Nutting, Wallace

Nutting, Wallace,

1861–1941, American clergyman, antiquarian, lecturer, and photographer; illustrator and writer of books on life in early America and also on the scenic beauties of the United States and Great Britain. His works include Windsor Handbook (1917), Furniture of the Pilgrim Century (1921–23), Photographic Art Secrets (1924), and Furniture Treasury (3 vol., 1928–33). A restorer of early American houses, an expert on all things American colonial (some of his interpretations and conclusions have been challenged by modern scholars), and a tireless marketer, Nutting was an important early 20th-century tastemaker.

Nutting, Wallace

(1861–1941) Congregational minister, antiquarian, photographer, author; born in Marlboro, Mass. Poor health led him to give up the ministry in 1904, and to support himself he began to sell his atmospheric photographs of rural New England. By 1912 he was collecting genuine period furniture to place in four old houses he was restoring; seeing a demand, he began in 1917 to manufacture reproductions of mainly American colonial furniture. He became the spokesman for the colonial revival movement among collectors and home furnishers but his reputation remained somewhat compromised by his willingness to make reproductions. He wrote and provided photographs for a number of books including Furniture Treasury (3 vols. 1928–33), which remains a useful survey of American furniture.