Edward F. Caldwell & Company
The pre-eminent American designer of lighting fixtures and other metalwork, Edward F. Caldwell and Company, New York City, was established in 1895. Caldwell's (1851-1914) educational background is unknown, but he worked for Archer and Pancoast Manufacturing Company, designers of gas lighting fixtures, where he eventually became chief designer and general manager. He embraced Edison's new electric technology and championed the fine design of electric lighting fixtures for homes of the wealthy and major public buildings, working frequently for the renowned architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White. Caldwell's partner in Edward F. Caldwell and Company was Victor von Lossberg (1863-1942), a Russian immigrant and artist who designed for Archer and Pancoast. In addition to designing and managing major lighting installations, the Caldwell company also manufactured the devices they designed at 38 West Fifteenth Street, NYC, beginning in 1901. The firm produced lighting fixtures in bronze, iron, silver, brass, and copper and, after 1910, also made desk sets, clocks, andirons, and furniture.
The company's wealthy clientele had conservative tastes, preferring traditional interiors, so most of Caldwell & Company's work was based on historical styles, using eighteenth-century pattern books and historic fixtures in European palaces as models. They worked primarily for architects, designing metalwork and fixtures as integral elements of the architectural design. Clients included Frederick Vanderbilt (his country house in Hyde Park, NY), the White House (during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt), George Booth (Bloomfield Hills, MI, for his house and for Cranbrook Academy), and many others.
After Caldwell's death in 1914, the firm carried on under von Lossberg, although the design focus shifted from historical reproductions to interpretive adaptations of historical designs. Combining wrought and cast iron with gilding and colored enamels, the wall brackets and chandelier for Reynolda House typify the company's later work. Other significant projects carried out at the same time include the Hotel Pennsylvania and Yale Club, NYC, and the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. Fixtures in the modern styles popular in the 1930s were designed for Radio City Music Hall and the Waldorf-Astoria among many other projects.
Caldwell was made a fellow of the American Academy in Rome in 1905, and von Lossberg earned medals from the American Institute of Architects and the Architectural League of New York in the 1920s and 1930s. The company survived the Great Depression by winning contracts for large public buildings. Von Lossberg retired in 1938, and was succeeded by Edward T. Caldwell, Jr., a grandson of the founder. Under the new generation the company explored fluorescent and indirect lighting and made standardized fixtures as well as special designs. Financial difficulties caused the firm to close in 1959.
The Caldwell and Company archives are housed at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and Library and the New York Public Library.
