Samuel Yellin

Samuel Yellin (1885 -1940)

Biography

American blacksmith, born in Galicia Poland where, at the age of eleven he was apprenticed to an iron master. By the age of sixteen had had completed his apprenticeship. During that period he gained the nickname of "Devil", both for his work habits and his sense of humor. Shortly after this he left Poland, traveling through Europe to England, where, in 1906, he departed for America. By 1907 he was taking classes at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now the Philadelphia College of Art) and within a year was teaching classes there, a position that he maintained until 1919. In 1909 he opened his own shop and in 1915 the firm of Mellor, Meigs and Howe, for whom he designed and created many commissions, designed Yellin a new studio at 5520 Arch Street in Philadelphia where he was to remain until his death in 1940. The building continued to act as a functioning business under Yellins son Harveys direction. After his demise it served as the Samuel Yellin Museum. During the building boom of the 1920s Yellins studio employed as many as 250 workers, many of them artisans brought over from the Old World. Although Yellin appreciated Old World craftsmanship and design he always championed creativity and the development of new designs. He was no slave to the past. Samuel Yellins handiwork can be found on some of the finest buildings in America.

Selected Universities, Colleges and Schools

Selected Institutional/Commercial Works

  • Ford Motor Company, NY
  • Dime Savings Bank NY
  • Detroit Public Library
  • General Motors Co., NY
  • Victor Talking Machine Co,
  • Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Atlantic City, NJ
  • Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts
  • Harkness Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven CT
  • Union Station, Indianapolis, IN
  • Peabody Museum, New Haven, CT
  • Radiator Building NY
  • Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit MI
  • International Business Machine (IBM) NY NY
  • Barclay-Vasey Building
  • Morristown Memorial, Morristown NJ
  • Sarasota Court House, Sarasota FL
  • Union Pacific RR Station, Boise ID
  • Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Building, Philadelphia PA
  • Allegheny County Court House, Pittsburgh PA
  • Fidelity Bankers Trust, Knoxville TN
  • Grand Rapids Art Gallery, Grand Rapids MI
  • Salvation Arm HQ, NY NY
  • Aetna Life Insurance Co, Hartford CT
  • Law Library, Ann Arbor MI
  • Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA
  • Cloister (Metropolitan Museum of New York), NY NY
  • San Diego Air Station, San Diego CA

Selected Ecclesiastical Works

  • St. Patricks Church, Philadelphia, PA
  • Trinity Lutheran Church, Akron, OH
  • Valley Forge Chapel, Valley Forge PA
  • St. Vincent Ferrer, NY
  • St. Bartholomews Church, NY
  • Washington Cathedral, Washington D.C.
  • St. Patricks Cathedral, NY
  • Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, Detroit, MI
  • Bok Singing Tower, Lake Wales FL
  • St. Johns Cathedral, Denver CO
  • Temple Emanu-El, NY, NY
  • Grace Cathedral, San Francisco CA
  • Baltimore Pro-Cathedral, Baltimore MD
  • Cathedral of St. John the Divine, NY NY
  • St Thomas Church, NY NY
  • Salt Lake City Cathedral, Salt Lake City, UT

Selected Residential Works

  • Gates for Long Island Estate of J.P. Morgan
  • Frick Residence, NY
  • Issac Guggenheim, Port Washington, NY
  • DuPont Residence
  • Havermeyer Residence
  • Walter Rosen, Caramoor, Katonah NY
  • George G. Booth
  • Edward Bok Residence, Philadelphia PA
  • Elie Nadelman NY
  • Fred Fisher, Detroit, MI
  • Andrew W Mellon, Pittsburgh PA
  • Mrs. PA Rockefeller, Fayetteville NY
  • Cyrus McCormick, Chicago IL
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Deer Run PA

Architects Whose Names Appear in Yellins Job Book

Sources

  • Andrews, Jack, Samuel Yellin Metelsmith, Skipjack Press, Ocean Pines Maryland, 2000
  • Andrews, Jack, Samuel Yellin, Metalworker, Anvils Ring, Summer, 1982
  • Architecture magazine, April 1929
  • Bach, Penny Balkin, Public Art in Philadelphia, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1992
  • Bedford, Steven McLeod, John Russell Pope Architect of Empire, Rizzoli International Publications, NY, NY 1998
  • Bok, Edward W., Americas Taj Mahal The Singing Tower of Florida, The Georgia Marble Company, Tate, Georgia c. 1929
  • Davis, Myra T., Sketches in Iron, no publishing information
  • Detroit Institute of Arts The Architecture, The Detroit Institute of Arts 1928
  • Federman, Peter, The Detroit Public Library, Classical America IV, Classical America 1977
  • Gallery, John A., Editor, Philadelphia Architecture A Guide to the City, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1984
  • Heilbrun, Margaret, The Architecture of Cass Gilbert, Inventing the Skyline, Columbia University Press, New York, NY 2000
  • Teitelman, Edward & Richard W. Longstreth, Architecture in Philadelphia A Guide, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1981
  • Wattenmaker, Richard J., Samuel Yellin In Context, Flint Museum of Arts, Flint, Michigan 1985
  • Wister, Cret, Gilchrist et al, Melor Meigs & Howe, Graybooks, Boulder Colorado 1991 (reprint of 1923 work)
Yellin, Samuel Yellin, Samuel

 

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