Conjuring Magic

'Coloratura at 35: A Retrospective' brings together more than 50 works of art-furniture and decor from the husband-and-wife team of Rob Womack and Catherine Roseberry

Catherine Roseberry, half of the wife-husband artistic team of Coloratura, described how seeing selections from 35 years’ worth of work gathered under one roof — and, since this is the Branch Museum of Architecture and Design, what a massive roof it is — as feeling like a family reunion.

Rob Womack, the other half, reflected that the artist makes the work that is sent out to the world, perhaps never to be seen again. But, he reported, of the more than 50 pieces reclaimed from collections across the country for the exhibition, not one owner said no. Not even the city of Richmond.

The “Coloratura at 35: A Retrospective” exhibition at the Branch bucks one trend for the space in showing off three-dimensional objects, which often isn’t done there. Mainly because the great house is also in demand for weddings and events. Can’t have a galumphing groomsman or a maladroit maid of honor spill wine or, perish the thought, damage something. Still, Branch trustee Sally Brown received appreciations for germinating the show’s concept, and Executive Director Penny Fletcher said at the recent opening, “I thank her for telling me, ‘This is the show [you've] got to do.' ”

Truth be told, since we are closing in on the 2019 centennial of the completion of John Kerr and Beulah Branch’s 27,000-square-foot “stately Wayne manor" of a house, there may not have been a display quite like this since the Branches — themselves art collectors — lived here.

Roseberry says, “Coloratura is our life, but life also involves our daughter, our family, our home and all the messy stuff of living.”

And living also implies furnishings for the messy stuff of storage, sleeping and eating.

Roseberry and Womack have used furniture as a canvas for their ideas for more than 35 years. They’ve established a national reputation from a local address. They are consummate craftspeople who seamlessly honor the origins of each piece. They’ve received National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and their work is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. They, like their art, together and separately, are one of a kind.

One of Coloratura’s few public pieces is 1994’s “The Conjuror Revealed,” installed at the Mosque/Landmark/Altria Theatre as part of the One Percent for the Arts program through the Public Arts Commission.

A five-panel work with the backdrop of grillwork duplicated from an Egyptian mosque, it features several figures riding in enigmatic vessels: a Turkish acrobat, a floating opera singer and a magician, and from his wand is suspended the Mosque itself (as the auditorium was then called). To deepen the illusion, light upon the objects is imitated, and the expanding shadows beneath the elaborate grill seem real. The quality is as of a peculiar and vivid dream. Womack was inspired by a vision of the building floating within a crystal ball — meaning the audience and the magician were in there, too.

In a description alongside the work, he writes, “The theme of magic seemed so perfect for this enchanted place.” He sifted through his own memories of performances he’d seen at the theater: the Chinese Magic Circus, "La Boheme," "The Nutcracker," a lecture by Buckminster Fuller explaining his geodesic dome, The Cab Calloway orchestra and Miles Davis (a true wizard if there ever was one).

When installed, “The Conjuror Revealed” looked as though it came with the place. “I saw ‘The Conjuror Revealed’ in its position at the entrance to the Grand Tier as the opening act for the patrons entering the auditorium,” Womack adds.

Then, in 2012, the great old public building closed for a $63 million renovation and the “Conjuror” pulled a vanishing act. Or rather, the city disappeared the work in favor of a cash bar. The panels were unceremoniously crated and sent into the building’s basement. Neither the artists nor the Public Arts Commission received word of what happened to the work.

While, Womack points out, they were not damaged, nor could they be seen, and it does not appear at this time that there is any desire on the city’s part for a return engagement of the piece. Exhibited in the Branch’s great hall, the panels resemble the tapestries that used to hang there in the Branch family’s day.

When Coloratura is commissioned to create upon furnishings, they transform the ordinary into heirlooms.

Womack’s pieces represent an early 20th-century deco fantasia; an astonishing New York-style skyline from the view of an upper-story terrace or a hushed Edward Hopper streetscape. He hauls home stacks of art books for painstaking research. Roseberry’s work is earthier, sensual, figurative. In a 2013 interview for Coloratura’s Theresa Pollak Prize for Excellence in the Arts, Roseberry said, “We both do our own paintings. That’s how we’ve stayed married since 1984.”

Visitors to the Branch galleries are treated to process drawings of several of the pieces. One is struck by the invention, playfulness, magic, wonder and, well, fun. Still, it is painstaking work requiring both a fastidious eye and a creative hand. Their realizations are seen for bedrooms and restaurant tables.

At the 1989 New York Contemporary Furniture Fair they were placed alongside the day’s leading designers and gained notice from international publications. “Nobody knew it was just the two of us schlepping this stuff from a second-floor apartment in Richmond,” Roseberry says. The New York Times called them “modest and unassuming,” the Washington Post “disarming.”

“Because we were polite,” Roseberry says.

Roseberry grew up on a Manassas farm and Womack with a sign company-running father. During high school he worked for an antique dealer that cultivated his interest in older pieces. “So, we don’t paint on really good things,” he says. “We’ve turned down work because of that.”

“Coloratura at 35” is on view through Aug. 19. Hear the artists speak about their work and relate the history of pieces July 14 at 1 p.m. and July 19 at 6 p.m.