Please note – This is the life story of Laura Weeks (Carl Weeks’ mother) as written by her and includes some sensitive material regarding treatment of minorities, physical injury, farm life, animal death, and poverty. Reader discretion is advised.
The Weeks collected a wide variety of art and objects during their life time, and as the owners of Salisbury House used the many rooms to display their wares. In order to compile such a vast and unique collection, Carl in particular, worked with a number of dealers from around the world – today’s objects came from the Asian Antique Dealer, Edward Barrett.
In the summer of 1923, Carl Weeks was venturing home after a day at the Armand Company factory and came upon workers tearing up High Street, located in downtown Des Moines. High Street had been approved for new paving in February of 1923 to improve grading and make safer intersections.
Carl Weeks lived during an innovative and quickly evolving time, seeing major wars and technological inventions. The late1800s and early 1900s saw humanity change drastically, and so this post is split into several sections to look at the significant world moments in the life of Salisbury House creator, Carl Weeks. The first of these sections to be discussed are the early life years (1876-1900).
Carl and Edith Weeks were fans of the Italian/American artist, Joseph Stella, and during their tenure as owners of Salisbury House, collected four of Stella’s paintings – King of the Beggars, Tree of My Life, The Birth of Venus, and Apotheosis of the Rose. Today, the Salisbury House Foundation retains in its collection three beautiful Joseph Stella paintings. Each painting dates to a different year and illustrates the evolution of his artistic style.
In our last post about heraldry and the coats of arms found around Salisbury House, we did some looking into the hatchment hanging in the Great Hall where there is an “escutcheon”. Today, we will be looking at the escutcheon a bit further.
On a January afternoon over eighty years ago, two celebrated American artists visited Des Moines as guests of Carl Weeks.
Salisbury House Blog