Industrial New England
by Woodbury and Company
September 12th – October 2nd, 2002
An exhibition of ink drawings with gouache of late 19th through early 20th century industrial New England buildings. Industrial New England is from the original collection of perspective drawings by Woodbury and Company of Worcester, Mass. circa 1890's - 1920's. Founded in 1879, Woodbury and Company, pioneering printers of Worcester, Massachusetts, recently closed its doors early this year, having succumbed to competition from electronic technology.
This remarkable group of original drawings was found intact at the time of the company's demise. Some, measuring up to six feet in length, include early views of many well-known corporations. New England textile mills, tanneries, steel mills, rubber companies, brass manufacturers, dairies, even ice- cream makers. Drawn for early advertising and corporate identity functions by draftsmen and engineers and then reproduced as precise photo-engraved prints by technical methods invented by Woodbury and Company, these unique aerial perspective drawings are now, a century after their creation, an extraordinary artistic record of lost, industrial, America. Created at a time in history when smoke-belching chimneys meant progress and success, these extraordinary, large-scale drawings were miniaturized onto company letterheads to promote and sell pipe, linen, hides, bearings, carpet, and every conceivable product of American technological might at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.