Berthold Audsley
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Berthold Audsley (1874-1962) dedicated the majority of his career to the building of scale models for the Newark Museum (Newark, NJ) and the Edison Lamp Works. He designed a 1/8 scale model of the Pennsylvania Railroad K4s, which was subsequently built by Calvert Holt.
Berthold's father was George Ashdown Audsley (1838-1925), famed architect and organ designer.
A biographical sketch of Berthold Audsley appeared in the 21 December 1930 issue of The Sunday Call of Newark, New Jersey:
- Time was, back in 1912 while Mr. [Berthold] Audsley was in England, that he made a model of the Immingham docks on the Hummber River in Yorkshire. On a platform constructed in eleven sections, 28 by 16 feet, the model represented territory covering two square miles. Every building, crane and bridge and 8,000 tiny gondola cars filled with coal were made and put in their proper places by Mr. Audsley, who completed the exhibit in three months. The last six weeks of the time, he lived in a room at an inn next door to his specially built workshop and worked twenty-two hours a day. That model required the construction and placement of two miles of miniature railroad track. The model was placed on exhibition at the Ghent Exposition in 1913.
- Mr. Audsley is the type of artist who can step down from a heavy machinery lathe to another bench and start work on an intricate lacy carving, or do a bit of painting in oils so exacting as to require the use of a magnifying glass.
- Berthold Audsley also constructed models of ships, carriages, armor, and Medieval castles for use as educational materials in the Newark, New Jersey, public schools. Several of these are still preserved at the Newark Museum where he was employed. He additionally constructed working model steam locomotives of cast metal. One eighteen-inch-long example, presently in a private collection, developed 200 pounds pressure and ran at 40 miles per hour.
Obituary
- Berthold Audsley Born 5 October 1873; model maker for Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey; model maker at Edison Lamp Works and Westinghouse firms; taught at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York; returned to Newark Museum, 1943; retired 1958; died 21 January 1962, Newark, New Jersey. Married Gertrude Clark Children: Hazel A. Monprode, Marion Hook
Bibliography
- "Art of Polychromatic and Decorative Turning", George Ashdown Audsley and Berthold Audsley, 1911
- "Artistic and Decorative Stencilling", George Ashdown Audsley and Berthold Audsley, Published by Small, Maynard and Co., 1916
- "Amateur Joinery in the Home", George Ashdown Audsley and Berthold Audsley, 1916