhibit, this Wednesday night is your last chance to attend one of the lectures which have been so informative. According to the PEM:

Elisabeth Garrett Widmer presents a talk on life at home in Federal America, which was demonstrably altered by a wide range of new aesthetic, economic and social forces and will examine these influences and their multifaceted manifestations in the architecture, décor and lifestyles of fashionable citizens of the federal period in America. She will open doors and peer through windows and invite the audience to join her on a tour through the drawing room and parlor, dining room and bedchamber, closet and bath. Along the way she will make observations on decoration and décor, comfort and convenience, furniture forms and feminine persuasion, consumerism and purchasing power, family life and room usage, entertainment and politeness and all the telling minutiae of domestic details.

Elisabeth Garrett Widmer is an independent author and educator. She has previously held leadership positions at Sotheby’s, Strawbery Banke Museum, Christie’s and Antiques America. She is the author of several books including At Home; the American Family, 1750-1870, which received the Charles F. Montgomery Prize of the Decorative Arts Society for the most distinguished contribution to the study of American decorative arts published in the English language by a North American scholar. She is currently working on a book on childhood in America.

The lecture is free but tickets are limited it’s suggested you swing by the museum and pick yours up early.