Observing National Accordion Awareness Month, we feature this musical member of the SAAM folk art collection. The whimsical Accordion Player is an early example of Benniah Layden's skill as a wood carver.
In Sweet Accord
Observing National Accordion Awareness Month, we feature this musical member of the SAAM folk art collection. The whimsical Accordion Player is an early example of Benniah Layden's skill as a wood carver.
A lifelong Pennsylvania Railroad employee, Layden began carving in 1905 after seeing a piece of wood inlay produced at a penitentiary. He relied heavily on images seen in popular illustrations and the Bible as the basis for his carved figures and furniture. Layden was primarily known for his masterful inlay work, once fashioning a checkerboard game with almost twenty-two thousand pieces of wood.
Written in crayon on the base of Accordion Player is the number "1190," denoting Layden's habit of recording the number of wood pieces used to construct his objects. The eccentric design of the Accordion Player reflects a knowledge of traditional chain carving, interlocking wooden chains with caged balls whittled from a single piece of wood.
Pictured top: Detail of Accordion Player by Benniah G. Layden.
Source: Lynda Roscoe Hartigan. Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990).
Pictured bottom: Attributed to Benniah G. Layden, 1875-1968 , Accordion Player, about 1910, carved and painted wood and peach pits, 30 1/8 x 12 x 8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson.