Samuel Yellin

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Samuel Yellin, 1927
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Samuel Yellin, 1927

Samuel Yellin (1885–1940), American master blacksmith, was born in Galicia Poland where at the age of eleven he was apprenticed to an iron master. By the age of sixteen had had completed his apprenticeship. During that period he gained the nickname of "Devil", both for his work habits and his sense of humor. Shortly after this he left Poland, traveling through Europe to England, where, in 1906, he departed for America.

Yellin’s Workshop, c.1912
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Yellin’s Workshop, c.1912

By 1907 he was taking classes at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the Philadelphia College of Art) and within a year was teaching classes there, a position that he maintained until 1919.

In 1909 he opened his own shop and in 1915 the firm of Mellor, Meigs and Howe, for whom he designed and created many commissions, designed Yellin a new studio at 5520 Arch Street in Philadelphia where he was to remain until his death in 1940. The building continued to act as a functioning business under Yellin’s son Harvey’s direction. After his demise it served as the Samuel Yellin Museum.

During the building boom of the 1920s Yellin’s studio employed as many as 250 workers, many of them European artisans. Although Yellin appreciated traditional craftsmanship and design, he always championed creativity and the development of new designs. He was no slave to the past. Samuel Yellin’s handiwork can be found on some of the finest buildings in America.

Contents

[edit] Selected Universities, Colleges and Schools

door knocker, Mellor & Meigs office, Philadelphia, PA
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door knocker, Mellor & Meigs office, Philadelphia, PA
gate, J.E. Aldred estate 1923
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gate, J.E. Aldred estate 1923

[edit] Selected Institutional/Commercial Works

Entrance gate, Packard Building, NYC 1924
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Entrance gate, Packard Building, NYC 1924
  • Ford Motor Company, NY
  • Dime Savings Bank, NY
  • Detroit Public Library
  • General Motors Co., NY
  • Victor Talking Machine Co,
  • Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Atlantic City, NJ
  • Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts
  • Harkness Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven CT
entrance gate, Curtis Institute of Music 1927
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entrance gate, Curtis Institute of Music 1927
  • Union Station, Indianapolis, IN
  • Peabody Museum, New Haven, CT
  • American Radiator Building, NY
  • Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit MI
  • International Business Machine (IBM) NY NY
  • Barclay-Vesey Building, NY
  • Morristown Memorial, Morristown NJ
  • Sarasota Court House, Sarasota FL
  • Union Pacific RR Station, Boise ID
  • Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Building, Philadelphia PA
  • Allegheny County Courthouse, Pittsburgh PA
  • Fidelity Bankers Trust, Knoxville TN
  • Grand Rapids Art Gallery, Grand Rapids MI
  • Salvation Arm Headquarters, NY NY
  • Aetna Life Insurance Co, Hartford CT
  • Law Library, Ann Arbor MI
  • Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA
  • The Cloisters (Metropolitan Museum of New York), NY NY
  • San Diego Air Station, San Diego CA

[edit] Selected Ecclesiastical works

Screen, St Vincent Ferrer, NYC 1918
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Screen, St Vincent Ferrer, NYC 1918
bronze entrance, Bok Singing Tower, 1928
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bronze entrance, Bok Singing Tower, 1928

[edit] Selected Residential Works

  • Gates for Long Island estate of J.P. Morgan
  • Frick Residence, NY
  • Isaac Guggenheim residence, Port Washington, NY
  • DuPont residence
  • Havemeyer Residence
  • Walter Rosen, Caramoor, Katonah, NY
  • George G. Booth residence
  • Edward Bok residence, Philadelphia, PA
  • Elie Nadelman NY
  • Fred Fisher, Detroit, MI
  • Andrew W. Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
  • Mrs. P.A. Rockefeller, Fayetteville, NY
  • Cyrus McCormick, Chicago, IL
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Deer Run, PA
  • E.W. Marland Estate, Ponca City, OK

[edit] Architects whose names appear in Yellin’s Job Book

[edit] Sources

  • Andrews, Jack, Samuel Yellin – Metelsmith, Skipjack Press, Ocean Pines Maryland, 2000
  • Andrews, Jack, Samuel Yellin, Metalworker, Anvil’s Ring, Summer, 1982
  • Architecture magazine, April 1929
  • Bach, Penny Balkin, Public Art in Philadelphia, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1992
  • Bedford, Steven McLeod, John Russell Pope – Architect of Empire, Rizzoli International Publications, NY, NY 1998
  • Bok, Edward W., America’s Taj Mahal – The Singing Tower of Florida, The Georgia Marble Company, Tate, Georgia c. 1929
  • Davis, Myra T., Sketches in Iron, no publishing information
  • Detroit Institute of Arts – The Architecture, The Detroit Institute of Arts 1928
  • Federman, Peter, The Detroit Public Library, Classical America IV, Classical America 1977
  • Gallery, John A., Editor, Philadelphia Architecture – A Guide to the City, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1984
  • Heilbrun, Margaret, The Architecture of Cass Gilbert, Inventing the Skyline, Columbia University Press, New York, NY 2000
  • Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, Architectural Sculpture of America, unpublished manuscript
  • Teitelman, Edward & Richard W. Longstreth, Architecture in Philadelphia – A Guide, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1981
  • Wattenmaker, Richard J., Samuel Yellin In Context, Flint Museum of Arts, Flint, Michigan 1985
  • Wister, Cret, Gilchrist et al, Melor Meigs & Howe, Graybooks, Boulder Colorado 1991 (reprint of 1923 work)
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