Clay Lancaster
Encyclopedia
Clay Lancaster was an authority on American architecture, an orientalist, and an influential advocate of historical preservation. According to the New York Times, Lancaster's 1961 study of the architecture of Brooklyn Heights "proved to be one of the earliest and loudest shots in the historic preservation struggle in New York City."
Lancaster was, as well, a writer and illustrator for children. The Periwinkle Steamboat (1961) was later redesigned and re-published as The Flight of the Periwinkle (1987). Michiko, or Mrs. Belmont’s Brownstone on Brooklyn Heights was published in 1965. The Toy Room appeared in 1988, Figi in 1989, and The Runaway Prince in 1991.
Lancaster's style received high praise. Alan Priest, former curator of Far Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
noted in his introduction to The Japanese Influence in America that "the prose is most agreeable to read and the subject matter so interesting that one is led to read almost as if it were a historical novel." The poet Marianne Moore
, introducing Lancaster’s Prospect Park Handbook (1967), writes: “his pages are art.”
, and studied at the University of Kentucky
. He spent half of 1936 at the Art Students League of New York
. Returning to Lexington, he served as stage designer for the university’s Guignol Theatre and was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He took his A.B. in Art in 1938.
In 1943, Lancaster moved to New York and, as a graduate student there, worked in Columbia University
’s Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
with Talbot Hamlin, biographer of Benjamin Henry Latrobe.
At Columbia, Lancaster received the appointment of Ware Librarian. In the fifties he lectured at Cooper Union
, Columbia, and the Traphagen art school in New York. In 1968 he originated a course, “Asian Art and its Influence on Europe and America,” that was given at New York University
.
In 1954 and 1955, during the first of two John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships
, he carried out the research that underlay The Japanese Influence in America (1963); a second Guggenheim, in 1963 and 1964, supported research on the architecture of Kentucky. In 1966, Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving
appointed Lancaster curator of Brooklyn's Prospect Park
, Frederick Law Olmsted's
landscape masterpiece, an assignment which led to his preparation of The Prospect Park Handbook (1967).
In 1971, Clay Lancaster moved from Brooklyn to Nantucket. Here he restored an 1829 saltbox
dwelling and wrote studies of historic Nantucket, of Victorian architecture, and of train terminals and stations.
Lancaster returned to live in Kentucky in 1978, purchasing Warwick, a Federal-era residence on the Kentucky River
. Here he spent the first winter making mantels for fireplaces in an addition, shelves for the library, and cabinets for the kitchen. During the following spring he gave a course on Kentucky architecture at Transylvania University
, and it became a seminar in the College of Architecture at the University of Kentucky in the fall. In 1980 he presented a class on “Asian Art and Its Influence on Europe and America” at Transylvania. In 1983, as Morgan Professor at the University of Louisville
, he repeated the Kentucky architecture course and conducted a seminar on “Asian Influences on Western Architecture.” During this period he wrote and illustrated The American Bungalow, 1880 – 1930. Also he produced a study on the World Parliament of Religions (1987), which was held at the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893; the book was published in England in May 1987.
of New York City in 1962 for his book Old Brooklyn Heights. In 1966 he was given a citation from the president of the Borough of Brooklyn for his work on the Prospect Park
Centennial Committee. In 1975 he was elected to the Hall of Distinguished Alumni at the University of Kentucky. The Alabama Historical Commission
presented him in 1975 with its Award of Merit for Preservation of Alabama’s Heritage for his study of Greek Revival architecture
in Alabama, published by the Alabama chapter of the American Institute of Architects
in 1966 (and again by the Commission in 1977). In 1979, for Vestiges of the Venerable City, he received the Lexington-Fayette County Historic Commission Preservation Award and, in the same year, the Kentucky Heritage Commission’s Preservation Professional Award. In 1986, the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation presented him its John Wesley Hunt Award.
of his own design — an eighteenth-century tea pavilion, a guest-house replicating the first-century A.D. Tower of the Winds
, and an Arts and Crafts
style art gallery. He also assembled an extensive acreage nearby to serve as a nature preserve, called Shantalaya ("abode of peace"). Also, in his final years, Lancaster established a charitable organization, The Warwick Foundation, to promote and extend his many interests. The foundation sponsors tours, lectures, scholarships, exhibitions, conferences, and maintains the Warwick compound as a museum.
Lancaster died on Christmas Day in 2000. The following spring, his ashes were scattered in the ravine next to his Warwick residence.
Writings
Lancaster's best-known books of architectural and art history are Architectural Follies in America (1960), Ante Bellum Houses of the Bluegrass (1961), Old Brooklyn Heights: New York’s First Suburb (1961), The Japanese Influence in America (1963), Prospect Park Handbook (1967), The Architecture of Historic Nantucket (1972), New York Interiors at the Turn of the Century (1976), Nantucket in the Nineteenth Century (1979), The American Bungalow (1985), The Arts and Crafts of the Animals (1993), The Breadth and Depth of East and West (1995), and Pleasant Hill: Shaker Canaan in Kentucky (2000). A collection of his photographs appears in James D. Birchfield, Clay Lancaster’s Kentucky: Architectural Photographs of a Preservation Pioneer (2007).Lancaster was, as well, a writer and illustrator for children. The Periwinkle Steamboat (1961) was later redesigned and re-published as The Flight of the Periwinkle (1987). Michiko, or Mrs. Belmont’s Brownstone on Brooklyn Heights was published in 1965. The Toy Room appeared in 1988, Figi in 1989, and The Runaway Prince in 1991.
Lancaster's style received high praise. Alan Priest, former curator of Far Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
noted in his introduction to The Japanese Influence in America that "the prose is most agreeable to read and the subject matter so interesting that one is led to read almost as if it were a historical novel." The poet Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
, introducing Lancaster’s Prospect Park Handbook (1967), writes: “his pages are art.”
Biography
Lancaster was born in Lexington, KentuckyLexington, Kentucky
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
, and studied at the University of Kentucky
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...
. He spent half of 1936 at the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
. Returning to Lexington, he served as stage designer for the university’s Guignol Theatre and was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He took his A.B. in Art in 1938.
In 1943, Lancaster moved to New York and, as a graduate student there, worked in Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
’s Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library is one of twenty-five libraries in the Columbia University Library System and is located in Avery Hall on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in the City of New York. It is the largest architecture library in the world...
with Talbot Hamlin, biographer of Benjamin Henry Latrobe.
At Columbia, Lancaster received the appointment of Ware Librarian. In the fifties he lectured at Cooper Union
Cooper Union
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, commonly referred to simply as Cooper Union, is a privately funded college in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States, located at Cooper Square and Astor Place...
, Columbia, and the Traphagen art school in New York. In 1968 he originated a course, “Asian Art and its Influence on Europe and America,” that was given at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
.
In 1954 and 1955, during the first of two John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
, he carried out the research that underlay The Japanese Influence in America (1963); a second Guggenheim, in 1963 and 1964, supported research on the architecture of Kentucky. In 1966, Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving
Thomas Hoving
Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving was an American museum executive and consultant and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.-Biography:...
appointed Lancaster curator of Brooklyn's Prospect Park
Prospect Park (Brooklyn)
Prospect Park is a 585-acre public park in the New York City borough of Brooklyn located between Park Slope, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Kensington, Windsor Terrace and Flatbush Avenue, Grand Army Plaza and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden...
, Frederick Law Olmsted's
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
landscape masterpiece, an assignment which led to his preparation of The Prospect Park Handbook (1967).
In 1971, Clay Lancaster moved from Brooklyn to Nantucket. Here he restored an 1829 saltbox
Saltbox
A saltbox is a building with a long, pitched roof that slopes down to the back, generally a wooden frame house. A saltbox has just one story in the back and two stories in the front...
dwelling and wrote studies of historic Nantucket, of Victorian architecture, and of train terminals and stations.
Lancaster returned to live in Kentucky in 1978, purchasing Warwick, a Federal-era residence on the Kentucky River
Kentucky River
The Kentucky River is a tributary of the Ohio River, long, in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The river and its tributaries drain much of the central region of the state, with its upper course passing through the coal-mining regions of the Cumberland Mountains, and its lower course passing through the...
. Here he spent the first winter making mantels for fireplaces in an addition, shelves for the library, and cabinets for the kitchen. During the following spring he gave a course on Kentucky architecture at Transylvania University
Transylvania University
Transylvania University is a private, undergraduate liberal arts college in Lexington, Kentucky, United States, affiliated with the Christian Church . The school was founded in 1780. It offers 38 majors, and pre-professional degrees in engineering and accounting...
, and it became a seminar in the College of Architecture at the University of Kentucky in the fall. In 1980 he presented a class on “Asian Art and Its Influence on Europe and America” at Transylvania. In 1983, as Morgan Professor at the University of Louisville
University of Louisville
The University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...
, he repeated the Kentucky architecture course and conducted a seminar on “Asian Influences on Western Architecture.” During this period he wrote and illustrated The American Bungalow, 1880 – 1930. Also he produced a study on the World Parliament of Religions (1987), which was held at the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893; the book was published in England in May 1987.
Awards and honors
Lancaster received a Certificate of Merit from the Municipal Art SocietyMunicipal Art Society
The Municipal Art Society of New York, founded in 1893, is a non-profit membership organization that fights for intelligent urban planning, design and preservation through education, dialogue and advocacy in New York City....
of New York City in 1962 for his book Old Brooklyn Heights. In 1966 he was given a citation from the president of the Borough of Brooklyn for his work on the Prospect Park
Prospect Park (Brooklyn)
Prospect Park is a 585-acre public park in the New York City borough of Brooklyn located between Park Slope, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Kensington, Windsor Terrace and Flatbush Avenue, Grand Army Plaza and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden...
Centennial Committee. In 1975 he was elected to the Hall of Distinguished Alumni at the University of Kentucky. The Alabama Historical Commission
Alabama Historical Commission
The Alabama Historical Commission is the historic preservation agency for the U. S. state of Alabama. The agency was created by an act of the state legislature in 1966 with a mission of safeguarding Alabama’s historic buildings and sites. It consists of twenty members appointed by the state...
presented him in 1975 with its Award of Merit for Preservation of Alabama’s Heritage for his study of Greek Revival architecture
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
in Alabama, published by the Alabama chapter of the American Institute of Architects
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...
in 1966 (and again by the Commission in 1977). In 1979, for Vestiges of the Venerable City, he received the Lexington-Fayette County Historic Commission Preservation Award and, in the same year, the Kentucky Heritage Commission’s Preservation Professional Award. In 1986, the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation presented him its John Wesley Hunt Award.
Follies
On the grounds of Warwick, Lancaster built several architectural folliesFolly
In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs...
of his own design — an eighteenth-century tea pavilion, a guest-house replicating the first-century A.D. Tower of the Winds
Tower of the Winds
The Tower of the Winds, also called horologion , is an octagonal Pentelic marble clocktower on the Roman agora in Athens. The structure features a combination of sundials, a water clock and a wind vane...
, and an Arts and Crafts
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
style art gallery. He also assembled an extensive acreage nearby to serve as a nature preserve, called Shantalaya ("abode of peace"). Also, in his final years, Lancaster established a charitable organization, The Warwick Foundation, to promote and extend his many interests. The foundation sponsors tours, lectures, scholarships, exhibitions, conferences, and maintains the Warwick compound as a museum.
Lancaster died on Christmas Day in 2000. The following spring, his ashes were scattered in the ravine next to his Warwick residence.