LITERATURE:

Wharton Esherick, Studio & Collection, Eisenhauer, pp. 38 and 92 (for illustrations of the model), p. 17, 32, 35-36 and 38 (for a discussion of Hedgerow Theatre)
Wharton Esherick, The Journey of a Creative Mind, Bascom, pp. 162-163 (for illustrations of the form and discussion of design), pp. 59-60, 106, 108-109, 120, 123, 131-136, 162-164 and 239 (for a discussion of Hedgerow Theatre and illustrations of related works), pp. 263 (for an illustration of the model in situ at the Wharton Esherick Museum)
Wharton Esherick and the Birth of the American Modern, Eisenhauer and Farrington, pp. 33 and 158 (for illustrations of the model), pp. 30-35, 112-127 (for a discussion of Hedgerow Theatre and illustrations of related works)
Drawings by Wharton Esherick, Rochberg, introduction (for a discussion of Hedgerow Theatre), nos. 56-61, 66-78, and 98-105 (for drawings related to Hedgerow Theatre)
Hammer Handle Chair, Bascom, exhibition catalogue, Wharton Esherick Museum, 2006, unpaginated
"The Hammer Handled Chairs: Found Object Art by Wharton Esherick", Sfirri, Woodwork, no. 110 (April 2008): 60-62

FILM:

The Hedgerow Story, a documentary film produced by the U.S. State Department, 1948 (showing the chairs in situ at Hedgerow House)

NOTE:

Wharton Esherick purchased two barrels of hickory hammer handles, in two sizes, at an auction of assets from an out-of-business woodturning company. The wood handles sat idle until Hedgerow Theatre asked Wharton for thirty-six chairs for use in the common room of Hedgerow House, the home where company members lived and rehearsed. By 1938, Esherick had produced two large dining tables, including the "Thunder Table" table (Lot 139) and both tables were in use at Hedgerow House, around which several of the chairs were used. Esherick turned to the hickory hammer handles as source material for the chairs' construction. Utilizing the longer handles for the chairs' stiles and legs, and shorter handles for the seat rails and stretchers, the "Hammer Handle" chair was born. A total of forty-five chairs were constructed by Esherick and John Schmidt in four batches, between April and July of 1938. John Schmidt, a Hungarian-born cabinetmaker who lived nearby, assisted Wharton with many of his more complicated designs, lending his joinery skills in service of Esherick's artistic vision. The eight chairs offered in lots 131-138 are from the original Hedgerow Theatre collection of thirty-six. Of the remaining chairs not sold to Hedgerow, one of the chairs was gifted to Wharton's friend, Sherwood Anderson, and others were presumably sold or gifted to other friends or clients. Separately, two "Hammer Handle" armchairs were made in April of 1938. One was given to Hedgerow Theatre's director Jasper Deeter. The other was offered for sale at a price of $32.00, netting Wharton a total profit of $6.00. With each group of chairs produced by Esherick and Schmidt, the pair refined the design, eventually lowering the chairs' back and spaying its legs for added support. The chair is constructed of round mortise and tenon joints. The seat rails are tenoned to the rear stiles and join at the front rail with lap joints. The earliest chairs (Lot 131) have upright front legs, diagonal stretchers front to back, and a rear stretcher which joins the back legs. The second version of the design (Lots 133, 134, 137 and 138) replaces the diagonal stretchers with horizontal ones, raises the front stretcher, and eliminates the back stretcher. The third version of the chair (Lots 132 and 136) splays the front legs, widens and lowers the seat back, and returns a rear stretcher to which the stiles now join. The final version of the chair (Lot 135) adds a cross stretcher (eliminating the front stretcher), and removes a redundant stretcher to the stiles. It is this final iteration that informs all future examples of the design. The seat backs or crests are made of oak, some perhaps using wagon rims referenced by Esherick in the making of the two "Hammer Handle" armchairs he produced in April. The seats of the chairs were constructed of interlaced, industrial, canvas belting or leather. Those produced with canvas belting were laced and painted by the actors at Hedgerow. For the thirty-six chairs produced for the Theatre, Esherick assigned the price of $235.20, roughly $6.53 per chair. However, Esherick's younger daughter Ruth, then a senior in high school, sought an apprenticeship at the Theatre. Not having the money to pay her way, Wharton offered the chairs in exchange. The "Hammer Handle" chairs, like all the Esherick furniture in use at the Theatre, served a variety of functions. The chairs sat around the "Thunder" and "Sawbuck" tables where company members met over meals and for meetings. If the weather allowed, chairs were brought outside to the porch or lawn. Other chairs found their way onto the stage, utilized as props in both rehearsals and live productions. Over the years, some chairs broke or were lost. Others, more commonly, left the Theatre as "gifts" to retiring company members. The Theatre has retained the eight chairs offered here, in continual use at the Theatre since their creation in 1938. The popularity of the "Hammer Handle" chair yielded Esherick's later "Ash Chair", of similar design, but utilizing ash chair members turned by John Schmidt to resemble to original hickory handles of which they eventually ran out. Examples of Esherick's "Hammer Handle" or "Ash" chair are in the permanent collections of the Wharton Esherick Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Museum of Arts and Design, and Longhouse Reserve.