Yellin Article

Upholding a legacy of artistry in iron

The late, great Samuel Yellin is trio's inspiration.
By Peter Binzen
Inquirer Columnist

At a forge near West Chester, metalworkers Peter Renzetti and Chris Tierney have just completed a one-of-a-kind birdcage.

Renzetti drilled 1,383 joints to connect wiring in the bronze cage, which is 40 inches long, 20 inches wide, and 27 inches in height. There are 250 vertical bars, each half an inch apart and darkened with oxide chemicals.

"It's pretty nifty," Renzetti said.

In a visit to the shop, Eric Wildrick, a sculptor on the faculty of the State University of New York at Purchase, said the job must have entailed hundreds of hours of work.

"It has been meticulously crafted and the quality is exceptional," Wildrick said.

The cage and its 50-pound steel stand will soon be shipped to the owner of a pet canary in Texas.

Clare Yellin, 54, will not identify the buyer of the cage or the price, but she indicated that it was expensive.

As head of Samuel Yellin Metalworkers, she employs Renzetti and Tierney and negotiated the deal with the wealthy Texan.

You might call Clare Yellin the "keeper of the iron." She is keeping alive the name and the business of her illustrious grandfather, who built an international reputation with hammer, anvil and insight.

Born in Poland in 1885, Samuel Yellin apprenticed to a master metalworker at the age of 9 and became a master himself at 18. His mentor called him "the devil with a hammer in his hand."

He settled in Philadelphia in 1905 and soon thereafter launched his remarkable career. Over three decades, his shop at 55th and Arch Streets produced decorative metalwork for universities, museums, churches, public buildings, and the private residences of such capitalist titans as J.P. Morgan, William K. Vanderbilt and Henry Clay Frick.

Yellin designed and executed all of the decorative ironwork for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's main building in the 1920s. Fashioning 200 tons of wrought iron in the Florentine style kept 100 of Yellin's employees on the bank job for two years.

Some of his finest interior metalwork was executed at the National Cathedral in Washington. Perhaps his most notable Philadelphia creation was the giant entrance to the former Packard Building at 15th and Chestnut Streets. Every rivet, bolt and pin in the 10-ton door, 33 feet high and 21 feet wide, was made by hand.

One of Yellin's lesser known Philadelphia treasures was his ornamental ironwork in 1923 for the doors of St. Mark's Episcopal Church at 1625 Locust St.

The minutes of St. Mark's vestry meeting on Jan. 2, 1924, expressed appreciation for what Yellin had done. "The work is of such outstanding merit," the vestry declared, "as to be beyond criticism and indeed beyond praise. The Parish of St. Mark's, the City of Philadelphia and the world of Ecclesiastical art are indeed indebted to Mr. Yellin."

Although Yellin won the prestigious Philadelphia Award, which carried a $10,000 prize in 1925, he operated in relative anonymity in his adopted city.

"An object of woeful neglect," an Inquirer reporter wrote of him in 1935. He described Yellin as "a man of world-wide fame, the greatest living craftsman in iron, yet a stranger among his own people."

At its peak, Yellin's business counted more than 250 employees. Such was his fame that skilled ironworkers came from Europe to join him.

However, demand for his decorative metal creations slowed during the Great Depression and his workforce shrank to 100.

On his death at the age of 55 in 1940, about 50 worked at the West Philadelphia shop, according to his granddaughter.

Samuel Yellin's son, Harvey, was then studying architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. He got his degree in 1941, served four years in the Army, and then took over the business from his widowed mother, Leah. The workforce was down to about 10. "My father wasn't a blacksmith," Clare Yellin said. "He was an architect and a designer, and he loved the business. But it was a struggle."

Harvey Yellin kept the firm afloat until his death in 1985. His widow, Marian, who had been a Navy officer and held a master's degree from New York University, ran the pared-down operation for two years until her daughter, Clare, a Denison University graduate, took over.

"I came in gradually," Clare Yellin said. Although not an ironworker, she loves blacksmithing. "The iron grows on you," she said.

Her motto became: "I don't want to be big; I just want to be good."

Bigness was out of the question for Yellin, but continued high quality wasn't. In 1992, with her West Philadelphia shop deteriorating, she moved her business to a forge owned by Peter Renzetti on Brinton's Hill Road in Dilworthtown, Chester County.

Now Renzetti and Chris Tierney are the company's ironworkers and Clare Yellin is the designer and business person.

"There are three of us, but others flit in and out," said Yellin, adding figuratively that "we all work for my grandfather."

"It's amazing what we get done," she said. "There isn't anything in metal that we can't create."

Her tiny firm has executed exterior light fixtures for residences in a dozen states from Maine to California.

"I don't advertise, but people get in touch," Yellin said. She never engages in competitive bidding for jobs because her output is so unusual.

"The work is expensive," she said. "We're at the high end because every piece is one of a kind."

Her team restored metalwork in Bryn Mawr College's Goodhart Hall that had originally been fashioned by Samuel Yellin.

"Clare organized the complete restoration of her grandfather's pieces, thousands of them," said Christopher Gluesing, the college architect. "With the original drawings in hand, she could fabricate pieces that were missing." Yellin also produced new ironwork for Bryn Mawr.

For the 2003 Philadelphia Flower Show, Stoney Bank Nurseries re-created the entrance to Samuel Yellin's shop and won best of show. Much of the work was done by Clare Yellin's ironworkers.

The Inn at Penn, a hotel at 3600 Sansom St., displays some of Samuel Yellin's detailed drawings for design work on its staircase wall. On all four corners of each framed drawing is a contemporary piece of Yellin ironwork.

Laura Stroffolino, a University of Pennsylvania research associate, said Penn's archives included 2,343 original drawings by Samuel Yellin donated by the Yellin family. "They're magnificent," Stroffolino said.

Clare Yellin owns tens of thousands of her grandfather's drawings as well as his metal collection. From Oct. 22 through the end of February, the Rosenbach Museum and Library at 2010 Delancey Place will display "the monsters" of Samuel Yellin - gargoyles and other scary ornamental objects made by the master. Also on exhibit will be his own iron bed.

Judith Guston, the Rosenbach's curator and director of collections, said the Clare Yellin team completely restored gates for the Rosenbach made by her grandfather about 90 years ago.

"Clare is fabulous," Guston said.

Clearly, the business that Samuel Yellin started remains in his granddaughter's blood. "It's ruled now by a creative spirit rather than a fiscal spirit," she said. "Who wouldn't want to create beautiful things and be surrounded by them?"
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Philadelphia Inquirer Article, September 29, 2003