Awards
Knighthoods ‘Sir Sir’
Presentation of the Order of the White Rose of Finland at
Saarinen House 1985. RS, Council General Erik Heinrichs,
and, grandsons of Eliel Saarinen, Robert and Ron Swanson.
As a Brit, my knighthoods mean so much to me; I feel fortunate that my mother was alive when I was knighted by Finland. She appreciated the honor and was in awe as was I; we were the only ones? My mother was present at the ceremony in Saarinen House, June 1985, when Erik Heinrichs, Council General of Finland, flew in from New York to present Finland’s most prestigious decoration. The award was given for the international acclaim and renewed recognition that had come to Eliel Saarinen and Finland through the 1983/4 Cranbrook exhibition; publication; articles and press. I was honored and proud to be made Knight First Class, Order of the White Rose of Finland.
More was to come later, most unexpectedly in 1994. Our dear friends, Pat and Jan Hartmann invited Agnes and me to dinner. Pat was chair of the Academy Board of Governors; both she and Jan were CEC Trustees. Jan Hartmann, born in Stockholm, was Honorary Swedish Consul for the State of Michigan. We were having dinner, the four of us, at the Bloomfield Hills Country Club. Jan is a tall, distinguished gentleman; in his quiet manner, he told me that I was to be decorated again. The King of Sweden had awarded me the insignia of Officer First Class of The Royal Order of the Polar Star of Sweden; the presentation occurred that May at Cranbrook. I was overwhelmed by and delighted with another knighthood; this time in recognition of work done in regard to Carl Milles. His sculptures and reputation had been restored; King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia visited Cranbrook. I was now “Sir Sir”?!
That same year, I was Commencement speaker and made Honorary Doctor of Arts at the Art Institute of Southern California. In October, I was to receive the Founders Medal of Cranbrook…….
The Founders Award
Eliel Saarinen: Kingswood School dining room.
The Founders’ Award is Cranbrook’s highest honor. Awarded 49 times over the last 39 years, it pays tribute to individuals who have been affiliated with Cranbrook and who exemplify the values of Cranbrook and its founders, George and Ellen Booth. On Saturday, October 8, 1994, at the Founders’ Award dinner, I was to be the sole recipient; a rare honor in itself. The first recipients in 1955 were Eliel Saarinen and Carl Milles. The black tie dinner was held at Kingswood; an elegant evening, enhanced by the extraordinary interiors; again, I was humbled and proud.
The chairman of the Board of Trustees, Wayne Lyon, presented the medal; after this
speech given Dr. Lillian Bauder, President of Cranbrook Educational Community.
When I arrived at Cranbrook almost twelve years ago, Roy Slade took me for one of his well-known walks. We met on Lone Pine Road, and he led me through the Cranbrook School gate and archway, across the campus, and finished at the Academy's Peristyle. Throughout he spoke of Saarinen's genius, pointing to the asymmetry of design, the elegance and simplicity in execution, the detail and craftsmanship. As compelling to me as the content of the tour was the passion with which it was given. Roy was able to express in an outpouring of words and gestures understandings of Saarinen and his work on this magnificent campus so that I too -- as new as I was to Cranbrook -- could take them within myself and see this remarkable place afresh every day.
Roy Slade is a wonderful teacher and an impassioned champion for Cranbrook. We have been fortunate to have him here for seventeen and a half years -- more than a quarter of his life, more than a quarter of the Academy's history, and longer as president of the Academy than any one else, including Eliel Saarinen.
Like Saarinen and so many others at our Academy, Roy was well established before he came here. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cardiff College of Art in Wales, and his Master of Teaching from the University of Wales. For more than a decade he taught art and painting at colleges in Great Britain. He was an accomplished painter also, winning competitions and showing his work in numerous galleries.
In 1967 Roy won a Fulbright-Hays Scholarship to teach painting for a year at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC. He returned to England, but the Corcoran so valued its year with him that it asked him to return a year later as Associate Dean. Roy advanced quickly to become Dean of the school as well as Director of the Corcoran Art Gallery.
In 1977 Arthur Keindl -- then President of Cranbrook Educational Community -- asked Roy to lead our Academy of Art. In Roy's contract, Keindl wrote, "We expect you to devote yourself full-time as a professional artist-administrator to leading the Academy to the highest level of excellence and reputation that you possibly can." In Roy, Keindl and our trustees, governors and artists-in-residence hoped they had found someone with the passion both for art and for teaching, who would recognize Cranbrook's precious heritage and lead the Academy into a renewed era of prominence.
Early in his first year Roy outlined what he hoped to accomplish during his tenure at Cranbrook. First, he pointed to the deteriorating buildings and grounds and the desperate need for restoration. Roy wrote:
To the artist, [the beauty and wonder of Cranbrook] are meaningful and inspirational surroundings, like no other in the world, created in order to create. Cranbrook should inspire. Let us respect and care for our surroundings.
Under his leadership, no longer were brick walkways paved over. He repaired and restored the Academy's buildings and courtyards, true always to Saarinen's designs, with no detail escaping his attention. Roy took on the extraordinary restorations of Saarinen House, the Orpheus Fountain and the Triton Pools. With his oversight, cultural properties across the campus were identified, catalogued and conserved -- artwork, furniture, wrought iron gates, even light fixtures like these that were designed by Saarinen.
During this time -- and not entirely by coincidence -- Cranbrook saw a surge of restoration across the rest of the campus as well. Roy didn't lead these efforts, but he helped change the way trustees, governors, administrators, and even the buildings and grounds crews thought about these architectural treasures for which we are stewards. Roy's arrival began a renaissance of caring and restoration for our buildings that continues to this day.
Roy's second hope was to re-establish the Academy as Eliel Saarinen had envisioned it: "...not an art school in the ordinary meaning, [but] a working place for creative art."
When Roy arrived, the Academy's national and international reputation had lessened. An accomplished administrator, Roy knew how to work with artists. His deft hand directed, never controlled. He commanded through humor, eloquence and flair. Over the years, he chose exceptionally fine artists-in-residence, and gave them the support and autonomy they needed to thrive, both as artists and as teachers. He restored not only the Academy's reputation, but also the extraordinary level of artistic achievement that comes from students collaborating with the artists-in-residence, among themselves, and among artistic disciplines. Roy leaves the Academy a teeming, thriving, working place for creative art.
Third, and perhaps most significant, Roy promised "to bring Cranbrook to the world, and the world again to Cranbrook. "
He organized numerous exhibitions calling on our extraordinary heritage of art and design, perhaps the most well known of which was Design in America. I will remember always standing with Roy on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City in 1984 looking up at the exhibition's enormous Saarinen-green banner in the great arch above the front door. Not only a wonderful moment for Cranbrook, this was a great personal triumph for Roy. Unable to contain his own excitement and exuberance, he bounded up the steps and stood under the banner with his arms outstretched, looking at once like a very excited schoolboy and a very triumphant man.
Roy has lectured and sent exhibitions on Cranbrook around the United States and to dozens of countries throughout the world. He has organized alumni events across the country, bringing together the living legacy of artists and designers that continue to carry forward the values and artistic vision inspired by Cranbrook.
Roy has invited well-known contemporary artists to lecture and exhibit here: Yoko Ono, Keith Haring, Duane Hansen and many others. He brought the King and Queen of Sweden,
the then Vice President's wife Joan Mondale, and countless other dignitaries to visit and experience the wonder of this architectural and artistic treasure in Michigan.
Roy brought definition and focus to the collections of our Art Museum, also establishing The Cranbrook Collection with work by artists who have studied or worked here, and expanding that collection by more than 1,000 pieces, exclusively through gifts and donations by the artists and other collectors.
In an article looking back on Roy's first ten years, the Detroit Free Press ran the headline, "The Man Who Woke the Giant." Indeed, he had.
In public Roy is flamboyant and larger than life. He is witty, urbane, dramatic, and unforgettable on the dance floor. In private, however, Roy is still a teacher. With his extraordinary eye for art, Roy could have become an art dealer and collector, wealthy many times over. Instead he committed his life to furthering art, art education, and the development of exceptional individuals who can change the way we look at our world. Roy says of art that:
It presents and brings to us enrichment, fulfillment, excitement, contemplation, celebration, shape, light, form, color, texture, pattern, ... space, dimension, tone, touch, sound, ... seduction, pain, pleasure, passion, spirit.
Kindling this flame has been his life's work. And for most of his career, Cranbrook has been his palette. Importantly, Roy has never lost his inner compass, his sense of who he was and why he chose to be here. His creative brilliance, restless energy, exalting laughter and exacting standards have led our Academy through an unparalleled era of rediscovery and renaissance, and for this he has our abiding gratitude, respect and affection.
As many of you know, Roy leaves Cranbrook next month, retiring to his home on Harsen's Island. He will write and read and paint, and he will sail the Great Lakes on his boat the Lady Blue. As Roy leaves Cranbrook stronger for his leadership, so too has he grown here, for such is the influence of this place. In seventeen years, he has mellowed. Roy says freely that he will leave here a finer artist, educator, leader, and human being than when he came. He is joined in retirement by his wife, Agnes. They were married a year ago in Las Vegas, where they rented a red convertible and exchanged vows in a drive-through wedding chapel. In Agnes, Roy has found a lifetime partner. She has made him a very happy man.
We at Cranbrook shall miss Roy. We shall miss Agnes. We shall cherish our memories of them and of his mother, Milla, whom he shared with Cranbrook for several precious years before her death. Roy and Agnes have been and will continue to be an integral part of the Cranbrook family, however, and we look forward to many, many years of their continued friendship. In November, we shall say only au revoir.
The Founders' Award is Cranbrook's single, highest honor. There is no better way to thank Roy and recognize him for all that he has done for Cranbrook than to add him to this list of
very special individuals. In so many ways, he embodies and exemplifies the values established for Cranbrook by the Booths -- the love of beauty, the reverence for knowledge and learning, the tireless pursuit of excellence, and the ability to inspire others to pursue these same ideals.
Wayne, it is my pleasure and my privilege to present to you Roy Slade to receive Cranbrook's highest honor, the Founders' Award.
Lillian Bauder October 8, 1994
The founders: George Gough and Ellen Scripps Booth.
Founder's Day Award Speech
RS on accepting the medal.....
"Thank you Lillian.
With humility and pride I accept the Founder's Award. I do so, on behalf of many
people, individuals who have helped, supported and inspired me over the past
eighteen years."
In my remarks, I talked of my role of being that of the conductor of an orchestra playing a great score. ‘My orchestra’ was made up of faculty, staff, students, alumni, curators, governors, trustees, docents, volunteers, Women’s Committee, patrons and friends. I said that Cranbrook is people and place. In this wonderful place, a page can be turned each day; revealing a new detail, carving or vista for Cranbrook is a celebration of architecture, art and life. I thanked alumni for their support that will be evident in an exhibit next month; a selection by curators of work donated during my tenure. I recalled meeting with over thirty alumni for Thanksgiving dinner in Tokyo; all were Japanese, designers and architects, graduates of the Academy. The most distinguished was the Pritzker Award winner, Fumiko Maki, 1952 Architecture; he talked of Cranbrook as if yesterday.
The achievements that I mentioned were The Cranbrook Collection; deSalle Auditorium; Saarinen House restoration; and ‘Design in America’ exhibition and publication. I thanked Lillian Bauder for her support and friendship; I wished her well in her future endeavors. I acknowleged the guidance and love of my late mother, Milla. My wife, Agnes, and our two sons, Chuck and John, and ‘in absentia’, daughter Anne, a Kingswood graduate, were recognized. I expressed gratitude to all those who worked with me, too numerous to mention. Yet, I had to give special thanks to my assistants, Roberta Stewart and Bob Yares, and to my Board chairs; Pat Hartmann, Les Rose and the late Ernie Jones ‘Mister Chairman’. I praised the founders, the Booths, and Eliel Saarinen for creating Cranbrook. Finally, I emphasized the students for their education was our true purpose and mission. I recalled my first visit and seeing Saarinen House and the grounds; I was in awe and humbled.
"That was a moment of humility, becoming aware of the genius of Eliel Saarinen
and the glory of Cranbrook. Tonight, again, I am humbled with this awesome award
which I accept on behalf of many individuals, knowing that makes me part of
the legacy, the place, the people, the wonder that is Cranbrook. I thank you most
sincerely."
Roy Slade October 8, 1994