biografia di Clara Barck WELLES (1868-1965)

Birth place: Ellenville, NY

Death place: San Diego, CA

Addresses: Oregon City, OR, 1880-90; Portland OR, 1894-97; Chicago, IL, 1899-1940; San Diego, CA, 1940-65

Profession: Silversmith, designer

Studied: AIC, dept. decorative design

Exhibited: ASL, 1899, 1901, 1902; Alumni Retrospective Exhib., 1922, AIC; Contemporary Industrial and Handwrought Silver," The Brooklyn Mus., 1937; MMA, 1937"

Member: Cordon Club

Work: AIC; BM; Chicago Hist. Soc.; DMA; Evanston Hist. Soc.; Grand Rapids Art Mus.; Henry Ford Mus. and Greenfield Village Dearborn, MI; High Mus. Art, Atlanta, GA; Huntington Library, Art Collections, Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA; BMFA; MMA; St. Louis Art Mus., Yale Univ. Art Gal. New Haven, CT. The Kalo Shop received commissions for large trophies, bowls and trays.

Comments: Welles was an important contributor to the American Arts and Crafts Movement in metal work. He founded the Kalo Shop in Chicago in 1900 and designed most of the wares produced there.The shop produced works in paper, copper, and burnt leather goods prior to 1905 at which point they adopted silversmithing and began producing jewelry and silver table items. Later there were as many as twenty-five silversmiths, male and female, employed in the school in a workshop" (as many of them were also students). Welles advocated the active participation of women in the arts. She managed the retail and craft community shop and its various retail outlet locations until 1940 when she retired. She died in 1964 and the Kalo Shop closed in 1970. Also known as C.B. Wells.

Sources: Info courtesy of Stanley W. Hess, Silverdale, WA; Sharon Darling, Chicago Silversmiths (Chicago: Chicago Hist. Soc., 1977). "