#Architectural Compositions

[uwmspeccoll]

Decorative Sunday with Henry P. Kirby

These charming sketches are the work of New York architect Henry P. Kirby (1853 - 1915). Architectural Compositions contains fifty loose plates printed on Whatman paper and housed in a portfolio. It was published in Boston in 1892 by Bates, Kimball & Guild, publishers of one of the United State’s leading architectural journals of that time, The Architectural Review (Boston), not to be confused with the longer running Architectural Review still in publication out of London. 

Kirby would have been working as a draftsman for George B. Post at the time of publication, for whom he later worked as lead designer before striking out on his own. Some of the subject matter also evokes Kirby’s time in France, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts after training with his father, also an architect. Per the subtitle, some of the sketches were “made in connection with actual projects,” while many were “the result of study during leisure moments.” I found Kirby’s eye for the human elements in his sketches particularly endearing, from the foreground figures to details on the buildings themselves, like open widows and overgrown foliage, or what looks like a duvet cover hanging out to dry (first image above). 

For any music buffs reading, the final sketch includes some bars of "Très-jolie" from the opéra comique smash hit La Fille de Madame Angot. 

Our copy of Architectural Compositions was gifted to UWM by Gustav A. Elgeti in 1966. 

Find more Decorative Sunday posts here.

-Olivia, Special Collections Graduate Intern

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