A few weeks ago when Chris picked up a couple small copper plates from the Golden Nugget Flea Market, I did not realize the road it would take me down. The signature stamped on them reads “Rebajes”. I was unfamiliar with this name. One plate features two hands playing a guitar and the other is two pipes. Both are highly stylized depictions, very similar to the paintings of Stuart Davis. Stamped in each plate is a name / signature of “Rebajes”.
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- Stylized pipes on a small copper plate designed by Rebajes.
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- Rebajes small copper plate of stylized hands playing a guitar. From the collection of the author.
I never heard this name before, but some quick searching on the internet gave me a few answers. A self taught metalsmith and artist Francisco “Frank” Rebajes (1906-1990) was an immigrant success story.
Francisco “Frank” Rebajes in his shop, circa 1940. Photograph from transatlanticstudiesnetwork.uma.es.
Born in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, Rebajes immigrated to the United States and arrived in New York City in 1923. Struggling to find work, especially during the Great Depression, he began to create animal sculptures from scrap metal, using plumber’s tools. While selling these pieces at the Washington Square outdoor market Juliana Force, director of the Whitney Museum, discovered him. Purchasing all his pieces he used the money he earned from Force to open his first shop in Greenwich Village. A tiny store with a dirt floor and makeshift roof.
Rebajes Animal Jewelry
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- Elephant copper brooch. Image from the Rebajes page at facebook.com
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- Brooch in the shape of a lobster. Image from cooperhewitt.org.
Selling all his pieces for ten dollars or less, Rebajes found success and he found it fast. And with this success he moved to a series of increasingly better Greenwich shops throughout the 1930s. Rebajes also expanded his inventory to include anthropomorphic depictions of African women and abstract forms. While copper made up the base of most of his pieces, he began to use silver and gold as well. By the end of the decade the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum featured pieces of his jewelry in their exhibitions. And the 1939 New York World’s Fair commissioned Rebajes to design several large abstract sculptures for the theatre in the United States Federal Building.
The 1939 New York World’s Fair
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- Wall relief drawing for the United States Federal Building. Image from loscoloresdelamemoria.files.wordpress.com.
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- A second design drawing for a wall relief. Image from loscoloresdelamemoria.files.wordpress.com.
Workers carrying one of the abstract Rebajes sculptures into the United States Federal Building. Photograph from transatlanticstudiesnetwork.uma.es.
Pamphlet cover for the U.S. Federal Building’s art and furnishings. Featuring one of Rebajes’ wall reliefs. Image from transatlanticstudiesnetwork.uma.es
Otto R. Bade and Mass Production
Otto R. Bade, circa 1941. Photo from rebajes.com.
Even through Rebajes was enjoying great success by the end of the 1930s, he still needed to overcome a major obstacle. He needed to find a way to mass produce his jewelry. The solution to this problem came in the guise of a young man from Nebraska, Otto R. Bade.
After visiting his grandfather in New York in 1940, Bade realized that he did not want the life of a farmer. So in 1941 he returned to Manhattan and answered one ad for employment. The ad was for a Rebajes workshop employee. At the interview Rebajes explained that he was looking for a way to increase production. So he handed Bade a favorite piece, the “Ubangi Face” brooch.
Rebajes “Ubangi Face” brooch. One of his most famous pieces. Image from transatlanticstudiesnetwork.uma.es
Rebajes told Bade, “see what you can do” and then left. Bade a self taught silversmith created some jigs to create the pieces. By the end of the day, Bade created 100 perfect examples of the the “Ubangi Face” pin. Rebajes, amazed and delighted, knew that his dream of bringing his “wearable art” to the mass public was now a reality.
377 Fifth Avenue
With the ability to mass produce his jewelry, In 1941 Rebajes decided to move his store to the premiere shopping district of New York City, Fifth Avenue. Nothing indicated his meteoric success more than this move. Opening in early 1942 his new store would share the same street as Cartier and Tiffany’s. Located between 35th & 36th Streets and one block north of B. Altman’s, it would be a showcase not only for Rebajes, but for architect José A. Fernández. The Rebajes Jewelry store is not Art Deco. Its style was modern, so modern that is was shockingly avant-garde for the time. Fernández’s interior design was forecasting changes that would predominate in the 1950s, especially its use of biomorphic forms.
Postcard view of the interior of the Rebajes Jewelry and Gift Shop at 377 Fifth Avenue. Image from ebay.com.
The floor plan of the Rebajes Jewelry store at 377 Fifth Avenue. Image from New Pencil Points, February, 1943, Pg. 50.
The stylized Rebajes trademark greeted customers above the wide open vestibule. Lewis Mumford in his The Sky Line column in The New Yorker said of the entrance, “The street front, in grained marble, with a single abstract ornament of sheet metal above the side entrance to the building, is the soberest part of the design.”
Only a glass wall and door separated the store’s street lobby from the interior. A seamless transition from outside to inside was created by carrying the design elements from the vestibule to the interior. The gray marble facing the shop carried into the lobby to form the bulkheads of the showcases. In this open arcade merchandise is on display, partly in a quarter-circle showcase on the left and in two cylindrical glass cases on the right. The left showcase was accessible from the inside and in the warm weather, this became an additional sales space.
The open vestibule of the Rebajes Shop on Fifth Avenue. Photo from Francisco Rebajes Facebook page.
The wall treatments of pickled oak, behind the counter on the left and mirrors on the right, carried onto the inside. The lobby floor of black terrazzo matched the color of the black asphalt tile of the interior.
Recessed incandescent lighting dotted the oyster white painted ceiling of the interior. The pickled oak carried out the entire left hand side of the shop. This wall was broken up a built-in, illuminated showcase displaying Rebajes’ larger pieces. At the rear of the shop a 14 1/2 foot tall, folding, blue leather door separated the shop from the stock / work room.
Interior of the Rebajes shop looking towards the rear. Roman Cecilia photograph from The New Pencil Points, February, 1943, Pg. 50.
Additional color and visual interested came several potted plants and hassocks and built-in settee covered in black and white calfskin.
Calfskin covered hassocks in front of floating showcases and potted plants. Mirrors hang off the pickled oak wall. Photo from Francisco Rebajes Facebook page.
Calfskin covered settee and hassocks near the front of the shop.
But the most standout feature of the Rebajes shop had to be the main showcase. The “s” shaped counter did not raise up from the floor. In a bold move, architect Fernández suspended the counter from the ceiling by thin steel rods. Directly above the counter was a florescent light fixture that mimicked the same shape as the counter underneath.
The spectacular hanging “s” shaped counter. Looking out toward Fifth Avenue. Photo from Francisco Rebajes Facebook page.
The steel rods and florescent light fixture are shown off well in the view of the counter looking up from the floor. Roman Cecilia photograph from The New Pencil Points, February, 1943, Pg. 50.
Nothing lasts forever, especially in New York City, and this was true of the Rebajes Jewelry and Gift shop. During the 1950s Rebajes was becoming more interested in sculpture than Jewelry. In 1960 he sold his trademark name and business to his one time master craftsman, Otto R. Bade. Bade already started his own line of jewelry, Orb Originals, in 1958. Rebajes left the United States for Spain, where he continued doing small studio work. Rebajes died in 1990. Today a nondescript gift shop occupies the space that once was José Fernández wonderfully avant-garde shop designed for Francisco Rebajes.
377 Fifth Avenue today. Image from Google Street View.
Anthony & Chris (The Freakin’, Tiquen’ Guys)
