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Cigar Store Indian Original Artists
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The following is a list of the most notable Original Cigar Store Indian Carvers
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Herman Kruschke (1888-1899)
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John Philip Yaeger (1823-1899)
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William Teubner (1855)
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William Teubner (1874-1883)
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James Campbell (1851-1900)
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Pierre G Gaspari (1861)
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Richard Callanan (1867-1901)
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Thomas J. White (1825-1902)
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Louis Jobin (1845-1928)
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Jean-Baptiste Cote (1834-1907)
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Claude Cote (1867-1869)
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Thomas V. Brooks (1828-1895)
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Isacc Lewin / Isacc Lewis (1895-1896)
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Claude Cote (1883-1912)
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Julius Theodore Melchers (1829-1909)
c.1865
Category: Sculpture
Medium: Wood
Collection of the New York State Historical Association.
Description: Polychromed carved wood figure of male indian. Figure
wears yellow leggings with braided trim on sides, long-sleeved knee length yellow
tunic with fringed hem. White feather overskirt, short mantle around shoulders,
red blanket over shoulder and tucked into belt on left side, short moccasins,
small feathered headdress with flat braided extension down back, metal hoop
earring in pierced ears. Large oval medallion inscribed "m" hangs from beaded
necklace around neck. Below shoulder-length hair worn behind ears, down back.
Right arm straight down side, hand holds box of cigars. Left arm extended at
elbow, hand holds bunch of cigars.
Once owned by a cigar store In Kansas City; Former owner claims it was carved In Detroit.
References:
Fried, Frederick. Artists In Wood. New York: Clarkson N.
Potter, 1970, Pp.137-143.
Pendergast, A.W. And Ware, W. Porter. Cigar
Store Figures In American Folk Art. Chicago: 1953.
Robertson, Jean.
The Artist & His Works: Julius Melchers, Student Paper. Cooperstown Graduate
Program, 1971.
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Henry A. Siebert (1829-1909)
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Theodore Crongeyer (1872-1890)
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Ferdinand Lapp (1890)
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Anthony Osebold jr (1882)
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Charles Guhle (1888)
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David R Proctor (1854-1866)
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James Campbell (1851-1900)
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Daniel N. Train (1799)
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Charles J Dodge (1806-1886)
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Jeremiah Dodge & Son (1833-1842)
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Dodge & Anderson (1846-1870)
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Thomas Millard, jr (1803-1870)
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John L. Cromwell (1805-1873)
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Thomas J. White (1825-1902)
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Brooks & White (1871-1876)
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Thomas V. Brooks (1828-1895)
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William Demuth (unknown dates)
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William Boulton (1860-1875)
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Simon Strauss (1866-1897)
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John W. Anderson (1834-1904)
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Charles Brown (1846-1917)
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Elijah Tryon (1844-1899)
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Justinus Stoll North (1871-1900
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Smauel Anderson Robb (1851-1928)
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Charles Robb (1855-1904)
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Clarence Robb (1878-1956)
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Frede4rick Kaiffer (1860-1892)
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Hemry F. Metzler (1857)
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J. Dengler (1870)
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Winter Lindmark (1863-1870)
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James A. Brooks (1869-1937)
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William Rush (1756-1833)
1756–1833, American sculptor, one of the earliest in the country, b. Philadelphia. His wood carvings, clay models, and figureheads were famous in their day. Of his other works, carved in wood, the statue of George Washington is in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and a bronze replica of his graceful Spirit of the Schuylkill (1812) is in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. Thomas Eakins painted Rush at work on this figure (1877; Philadelphia Mus. of Art). Rush was a leader in founding the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which owns many of his works including a plaster cast of a vigorous self-portrait. He also did portraits of Joseph Wright, Samuel Morris, Washington, Lafayette, and others. The Philadelphia Museum of Art contains some of his sprightly allegorical figures, among them Comedy and Tragedy. )
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Samuel H. Sailor (1857-1885)
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James Brown (1883)
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Francis Jacob Deker (1888-1898)
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Charles J. Hamilton (1832-1858)
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Charles Dowler (1841-1931)
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Charles J. Hamilton (1832-1881)
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Work Cited & Original Photos from (Artists in Wood) by Frederick Fried 1970
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Until recently, a great mystery surrounded that part of American folk sculpture commonly known as Cigar Store Indians, show figures, and circuswagon carvings. In nearly all instances, when exhibited these were labeled (artist unknown.)
An enterprising 19th-century merchant who could afford the purchase price - which could run up to several hundred dollars - would invest in a shop figure to promote his wares. While some shop figures were countertop models, the most convincing of these silent hawkers stood just outside the door, and were often mounted on wheels so that they could be rolled in and out. Such full-length figures date to the 1700's, but had their heyday in the mid-to late 1800's; they began to disappear after the turn of the century as electrified signs made them increasingly obsolete.
The products of
woodworking shops, these large sculptures were often made by shop
carvers who turned their hand to other types of carving as their
own trade declined. Different figures signaled different wares -
a jaunty sailor was likely to stand in front of a ship's
chandlery, for example, while a Chinaman might appear by the door
of a tea emporium.
The most common type of shop figure, however, identified the tobacconist's. These figures, initially inspired by the American Indian - who had introduced the exotic weed to European explores - originated in 17th-century England. In America, however, Indian figures were not made in quantity until the mid-1800's. They generally depicted sterotypical chiefs and squaws - with plumed headdresses, tomahawks, or bows and arrows - but as the use of the Indian figure became widespread, carvers turned to more novel subjects, like the clown character, Punch or Uncle Sam, appropriately shown with a bundle of cigars, a snuffbox, or a pipe.
The
trade signs and shop figures that merchants customarily placed
outside their stores enticed customers to spend their money on an
ever-increasing range of goods during the 1800's. When the century opened,
the American merchantile system was a specialized one. Since
there was no wholesaling, merchants both in cities and in small
towns generally made their own wares, and thus concentrated on a
single product. The hatmaker crafted and sold hats, for example,
while the apothecary purveyed the drugs and remedies he mixed.
One exception to the specialized shop, however, was the rural
trading post, where farmers bartered their excess produce for
necessities ranging from bullets to molasses.
By the mid-1800's, the
development of factories and mills, as well as improved
transportations systems, enabled manufacturers to distribute
products on a national scale. City shops became retail outlets
for manufactured goods, and the trading post developed into the
bustling emporium known as the country store, which now stocked
food delicacies, toilet soap, Paris ribbon, and Brussels lace, as
well as more ordinary basics. The keeper of the country store
often served as banker and postmaster, and his place of business
also might double as a meeting lodge and social club, where
townsfolk could gather to discuss politics or play checkers at
the ubiquitopus cracker barrel.
Shop figures were not the
only form of advertising that was used in early America; no
sooner did business become established in this country than did
trade symbols begin to appear over doorways and windows. These
large, three-dimensional sculptures, the outgrowth of a Eurpopean
tradition believed to have originated with the ancient Romans,
were initially intended to catch the attention of a predominantly
illiterate public by offering visuall, rather than verbal,
messages. Bold and self-explanatory, an oversize cutler's knife
or a giant locksmith's key could be "read" instantly by
any potential customer - even one passing by quickly on horseback
or carriage.
Most trade symbols were commissioned by business owners from handcraftsmen. Those carved from wood were generally made by the same workshops that produced ship carvings and shop figures. Metal trade symbols were produced by smiths working in tin, iron, and copper, and beginning in the mid-19th century, metal trade symbols were manufactured in factories that specialized in ornamental cast iron and zinc. Tradesman wanting to advertise their particular talents also craft signs for themselves; it was only natural, for instance, for a farrier to hammer out an enormous horseshoe that he could hang outside his own forge.
Their
exaggerated forms and the simple logic of their straightforward
symbolism endow these overblown sculptures with a peculiar appeal. The references were
intentionally obvious: scissors indicated the services of a
tailor, a pocket watch a jeweler, a shoe a shoemaker, a gun a
gunsmith. An oversize tooth was the chilling, yet immediately
recognizable sign of a dentist, while a mortar and pestle
identified an apothecary. Sometimes the design came from a long
established symbol, like the striped barber's pole. New forms
might also develop with the arrival of an industry; the image of
the sheep, for example, became a standard symbol for the numerous
woolen textile mills that began operation in 19th-century
England.
While
many trade symbols were simple sculptural forms, some were quite
elaborate, featurnig a variety of mechanical contrivances and
moving parts.
A tin teapot displayed above the doorway of a teashop, for
example, might be plumbed with steam pipes so that puffs of steam
would waft from its spout in cold weather. In an equally novel
approach, the bespectacled eyes that frequently appeared over
opticians' shops 
were often illuminated with gas lamps in the late 1800s,
and then later, as technology developed, with electric lights.
As the form of a trade symbol was generally sufficient to convey information, lettering was seldom added. At the most, a sign might include the name of the proprietor. But while this could be advantageous for a business owner in a busy city-where there might be more than one hatter or one butcher in the same neighborhood-it was hardly necessary in a rural community. In small towns, competiteion among shopkeepers seldom existed, and proprietors were generally already known by name.
Work Cited & Original Photos from (Artists in Wood) by Frederick Fried 1970
Copright 1970 by Frederick Fried
Crown Publishers, Inc.
419 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016
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Cigar Store Indians & Wooden Shop Figures
7752 Fall creek Drive
Indianapolis, Indiana 46236
(317) 826-1096
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