Sketch in Iron

Trained in Europe as a traditional blacksmith, metalworker Samuel Yellin was credited in 1912 with reviving the craft of wrought iron in America. As a craftsman, Yellin believed in working out his designs in three-dimensional “sketches” in iron. These small studies show the blacksmith’s process and creativity as “expressed with the hammer.”

Yellin’s ironwork was commissioned for the private homes of the Vanderbilts and the DuPonts as well as for public spaces at Harvard University and the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. This example demonstrates Yellin's extraordinary ability to manipulate metal. The naturalistic tendrils have been hand-pulled, giving the impression that the material is far more pliable than it is in reality.