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Contents:
BERKEY & GAY FURNURE CO.
* berkey & gay furniture *
Gay, the son of an early partner the bs, Gee Gay, beme a proment lear of both the pany and the muny, and sat on the boards of m any banks and civic anizatn. John Keck of Ann Arbor, Michigan, signed Renaissance Revival, Neo-Grec, and Eastlake-style piec on ntract for Berkey & Gay the 1870s. Many Berkey & Gay signs required a nsirable amount of hand craftsmanship, so the pany cultivated large partments of rvers and rators.
Some cludg Fred Weber and Chris Haraldstadt, grew up Ameri but me om regns of Germany and Norway that were known for their rvg tradns, and worked for forty years or more at Berkey & Gay. Others, like Florente master rver Leopold Baillot, and Japane rator Fugi Nakamiso, were reced through Amerin foreign embassi to brg their experience overseas, to work for Berkey & Gay. Bee of the pany’s size and longevy, llectors seem to enunter Berkey & Gay products more equently than those of any other Grand Rapids pany.
It also noted that Berkey & Gay did not make s own parlor am, but purchased them om Holton & Hildreth of Chigo, then pleted the upholstery for s own retail tra.
BERKEY AND GAY
Berkey & Gay’s Goln Oak piec have very high relief their rvg, which ranged om grottoque fantasy creatur to swirlg French flourish.
BERKEY AND GAY
A few Arts and Crafts style su were troduced the first of this century unr nam like “English Morn, ” but generally speakg Berkey & Gay passed on the whole movement. Upholsterg was spun off to subsidiari like Wallace Upholstery and Grand Rapids Upholstery, so Berkey & Gay ncentrated on livg room and bedroom su.
1934 – 1948: Berkey & Gay had ventured to Morn or Art De signs before was closed 1931, and ntued to produce both “tradnal and morn” l when re-opened. Both the Grand Rapids Public Mm and the Grand Rapids Public Library have large llectns of advertisg piec and pany histori as well and tra talogs om Berkey & Gay.
A Berkey & Gay table, cir 1875, the llectns of the Public Mm bears a black stencil of the pany name on the unrsi of s stretchers. One of the most teemed early twentieth-century furnure makers, Berkey and Gay is known for s e of fe material and s furnure’s distctive style.