Addison "Add" Bates
Addison "Add" Bates (11 October 1907 - 2 May 1990) was a custom furniture designer and maker, dancer, and gallerist active in Harlem, New York from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Early life
Bates trained in upholstery and furniture making in the early 1920s but was prevented from joining the upholster-er's union at age 18 because the upholster-er's union was represented by the racially segregated American Federation of Labor.[1] Bates recognized that furniture was a luxury during the Great Depression and took up Dance, where he performed in shows for the Workers Dance League and Dance Project under the Federal Theatre Project.[2]
Dance
For a period, while unemployed in the field of furniture, Bates took classes and became a member of the Red Dancers.[3] Bates’ dance performances captured leftist politics and delivered them with powerful rigor. Choreographer Edith Segal, approached Bates for a lead role in her pathbreaking production: Black and White. Black and White is a leftist-communist performance about racial unity in the workplace and among workers. After the shows, Bates appeared with Hy Boris (his White dance partner) on the cover of Workers Theatre.[4] Borris danced alongside Bates for the rest of that year before being replaced by Irving Lansky.
Furniture Design
In 1934, Charles Alston and Henry W.Bannarn rented an old horse stable at 306 West 141st Street in the Harlem district of New York City.[5] The converted stable had vast-open floor space on the ground level with two floors of apartments above. Add and his brother, Leonard Bates, rented and worked there for years to come with; painter Jacob Lawrence, printmaker Robert Blackburn, authors Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison and Claude Mckay, and artists Norman Lewis, Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, Ernest Crichlow, O. Richard Reid and Gwendolyn Knight.[6]
In the first three years at the "306 Studio", Bate's studio space grew from a one floor workshop to a $40,000/yr business operating in two floors of the East Harlem building. Bates grew fast because of his striking originality, neatness and sense of quality.[7]
Bates planned and built a 20’ wall for theatrical agent William Morris in his New York home. It consisted of a glass enclosed bar, bookcase, television, speaker case, radio phonograph and storage cabinet, priced at $950.
Bates built a custom-piece he called the Low Cocktail table for William Morris which was made of a Light Oak with Realwood Micarta top. It also featured four, hair-stuffed, rubberized pads for persons to rest their feet on, priced at $185.
Washington Forge Cutlery Company showroom and office was designed and furnished by Bates with a grand total of $2,800. Tools and Machinery in Bates shop are valued at over $8,000.
Selected Quotes
- "Life today is so hectic that it is more necessary than ever for the home to be a restful as well as beautiful place."
- "Custom-made furniture is more expensive than the factory-produced kind, but there are so many advantages to justify the price differential. The most important thing about this kind of furniture is that the client gets exactly what he wants. Mass-produced furniture today too often is standardized and fails to impart that warm, personal feeling so many people desire. A human being has individual needs in everything, furniture included. That’s where a custom maker comes in. The idea is to find out the tastes and needs of a person and build furniture to suit them."
- "More people today want furniture that is sensible and attractive, that is useful, comfortable, beautiful and easy to clean."
- "A piece of furniture should serve its purpose as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. Planning is the keynote of today’s living. A good modern home is a planned home. Planning comes from careful balance, selection and sensible placing of pieces of furniture."
References
- ↑ Wilson, Kristina (2021). Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design. Project Muse, Project MUSE (First ed.). Princeton. ISBN 978-0-691-21349-1. OCLC 1245918686. Search this book on
- ↑ Manning, Susan (2004). Modern dance, Negro dance : race in motion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-3736-9. OCLC 53183602. Search this book on
- ↑ Manning, Susan (2004). Modern dance, Negro dance : race in motion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-3736-9. OCLC 53183602. Search this book on
- ↑ Manning, Susan (2004). Modern dance, Negro dance : race in motion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-3736-9. OCLC 53183602. Search this book on
- ↑ Wilson, Kristina (2021). Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design. Project Muse, Project MUSE (First ed.). Princeton. ISBN 978-0-691-21349-1. OCLC 1245918686. Search this book on
- ↑ Wilson, Kristina (2021). Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design. Project Muse, Project MUSE (First ed.). Princeton. ISBN 978-0-691-21349-1. OCLC 1245918686. Search this book on
- ↑ Wilson, Kristina (2021). Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design. Project Muse, Project MUSE (First ed.). Princeton. ISBN 978-0-691-21349-1. OCLC 1245918686. Search this book on
- Manning, Susan. Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion. United Kingdom, University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
- Wilson, Kristina. Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Power in Design. United States, Princeton University Press, 2021.
- Ebony (magazine)
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