George Hepplewhite (abt. 1727 – June 21, 1786)

The late 1700s saw England and France changing, causing a drastic change in American furniture tastes. George Hepplewhite, a London cabinetmaker and chair maker, began designing pieces that became very popular in not only Europe but in America. Hepplewhite style is characterized by straight leg forms, refined curves and painting and high quality inlay work. While the richness of mahogany woods is most associated with Hepplewhite designs he also used rosewood, satinwood, and tulipwood on the inlays. Dining room furniture began seeing sideboards and is associated with Hepplewhite furniture. Hepplewhite chairs often sport a shield shaped back. Pieces that were upholstered featured fabrics in designs like small birds and floral that carried down over the entire frame. The upholstery fabric was then finished with ornamental upholstery tacks.

Featuring many similarities, it is often hard to quickly discern Hepplewhite from Sheraton styles. To make matters more complicated there were no exclusive copyrights or patents in America at that time so wood workers could freely use each other’s design ideas, especially if they were marketable. There are no pieces of furniture made by Hepplewhite or his firm known to exist and some critiques and historians question the existence of George Hepplewhite. His style took hold posthumously, and not until after his wife Alice published design books she insisted were drafted by her late husband.

Thomas Sheraton (1750-1806)

British born Sheraton, like most furniture makers of his time was another cabinetmaker. Thomas Sheraton also stood out because he was a publisher and preacher. His furniture designs were widely popular and greatly influenced American furniture. Sheraton was well thought of as a superb draftsman and many of the designs are based on classical architecture. Sadly, although he wore many hats, was overworked and highly acclaimed he was barely able to earn a living, dying destitute.

Sheraton style is square, straight lined, solidly constructed furniture with slender legs that were either round or square and tapered toward the foot. His chair backs were square and often had a central panel above the top rail with high “S” shaped arms. Like other designers of his time, Sheraton used mahogany as the preferred wood. As Sheraton’s career was winding down the French Empire style became popular in Europe and he tried his hand in it. Sheraton found God was in the details and usually decorated his furniture wherever possible. His heavy embellishments of carving, inlay, and painting left few plain surfaces. A piece designed in the style of Sheraton will be adorned with urns, fan shapes, leaves, stars along with brass hardware and round glass knobs.

Thomas Chippendale (June 5 1718 – November 1779)

Chippendale was the first style of furniture in England that was named after the designer and not after a ruling monarch. Chippendale had something in his background that the other two great British designers did not. Thomas Chippendale was much more than just a cabinet maker, he was an interior designer. Like the other two, Chippendale was a published and popular author of furniture design. Working with the upholsterer James Rannie and later with Rannie’s assistant, Thomas Haig, Chippendale maintained artistic control of his well-appointed furnishings.

Not to veer from the popular, the finest Chippendale style pieces were usually crafted from mahogany but walnut, cherry and maple were used for less expensive versions. Many Chippendale pieces have cabriole legs and have a shell motif. American cabinetmakers often incorporated the claw-and-ball foot into their versions of Chippendale designs. The style of claw-and-ball feet was already passé with English furniture craftsmen but in America the feet were still being used.

Unlike Hepplewhite who has no surviving pieces, Chippendale has twenty-six documented commissions in estates, castles and in the original aristocratic houses for which they were created. The workshop the elder began was continued by his son, Thomas Chippendale, the younger (1749-1822). Young Chippendale was fond of working in the later Neoclassical and Regency styles.

“Nature is my manifestation of God. I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day’s work. I follow in building the principles which nature has used in its domain,” wrote the legendary American furniture designer and architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright was born June 8, 1867, just in time for the Arts and Crafts Movement to begin in the 1880’s. The Arts and Crafts Philosophy was centered around going back to basics, creating with organic natural designs and crafting with handmade artisanship. Deemed the father of organic designs, Wright drew from nature and its splendors in all his designs and used elements like concrete and glass to blend his designs into the surrounding environment.

Born into the fussy Victorian era Wright rejected their heavy ornamentation and ostentatious gilding for a more rigid and symmetrical style. He believed so much in blurring the boundaries between interiors and exteriors that Wright once allowed a willow to grow in the center of his own home. So inspired was Wright with nature and organic unity that he became involved with every detail of the project from the architectural design to the furniture to even the most minute interior detail. Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes down to their stained glass windows and dishes.

Glass was favored by Wright as a very important design element. He felt that the quality of glass allowed interaction in his designs with nature because glass permitted viewing of the outdoors while providing protection from the elements. Wright even wrote a comparison essay on glass that compared it to nature’s mirrors like lakes, rivers and ponds. By stringing panes of glass to create light screens that joined together with solid walls the architect utilized large amounts of glass and glass bricks. Wright’s Prairie style is well known for this. The Johnson Wax Headquarters is famous for his use of Pyrex tubes on the ceiling to let in soft lighting.

From geometrically patterned plates to entire hotels, Wrights designs are still collected and studied today from the originals down to reproductions. Wright, who authored twenty books and wrote many articles, was a popular lecturer all around the world in his time. Although the designer passed away in 1959 he was honored in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects. The Institute proclaimed Frank Lloyd Wright “the greatest American architect of all time”. Quite an achievement in the 20^th Century where some of the most famous buildings in history were built like the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and even the World Trade Towers.