Hand Wrought Silver + Architecture: the Artistry of William Waldo Dodge

William Waldo Dodge (1895-1971) enrolled as an architecture student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied under noted Arts & Crafts author and architect Ralph Adams Cram. Dodge's career as an architect was derailed in 1917 with America's entry into World War I. Shipped home in 1919, he spent the next four years in military hospitals and tuberculosis sanatoriums, where as part of his recuperation he learned the craft of silversmithing. In 1924, he settled with his wife in Asheville, North Carolina and began to establish himself as an Arts & Crafts silversmith. For the next 18 years, Dodge designed and produced some of the finest known examples of American Arts & Crafts sterling silver. From 1924 through 1942, Dodge was called upon to design several unique residences in Asheville, nearly all of which reflected his firm belief in hand craftmanship, honest materials and an integrated role of the architect not just as a designer, but as an artisan working alongside brickmasons, carpenters and painters as each home took shape. Dodge's work is now recognized for the heavy gauge of silver he insisted on using, the unique hammering techniques he developed, and his natural sense of the proper proportion , angle and shape of each piece. Catalog to accompany the exhibition at the Asheville Art Museum, 8.5x10", 88 pp., b&w photographs.