It could be he's unknown to us because his murals and installations are hard to exhibit. They exist mainly in media-averse private buildings and out-of-the-way estates. Probably, too, because Gilded Age art isn't vogueish anymore. Such a perfect moment for this book, then, the first in 80 years to dust off the luxuriant work of this maverick, this all-but-forgotten rock star. - World of Interiors
The focus of Robert Winthrop Chanler: Discovering the Fantastic is the subjects gobsmackingly marvelous works of art. Folding screens, murals, stained-glass windows, portraits, and architectural details - namely a towering bronze-and-plaster chimneypiece for arts patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney that was designed to resemble a furious fire blazing from baseboard to ceiling - were among Chanlers many creations, which often incorporated bizarrely magical, strangely malevolent evocations of the natural world. - Architectural Digest
I first learned about the artist Robert Winthrop Chanler during my research writing The World of Gloria Vanderbilt. The artist and Glorias aunt Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney were great friends, and he designed the fantastical flame-licked fireplace in her Greenwich Village studio. Chanler was a bohemian aristocrat, related to Astors and Stuyvesants, but lived by his own rules, hardly a model of convention. This is the first major book on his life and art in many years, and I look forward to hours poring over every page. - New York Magazine's Design Hunting
Born in 1872, died in 1930, Robert Chanler was a brilliant artist. He worked in a variety of media-paint, lacquer, plaster - and a variety of formats - folding screens, murals, canvas. In New York and Europe, he ran with a swell crowd of influential artists and bohemians. The iconic Greenwich Village house of his friend, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, features a spectacular Chanler fireplace. In a new book edited by Gina Wouters and Andrea Gollin, Robert Winthrop Chanler: Discovering the Fantastic, Chanlers life and work are detailed in a series of excellent essays by art historians, museum curators and family members. - Rural Intelligence
Chanler influenced modernism with his fluidity between hi and low, representation and imagination, and screens and sculptures. Robert Winthrop Chanler: Discovering the Fantastic is a welcome contribution to conversations we have about making art today - and what it means to call yourself avant-garde in 2016 given the modernism that came before us. - Miami Rail
