US Arts and Crafts ???????
Jon Dennington
about something that is bothering me at present.
I have seen posts on the US Arts and Crafts Movement....?????.
Surely, only items produced by members of The Brotherhood founded by
William Morris, and the Chipping Campden group, can be labelled Arts
and Crafts.
I know that there were arts and crafts style imitators throughout
the world, in the same way that there is 'Chinese Champagne', but
these are general copies. Even similar items to those produced by
Morris and Co can't be labelled Arts and Crafts (Capital 'A' and
'C') in the UK.
I'd really like this clarified, [especially as my wife is a direct
relation of William Morris's wife and Rossetti's mistress, Jane
Burden]
Finally, on matters of US 'taste',nothing could be more beautiful
and aesthetically pleasing to me than the perfectly
understated Shaker pieces.
Jon Dennington
Patricia V. Lehman
>
>
> Sigh. I can't keep quiet any longer.
>
> Jon, I sense a disturbing trend in your postings, a disingenuous
> attempt at American-bashing while hoping it won't be labelled as such.
>
> The customs of your tribe are not the laws of nature.
>
Welcome back, Charleen.
Jon, You are, I am certain, absolutely right about British law and
practice, but it is far too late to apply any kind of copyright or
brand-name exclusivity to that term in America, even in the most
exalted circles. It's more than 80 years too late to keep the Arts
and Crafts label sacred to William Morris here. The religion
created by Morris, Ruskin, and Carlyle is far too deeply established
far beyond the island where it was born for that workshop to reclaim
sole title.
The people who brought his ideas to America were his disciples,
and saw themselves, not as competitors or thieves of the name and the
ideas, but as missionaries of Morris. They created their own workshops
in the spirit of apostles, not usurpers. (Besides, we haven't even
been able to keep the word "aspirin" from becoming part of the public domain, much less a philosophical
movement that is currently being revived.)
Yes, the American version is derivative, but it long ago took on a
life of its own. And when Elbert Hubbard went to meet with Morris and
Murdo, nobody could stop him. I'm sure you'd cringe at some of the
things coming around now in his name (I know I do) but there's no
denying its energy.
There's a delightful article in today's New York Times
by Patricia Leigh Brown entitled "Arts and Crafts, the Road Show"
that gives the history of the American version in a nutshell. A couple
of quotations:
"Elbert Hubbard...-- a curious combination of Robert Fulghum and
Ralph Loren (laced with a little Ross Perot) -- perished on the
Lusitania in 1915. But like his fellow Arts and Crafts crusader
Gustav Stickley (or Gus, as he is now known to those in the
movement), elbert lives on. And on, and on...The multimillion-dollar
industry that has given rise to two annual national conferences that
have become the equivalent of Woodstock for thousands of New Stickleyites
enraptured with inglenooks.
Weep not for the future of the movement: "The cycle that gave birth
to Arts and Crafts is being repeated, said Kitty Turgeon-Rust...Arts and
Crafts was a reaction to the machine. Today, it's the computer. It's
the same thing."
Probably the best you can hope for is that we use the modifier
"American" when we talk about it.
Tish Lehman (p...@umich.edu)
Connie Zeigler
j...@vigman.win-uk.net (Jon Dennington) wrote:
>Following my general comments on US/UK antiques, I have to ask
>about something that is bothering me at present.
>
>I have seen posts on the US Arts and Crafts Movement....?????.
>
>Surely, only items produced by members of The Brotherhood founded by
>William Morris, and the Chipping Campden group, can be labelled Arts
>and Crafts.
>
>I know that there were arts and crafts style imitators throughout
>the world, in the same way that there is 'Chinese Champagne', but
>these are general copies. Even similar items to those produced by
>Morris and Co can't be labelled Arts and Crafts (Capital 'A' and
>'C') in the UK.
Jon, of course there was a legitimate Arts and Crafts movement in America,
one that arose from the British movement led by Morris. Doubting the validity
of such a movement in the states would be somewhat akin to an American saying
that the Brits are foolish for thinking that they had Rock and Roll bands,
since that genre arose from distinctively American music.
Connie Zeigler
--
Durwyn Smedley Antiques
Visit our web site... http://www.iquest.net/smedley/index
E-mail us at......... sme...@iquest.net
Specializing in: All items from the Arts & Crafts era, Russel Wright designs,
art pottery and commercial art wares, and 20th century design
ALANT24FPS
:Following my general comments on US/UK antiques, I have to ask
:about something that is bothering me at present.
:I have seen posts on the US Arts and Crafts Movement....?????.
:Surely, only items produced by members of The Brotherhood founded by
:William Morris, and the Chipping Campden group, can be labelled Arts
:and Crafts.
:I know that there were arts and crafts style imitators throughout
:the world, in the same way that there is 'Chinese Champagne', but
:these are general copies. Even similar items to those produced by
:Morris and Co can't be labelled Arts and Crafts (Capital 'A' and
:'C') in the UK.
:I'd really like this clarified, [especially as my wife is a direct
:relation of William Morris's wife and Rossetti's mistress, Jane
:Burden]
:Finally, on matters of US 'taste',nothing could be more beautiful
:and aesthetically pleasing to me than the perfectly
:understated Shaker pieces.
:Jon Dennington
Mr Dennington shows a remarkable lack of historical and geographic
perspective for someone with such illustrious connections to the period in
question.
The Arts and Crafts movement went throughout the industrialized world in
the late 19th and early 20th century, finding fertile ground in Germany
(the Darmstadt colony and the 'Heimat-kunst'), Austria (the Secession),
the Scandinavian countries (where it arguably has lasted longest--think of
the Danish folk-schools), as well as the US.
William Morris and his colleagues were only the best known exponents of
the movement's ideals. And they intended for it to spread far and wide-or
else what was all that tireless writing, lecturing and travel for?
For example, Dr Christopher Dresser did a lecture tour of America in 1876.
May Morris came over in 1909. C.R. Ashbee visited the US several times and
had influential visits with, among others, Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles
Sumner Greene. In fact Wright later stayed with Ashbee at Chipping Camden
and Ashbee wrote the introduction for Wright's first 'Wasmuth Portfolio.'
Visits to England to soak up the Morris ideals were common for American
A&C enthusiasts of means--Gustav Stickley in the 1890s and onwards, and
Elbert Hubbard, who claimed (probably dishonestly) to have met with
Morris, among them.
As early as the 1880s there were 'Arts and Crafts Societies' and 'William
Morris Societies' in many US cities, notably Chicago and Boston. In the
former, social reformer Jane Addams modeled her 'Hull House' on Ashbee's
Toynbee Hall, and Ashbee apparently considered her to have surpassed his
prototype.
Probably the most important voice for the Arts and Crafts in the US was
the furniture manufacturer and publisher Gustav Stickley, who dedicated
the first and second issues of his enormously influential 'Craftsman'
magazine to Morris and John Ruskin, respectively, in 1901. So deeply did
Stickley believe in the benefits of working with one's hands that he
published plans for his own furniture, recommending that his middle-class
readership make it for themselves.
And it should be pointed out that, however much the message of social
reform may have been diluted by the larger-scale production of 'A&C
furniture and other decorative objects in the US, they were at least
affordable to a larger range of people here than those made in the small
shops of Morris and Co, Liberty, or the Guild of Handicraft.
I've looked through both of the English-published A&C books in my
reference library, and I can find no evidence that "Even similar items to
those produced by Morris and Co can't be labelled Arts and Crafts (Capital
'A' and 'C') in the UK."
In fact, Malcolm Haslam's 'Collector's Style Guide: Arts and Crafts'
(London, 1988) lists objects by Morris and Co, and the Guild of Handicraft
(as well as such other English designers and makers as Ambrose Heal,
Ernest Gimson, M.H. Baillie Scott, C.F.A Voysey, William Birch, et al.)
right alongside the production of Gustav Stickley, his many brothers, the
Roycroft shops, potter George Ohr, and many others.
To reduce the whole complex, international field of the Arts and Crafts to
a very few handcrafted objects from two workshops, however beautiful those
objects may be, is to completely miss the point of the movement, then and
now.
Mr Dennington is quite right about the beauty of the Shaker furniture,
however--and Gustav Stickley admired it, too.
Best wishes,
Alan Thatcher
Dr. Derrick C. Mancini
(ALANT24FPS) wrote:
> The Arts and Crafts movement went throughout the industrialized world in
> the late 19th and early 20th century, finding fertile ground in Germany
> (the Darmstadt colony and the 'Heimat-kunst'), Austria (the Secession),
> the Scandinavian countries (where it arguably has lasted longest--think of
> the Danish folk-schools), as well as the US.
Alan, can you (or anyone else) point me to references about the A&C
movement in Scandinavia, particularly Sweden and Denmark. In particular,
I am interested in what one might look for at auction or dealers when
visiting the area.
Regards,
Derrick
man...@aps.anl.gov
Patricia V. Lehman
>
>
> Although I have around twenty books on the Brotherhood, and work
> at the sister College to Ruskin College in Oxford, this era is of
> no *antique* interest to me. My own speciality deals in objects made
> in the 16thC to 18thC and so late 20thC items are fairly modern to
> me.
>
Ummm -- Late 19C perhaps? Or is your occasional crankiness due to
the fact that you are posting from the future?
Tish Lehman (p...@umich.edu)
Jon Dennington
>>
>> Although I have around twenty books on the Brotherhood, and work
>> at the sister College to Ruskin College in Oxford, this era is of
>> no *antique* interest to me. My own speciality deals in objects made
>> in the 16thC to 18thC and so late 20thC items are fairly modern to
>> me.
>>
>Ummm -- Late 19C perhaps? Or is your occasional crankiness due to
>the fact that you are posting from the future?
>
>>>>>Curses, now you know I'm a time traveller,... and that's how I
get hold of all my early antiques!!!
Jon
"Many a true word spoken in jest"
Jon Dennington
>>>>>Hi Alan,
Super reply, and I was slightly playing Devil's Advocate here to
provoke discussion as I was getting really fed up with the banal
subjects that were appearing in the group.
However, on one point ,I didn't mean Morris and Co as in his limited
company, but Morris and his direct associates and comrades.
However, apart from the direct family association (my wife Elaine
Burden [before marriage], is the direct descendant of Jane Burden,
who was Rossetti's mistress and also Morris' wife, I have no real
interest in Arts and Crafts items.
Although I have around twenty books on the Brotherhood, and work
at the sister College to Ruskin College in Oxford, this era is of
no *antique* interest to me. My own speciality deals in objects made
in the 16thC to 18thC and so late 20thC items are fairly modern to
me.
Anyway, thanks for the interesting and informative mail,
Jon
Rocko25
and in good condition. I would like to find a piece which is masculine. If
you have any information regarding a desk please let me know. Thanks.