Philip LaVerne with Dance of the Fauves coffee table.




n 2014, Kelvin LaVerne asked the New York design dealer Evan Lobel to collaborate with him on a reference book about his and his father’s work — elaborately decorated, immaculately finished, cast, engraved, and brazed pewter and bronze furniture and sculptures that erased all boundaries between art and design. “Anyone who knows me knows that I like to work at a quick pace and get a lot done very efficiently,” Lobel says. “It is now more than 10 years later and finally, this book is published. Kelvin and I have a great relationship. I’m so fond of him and he’s so funny and we get along great. But he’s an artist and a perfectionist and so am I. It needed to be absolutely perfect.”


Perfectionism is a characteristic of everything the LaVernes made. The father and son team of Philip (1907–1987) and Kelvin (b. 1937) LaVerne were innovative artist-designers who created limited edition pieces of furniture so complicated to produce that pieces could take months, even sometimes years to complete. They experimented for six years with metals and soils from around the world to refine an oxidation process that delivered exactly the right patina. “That’s why the book is called Alchemy,” Lobel says, “they were not just artists and designers but scientists.”



Dance of the Fauves coffee table, circa 1970. This striking piece balances lightness and heaviness, organic and geometric shapes, tied together by an exuberant and painterly polychrome finish and deep patination throughout. Five irregular bronze plates, three decorated with geometric motifs connect an organic-shaped base with a planar tabletop, which although weighty in appearance seems to hover over the base, contrasting the animated, dancing qualities of the plates with the monolithic, almost brutalist nature of the overall form.


Rare and important Bathers cabinet, circa 1968. Engraved, patinated bronze and pewter with decorated doors and intricate top surface patterning. Very few are known to exist, as this was a complex and time-consuming piece to produce. The Bathers design is a clear departure from the earlier illustrative Chinoiserie and Etruscan motifs, moving toward abstraction. It draws clear inspiration from the works of early modern masters, Cezanne and especially Matisse; the curved and segmented body contours of the Bathers showing distinct parallels to Matisse’s Blue Nude III. 


“The Chi Liang (tr. Broad Mindfulness) coffee table was created in the 1960s in patinated bronze and pewter with engraving and hand-painted vibrant enamels in blue, green, orange, and white; hand-formed in an undulating, multi-level shape. As described by Kelvin LaVerne: ‘The design is from a painting in China made many centuries ago. It depicts and symbolizes the Sky (representing heaven, mortality, spirituality, and the universe), the Earth (representing growth, nature, and material needs), and the River that runs through (representing fate, life, and destiny). The paintings with pastoral scenes symbolizing the religious and philosophical concepts inherent in the narrative, as well as the beauty in the artwork, is what we found so fascinating and gave us the inspiration and determination to represent these ancient Eastern civilizations and histories visually on a sculptural modern platform. The many philosophies and religions in China throughout the centuries, although similar, offered slightly different mythologies, depending on the ruling dynasty. So we created a table with a sculptural form that gives voice to all, in its dimension and shape the platforms that rise and fall in an undulating movement suggesting the uncertainties and vagaries of life. Although extremely contemporary, the form maintains the integrity of a Chinese presence.’”





Evan Lobel with Kelvin LaVerne.

The LaVernes embraced classical ideas, forms, and craftsmanship in contrast to the popular, mass-produced modernist furniture of the era. Their furniture often involved binding bronze or brass and pewter and cutting or engraving designs into metal before underground aging and natural oxidation. The metal was then cleaned, polished, and painted by hand with enamels. They also experimented with metal casting and welding or brazing with a blow torch. Philip conceived the designs with Kelvin and Kelvin did all the physical creation. He also had a team of artisans to assist him, as the process was labor intensive with everything done by hand. 


“Kelvin is at heart an artist and doesn’t like to be pushed or rushed; look at the level of thought and detail that goes into their work,” Lobel says. Lobel on the other hand is a scholar and writer and wanted to get as much information as he could from Kelvin and synthesize it into a narrative. Kelvin suffered health challenges during the time they were working on the book. “He is in his eighties and the situation became serious,” Lobel explains. “So we had to stop working on the book a couple of times, for extended periods until he was better.”




Left: Male and Female Torso table lamps in Hydro-Stone plaster that have been patinated by hand to resemble ancient sculptures with patinated bronze bases. Created in the 1970s, these lamps are an homage to classical Greco-Roman torso sculptures. Provenance: The Collection of Kelvin LaVerne. Right: Hellenic Memories, a unique collage in patinated and engraved bronze, copper, and pewter was created in the 1970s. There is also a coffee table in this series. Kelvin LaVerne explained: “We wanted to evoke the feeling of an archeological find, a piece of something perhaps broken and shaped by time, capturing time past: history.”



Lobel recalls at a certain point descriptions of works and other information started coming in more frequently. “In the end my pestering of Kelvin I think paid off.” After a few years, he had given Lobel personal recollections about 70 to 80 works which he printed out and assembled in a binder. Lobel incorporated many of these testimonials into the book, and they offer rare, precious insights into how and why the pieces exist. “The work is so intellectual. People think that they are these random, beautiful works of art. The amount of research, experimentation, thought, and purpose that underpins every part of these works is mind-blowing.”


Kelvin’s testimonials about his work were critical to the completion of the publication. The LaVernes closed their gallery showroom at 46 East 57th Street in New York in the 1980s, and most of their material — the original design drawings, archival photographs, letters, original sale invoices, and other artifacts — was moved into storage, where unfortunately it was destroyed in a fire. Kelvin kept some irreplaceable documents in his studio, including photographs of unique pieces not sold or published in catalogs, and an original sketch for the pierced bronze painting Good And Evil, which is illustrated in the book along with the finished work. “Thank goodness he retained those photos because even though the quality was poor we had a visual reference and could piece together a timeline,” Lobel says.



Left: Rainforest is a 1970s sculpture with cast, patinated bronze sides, and highlights of green patina. The top is finished in a polished, dappled torched-bronze effect. The design was inspired by the layer of leaves, twigs, and other organic matter typically found on a rainforest floor. Right: Aphrodite is a hand-brazed and patinated bronze table with an inset cast female sculpture created in the 1970s. Kelvin commented: “Aphrodite is the Greek version of the Roman goddess Venus, who symbolizes beauty, love, and pleasure, visualized by placing the sculptured figure so it embraces a portion of the table.” The cast figure of Aphrodite was inspired by Dawn, a marble sculpture by Michelangelo on the tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici in the Medici Chapel, Florence.


The 1960s Fragonard Pierced coffee table is one of the most extraordinary designs in the Historical Civilization Series, combining several extremely complicated aspects of the LaVernes’ craftsmanship. Kelvin LaVerne would hand-cut the pierced bronze tabletops in a time-consuming and intricate process to create the desired delicate effect. They were often embellished with hand-applied gold and copper leaf over the completed floral filigree. The tops of this series always contained Asian figures and at least one animal colored with cloisonné enamel, which added a sense of depth to the design. This table has a custom-fitted glass top.




Alchemy: The Art of Philip 
and Kelvin LaVerne
By Evan Lobel with Kelvin LaVerne
© 2024 Evan Lobel and Pointed Leaf Press
Published by Pointed Leaf Press
Available at Amazon and Pointed Leaf Press

At first, Lobel thought the book would be about 100 pages — something short. Next, he thought it would be at most 200 pages. But once he began discussing with Kelvin the reasons behind each piece and incorporated the many testimonials on the pieces into his writing it became closer to 300 pages with over 200 images (many of them never before seen) as the full scope of the project he had undertaken dawned upon him. “This has been an immense undertaking, spanning their entire career” Lobel explains. Even the cover of the book is a work of art — it contains an image of a LaVerne masterpiece which is engraved along with the title in gold leaf, and the pages are tipped in gold.


Lobel’s preface and introduction for the book, along with invaluable commentary by Kelvin, provide tremendously important insight into the techniques and inspiration for their artistic practice and secures Philip and Kelvin LaVerne’s place at the pinnacle of makers in the history of 20th-century American art and design. “Often in the middle of making a piece, I would put it on the side and start working on something else,” Kelvin writes in his prologue to the book. “This book was put together in the same way. I would work with Evan on it and then stop for a while. Then I’d come back to it with some additional recollections or comments I wanted to add. This is how I have always done my best work. It has taken a very long time and I believe this book explains our artistic inspirations, our unique artisan processes, and our life’s work.”