I had spent much of my time at the preview of the museum exhibit of African American art looking at the works on the walls. I recognized most of the artists, and had seen some of their works before.
Henry Ossawa Tanner. Barbara Chase-Riboud. Elizabeth Catlett. Glenn Ligon. Samuel J. Brown Jr.
Then I rounded a corner in the small exhibition space and came right smack upon one of the most beautiful art pieces in the exhibit: An intricately and deeply carved Victrola cabinet like none I’d seen before – and I’ve seen plenty of them at auction, some in good condition and some not.
The carvings on this cabinet seemed to be telling a story all their own, from the hands with extended index fingers on the front to the hearts and stars on all sides. I instantly wanted to know who this artist was.
The exhibit is being staged at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from Jan. 15 to April 5, 2015. Titled “Represent: 200 Years of African American Art,” it features about 75 works from more than 50 artists in the museum’s collection. One of the most remarkable is Tanner’s “The Annunciation,” which the museum bought in 1899 as its first by an African American artist.
The exhibit includes paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, textiles, photography and furniture. The catalog includes a total of 160 works.
I quickly checked the bio card for the name of the Victrola artist. He was William M. Plummer, and he lived from 1872 to 1942. The oak and walnut cabinet was believed to have been made between 1915 and 1930.
Plummer was born in Smyth County, Va., moved away for awhile after he got married, then returned to his hometown with his family. He worked as a machinist, sawmill engineer and mechanic in the local auto industry.
He soon began using his creativity, innate skills and acquired mechanical skills to become a versatile designer. Self-taught, he designed a tractor and a motorcycle. A man who loved working with wood, he also created an all-wooden bicycle, a banjo that he learned to play and an airplane. I could find little else about his inventions.
Plummer made the Victrola cabinet – which he estimated required 300 pieces of wood – to hold his player and his records, according to the museum catalog. The motifs of hands, hearts, vines and stars came from Southern folk art, the catalog added. He also decorated the cabinet with “stylized images” of the Victor Talking Machine emblem, the trademark dog Nipper listening to his master’s voice.
“The cabinet’s lavish ornamentation celebrates the talking machine’s technology and underscores the importance of music to its maker and to the religious and social life of African American communities in the South,” the catalog entry noted. “Plummer prized this object; he had himself photographed with it, and the cabinet was mentioned in his obituaries as one of the primary examples of his inventiveness and creativity.”
Plummer’s cabinet was much more ornate than many of the Victrola upright floor models, especially the VV-XI (Eleven), the company’s most popular and common cabinet up until the 1920s. That one was a simple cabinet with few design flourishes, and it didn’t cost a lot of money.
The 1925 Victrola Credenza floor model was considered among the top of the line. The company also produced tabletop models, first introduced in 1909.
The Victor company’s wood cabinets were decoratively carved, but much of it was done by machine. Around 1920, though, the company was said to be well-known for its group of about 125 skilled male carvers who produced simple handiwork on the less-expensive cabinets but were extravagant on the higher-priced ones.
The company made tons of Victor and Victrola phonographs – around 8 million – from 1906 to 1929, according to the website victor-victrola.com. Because of that, very few are rare or valuable. One of the most scarce is the VV-107 model since only 1,000 of them were made.
You can see some of the early machines at the Johnson Victrola Museum in Dover, DE, which honors the state’s native son Eldridge R. Johnson, who founded the company. The museum includes phonographs, recordings and other memorabilia.
You’ll have to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibit to see Plummer’s Victrola cabinet. You can see a photo of him with his cabinet in the 2000 book “Souls Grown Deep,” page 55.
