Garden of Hearts: Madeline Yale Wynne and Deerfield’s Arts and Crafts Movement

In 1903, Madeline Yale Wynne (1847-1918), a proponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement working in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and Chicago, Illinois, constructed an oak bride’s chest ornamented with paint, decorative carving, hammered copper panels, wrought iron hinges, and semi-precious stones. Known as Garden of Hearts for its landscape of three inverted heart-shaped trees along a winding river, this chest is a tour-de-force of Arts and Crafts design and showcases Wynne’s talents as a painter, metalsmith, and woodworker. Inspired by 18th-century Connecticut Valley chests, Garden of Hearts was Wynne’s greatest artistic accomplishment, considered “perhaps better than anything she had done.”  This presentation will not only address the history and recent rediscovery of Wynne’s Garden of Hearts masterpiece, but also Wynne’s role within Deerfield’s Arts and Crafts Movement, her remarkably diverse artistic talents, and her innovative and progressive spirit.