Cranbrook

Cranbrook Educational Community

39221 Woodward Avenue
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303-0801
1-877-GO-CRANBrook (1-877-462-7262)

www.cranbrook.edu

Cranbrook had its beginnings in 1904, when George Gough Booth, publisher of the Detroit News, and his wife, Ellen Warren Scripps Booth, bought a large farm in the rolling countryside of Bloomfield Hills and named it after the English village of Cranbrook, the Booth family ancestral home. Taking up residence in 1907, the Booths gradually transformed their farm estate into a remarkable cultural and educational complex consisting of their home, Cranbrook House; the Meeting House, which was expanded into the elementary Brookside School; Christ Church, Cranbrook; Cranbrook School for boys; Cranbrook Academy of Art; Kingswood School for girls; and Cranbrook Institute of Science. A superb integration of architectural and landscape design elements, the Cranbrook complex represents a unique masterpiece in the history of American architecture. It embodies the belief shared by its founder, George G. Booth, and its principal architect, Eliel Saarinen, that art should permeate every aspect of life.¹Today Cranbrook Educational Community is an internationally renowned center for the arts, education, science and culture comprising Cranbrook's Academy of Art, Art Museum, Institute of Science, Schools and other affiliated cultural and educational programs.

Cranbrook features several works by Oscar Bach: a clock in the dining hall and a set of wrought iron gates fabricated after a design by Eliel Saarinen.

The collection also contains an Oscar Bach smoking stand made of bronze. Nearby Christ Church contains Oscar Bach’s treasury room door of steel with silver and gold inlay, the commission for which Bach competed with Samuel Yellin. Oscar Bach and Samuel Yellin would also contribute metalwork designs for a relation of Ellen Warren Scripps Booth, Mr. William E. Scripps, at his Lake Orion estate called Moulton Manor.

Arts & Crafts Clock. 1927. Iron, Copper, Bronze, Aluminum, Enamel. Diameter: 55 3/8”

Photograph from Matlack Price, Design & Craftsmanship in Metals, The Creative Art of Oscar B. Bach, 1938.

Entrance Gates to Cranbrook School (Peacock Gate). 1928. Wrought Iron. H: 92” x W:158” ; Lead Sculpture of an Eagle in Pediment Central Niche.

Gates: Eliel Saarinen (designer) Oscar Bach (fabricator). Lead Eagle: Oscar Bach

Photographs from "Design in America, The Cranbrook Vision, 1925-1950, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1983, p.157.

Smoking Stand with Sailing Ship Finial. Circa 1923. Bronze. H: 40 1/8”. Diameter: 9 3/8”

Photograph courtesy of Cranbrook Art Museum

Images of Christ Church Treasury Door

Photograph from Matlack Price, Design & Craftsmanship in Metals, The Creative Art of Oscar B. Bach, 1938.

Friends of Oscar Bach wish to thank Robert Saarnio, Mark Coir and Sarah Schleuning of Cranbrook Educational Community and the Michigan Historical Center for assisting with the above information.

¹ Text courtesy of Michigan Historical Center