The Style of Pens
By Rick Propas
All rights reserved by author
How do we define style? Most of us love our pens for their beauty,
but do we know what larger trends in art and industrial design influenced
the way they appear? For the most part, fountain pens are a product
of the twentieth century, and have followed the styles of the century.
Now many aficionados of early pens will disagree, pointing to the inlaid,
slab sided eyedropper fillers and hand carved filigrees dating from
before World War I. Truly, those pens belong to the nineteenth century.
But the fountain pen, as most people know it, is a product of the twentieth
century and it partakes of the stylistic trends of the modern era. Most
fountain pen designs derive from the Craftsman, Art Deco, Streamline,
and Modernist and post-modern styles in art and design. Thus it is worth
looking at those movements in order to better understand our pens.
The Craftsman movement emerged around the beginning of the twentieth
century in reaction to the excessive ornamentation of Victorian arts.
Craftsman furniture and architecture is simple, though not plain, and
self-consciously well-made. What is a Craftsman pen? Look for workmanship
and simplicity. The original hard rubber Lucky Curves and Duofolds,
with their carefully crafted button fillers and coined tops and blind
caps are good examples, as are Watermans from the 1920s with their riveted
clips and elaborate lever boxes. Early Sheaffer’s, especially
the chased metal pens, are another fine example of Craftsman style,
as are the ubiquitous gold filled and silver Eversharp propelling pencils,
especially the up-market models with custom chasing and turned magazines.
The elaborately wrought Pelikan Toledos epitomize that part of the Craftsman
ideal that looked back to the art of the pre-industrial age.
No artistic movement more strongly influenced and continues to influence
pen makers than Art Deco, which originated in Paris in 1925. The movement
sought to wed science, art and industry. It also emphasized the innovative
use of new materials in design and architecture. Celluloid, with all
the radiant colors and patterns it brought, epitomizes Art Deco. The
Eversharp gold seal pens are foremost examples. Dorics continued the
trend as did the early Vacumatics from Parker. Esterbrooks, early and
late, epitomize Art Deco for the masses.
Germany, home to modernism, passed up Art Deco for the most part, but
the lovely teardrop clips of the Mont Blanc Masterpieces of the 1930s
are happy exceptions to the rule. And even the Germans, wedded to their
formal black pens, could not resist playing with celluloid. The gorgeous
platinums of Montblanc and the Pelikan tortoise and lizards attest to
that.
The Streamline movement of the late 1930s was largely American. It
sought to make design, specifically Art Deco, more sleek, and is represented
in pendom first by the Sheaffer Balance pens which were so revolutionary
in 1928. Parker answered with the Streamline Duofolds; and after 1937
the Vacumatics lost their original Deco boxy look to become streamlined.
The equipoise Eversharps were another effort to emulate the style.
Modernism, which evolved in Germany and Scandinavia in the 1920s, did
not catch on widely for at least a decade. The foremost modern pen,
years ahead of its time, was, of course the Parker 51, with its hooded
nib and lucite barrel. Its aim was to strip design of all artifice and
replace it with pure functionality, just like the Bauhaus designs of
the era. Part of the 51’s genius, however, was the way in which
it synthesized the Craftsman, Deco and Streamline movements into a revolutionary
modernist statement. Apart from its superlative function, the form of
the 51 sets it apart in pendom. Equally notable modernist pen designs
are the Sheaffer PFM, a design as compelling today as when it was introduced
forty years ago. Similarly, the Parker 61, an evolution of the 51, is
still fresh looking.
This brings us to our own time and post-modern pens. Here we need to
stop a moment and define the art and design movement which today surrounds
us. More than simply coming after the modernist movement, post-modernism
seeks to combine the designs of the twentieth century, link them to
one another, and make a statement about that synthesis. Notable architectural
examples of post-modern design are San Francisco’s Yerba Buena
Marriott Hotel, often referred to locally as the Wurlitzer, and the
more recent work of Helmut Jahn in Chicago. The annex to the Los Angeles
Biltmore Hotel, itself an understated Art Deco building, is almost by
definition post-modern.
The first post-modern pen would have to be Parker’s 1988 Duofold
Centennial. Its name alone was a tip-off, in the sense that it was self-referential,
harkening back to the Duofolds of the 1920s and 1930s. One could argue,
however, that initially Parker did not know they were making a post-modern
pen. The very first ballpoints and pencils of the line looked like modern
instruments of their type. Only later did Parker redesign the pencils
and ballpoint pens to look like derivations of the Big Bro pencils of
the mid 1920s. Similarly, the first colors were evocations of celluloid
blues and reds of the 1920s. The red hard rubber tones, the marbled
finished of the Modernes and the yellows of the Mandarins came later.
The Waterman Edson is perhaps the greatest of the post modern pens.
The name refers directly to the founder of the company, and the pen
recalls the great modernist designs of Moore, Waterman and Sheaffer.
The celluloid pens of Omas and the retro designs of special edition
Mont Blancs also demonstrate post modernism techniques, as do Pelikan’s
self-referential “Originals of Their Time.”
Fountain pens, once everyday objects, quite naturally partook of the
design currents of their time and place. Today, they are luxury items
favored by only a fraction of the population outside our collecting
community. But, regardless, to those of us who choose to see them as
such, fountain pens offer us a chance to carry a small piece of twentieth
century art history and design with us every day.
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