The Chair, the Bench, and the Spaces In Between

A Biography in Objects

A turned-wood chair.
A velvet scroll arm.
A solitary bench by the lake.

She was born in 1897 in New York City, a few blocks from Central Park and the Harlem River. The city had only recently been consolidated into five boroughs. Buildings were rising, but daily life remained close to the street. Interiors were dense with fabric and furniture. Lace filtered light. Chairs absorbed use.

At the turn of the twentieth century, domestic rooms were structured around maintenance. Upholstery was protected. Wood was polished and retained. Chairs were positioned with intention and returned to their places. Velvet and polished surfaces signaled care. Antimacassars were laid across arms and backs, laundered regularly, pressed, and replaced. Wear was managed, not erased.

By 1902, she appears in a studio portrait, five years old and seated in a turned-wood spindle-back chair. Her boots are laced, one hand resting lightly on the top rail. A patterned rug anchors the scene, a pale fur arranged at her feet. She sits with caution. The chair holds her briefly, then releases her.

Young girl seated in a turned-wood spindle-back chair. Studio portrait, c. 1902.
From the Acanthus Home private archive.

These portraits were not intended to document furniture. And yet the furniture persists.

In 1935, she appears again. The setting is quieter. She sits in a carved scroll-arm chair upholstered in cut velvet. A stair rises behind her. Light enters from the side. Her hand drapes easily over the armrest.

Woman seated in a carved scroll-arm velvet chair. Interior portrait, c. 1935.
From the Acanthus Home private archive.

In 1902, she was placed.
By 1935, she chooses.

Between these moments is an absence.

In 1915, she stands by the lake at Westlake Park in Los Angeles. She is photographed briefly, not seated. In 1919, the same park appears again, this time through a bench occupied by a man writing to her. The bench records his waiting.

None of these furnishings were hers to own. And yet each received her, or the memory of her, long enough to retain it.

The chair in New York.
The bench in Los Angeles.
The scroll-arm chair years later.

Furniture does not narrate a life directly. It records proximity. It retains posture. It preserves the spaces in between.