Nol Putnam, a self-taught blacksmith who forged a signature style, coaxing delicate flowers, leaves and tendrils from molten metal in works that grace sites including Washington National Cathedral, has died at 89.
The cause was complications from pneumonia, said his daughter, Anne Putnam. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
Blacksmithing is taxing work, with coal-burning fires that reach temperatures of 2,000 degrees, flames that glow so piercingly they can destroy the artist’s eyesight, and pounding that hammers one’s hearing along with the iron to be worked. Budny collaborated with Mr. Putnam on a book, “Beauty in the Shadows” , documenting the cathedral’s ironwork.
. The single-door Brown Gate and Clagett Gate, also with botanical flourishes, were installed in 1988 and 1995, respectively.“Even through these are wrought-iron gates that weigh thousands of pounds, the foliage that he forged and hammered out … has a sense of lightness,” Joe Alonso, the cathedral’s head stone mason, said in an interview.
After his parents divorced, he grew up with his mother and stepfather on a farm in Connecticut. His mother,
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