The Arts and Crafts movement that swept the United States and Great Britain from roughly 1880 to 1920 was a response to the industrialization of the late 19th century. It was a call on the part of thinkers, poets, artists, and designers to return to a handmade aesthetic, in which craftsmanship was paramount, design was nature-inspired , and construction methods were straightforward, simple, and undisguised.
English art critic John Ruskin had actually articulated the movement’s founding principles several decades earlier. He considered the prevailing Victorian aesthetic decadent and argued for working conditions that considered the happiness of craftsmen. Pattern designer William Morris put Ruskin’s theories into practice when he established Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. in 1861 to create everything from furniture to wallpaper to fabrics to tapestries.
Another craftsman to put the ideals of Arts and Crafts into action was Charles Robert Ashbee, who established his Guild of Handicraft in 1888 in the slums of London’s East End. T...
Most British artists of the day did not take the movement’s social side that far. Instead, they contented themselves to producing furniture, ceramics, metalwork, and jewelry that hued to the visual principles of the movement, which got its formal name of Arts and Crafts in 1888.
Liberty & Co. in London brought the movement to the masses with chairs, plant stands, bookcases, and buffets, mostly in oak and mahogany. Individual designers of the day included William De Morgan, whose earthenware vases often suggested Persian influences.
Scotsman Charles Rennie Mackintosh, also considered a practitioner of Art Nouveau (which ran concurrently with the Arts and Crafts period), was another leader. From his Glasgow workshop, he produced handsome desks and other pieces of furniture. His high-backed chairs, especially the ones with trellis backs, are considered his signature.
Robert “Mouseman” Thompson arrived on the scene a little later. His charming gimmick was to adorn a carved mouse on the side of every piece of furniture he made.
In the United States, the Arts and Crafts movement was warmly embraced. Gustav Stickley published a highly influential magazine called The Craftsman from 1901 to 1916. Through his Craftsman Workshops in Syracuse, New York, he also produced furniture and metalwork.
Two of Stickley’s brothers, John George and Albert, established their own firm, Stickley Bros. Co., in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1891. After John George left to start yet another Stickley company with yet another brother (L. & J. G. Stickley in Fayetteville, New York with brother Leopold), Albert carried on at Stickley Bros., eventually labeling his pieces with a tag that read "Quaint Furniture."
Leopold and John George produced pieces for one of the 20th century's greatest architects, Frank Lloyd Wright. Today Wright is more closely associated with what we now call the Prairie School, a type of architecture that emphasized horizontal lines and eschewed ornamentation. But at the turn of the 20th century, he was considered one of the leading practitioners of Arts and Crafts. Importantly, Leopold and John George were not above using mechanical techniques to produce their pieces. Thus, they embraced the aesthetic of Arts and Crafts if not its social and philosophical underpinnings.
Louis Comfort Tiffany was perhaps even more famous than Stickley, although like Macintosh, his style straddled Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. Some of the finest examples of the former are his lamps with ceramic bases by Grueby Faience Company of Massachusetts.
Speaking of ceramics, the oldest pottery in the United States, Fulper Pottery Company, also became a proponent of Arts and Crafts with its 1909 Vasecraft line. Rookwood Pottery was a breeding ground for numerous Arts and Crafts ceramists — at one time or another, Artus Van Briggle, Matthew A. Daly William P. MacDonald, Albert Valentien, and John D. Wareham were all on staff.
More difficult to categorize was George Ohr, the so-called "Mad Potter of Biloxi, Mississippi," whose deformed and pinched vases fairly drip with candy-colored glazes. Newcomb College pottery from New Orleans went the other way, promoting simply-shaped vases and plates, usually with floral decorations in soft, pastel glazes.
Regions developed their own specialties. New York was the home of Roycroft, which excelled in copper objects for the home, handmade books, and fine wooden furniture. In Northern California, Arequipa Pottery of Fairfax imported future Fiesta visionary Frederick H. Rhead to design its pieces from 1910-1912. Dick Van Earp was another San Francisco Bay Area artisan of renown: His metal vases featured his trademark "warty" surface caused by hand-hammering.
In Southern California, Pasadena was the center for Arts and Crafts. In 1908, architects Charles Sumner and Henry Matthew Greene designed what many consider to be the movement’s architectural masterpiece for David and Mary Gamble. A year later, tilemaker Ernest T. Bachelder established a school devoted to the movement.
Meanwhile, in Chicago and Boston, jewelry in the Arts and Crafts style was very popular. The Kalo Shop opened in Chicago in 1900. And in Boston, Frank Gardner Hale and Edward E. Oakes were among that city’s leading jewelry designers.
Interviews & Articles
The Artisans and Designers Responsible for Roycroft Metalwork

I started collecting Roycroft around 1992 when I visited the Peter Roberts Gallery in New York City. That was sort of the peak of … [more]
The Kalo Shop, a Mecca for Arts and Crafts Sterling Silver

How did I get started collecting Arts and Crafts silver? My wife and I had been collecting Arts and Crafts items as far back as I … [more]
Elyse Karlin on the Beautifully Unrefined Origins of Arts & Crafts Jewelry

I started collecting jewelry when I was about 13 years old. I was very close to an interior designer who took me to antiques shops… [more]
Riley Humler Explains the Importance of Rookwood Art Pottery

I don’t remember the first Rookwood piece I ever bought, that’s getting close to 40 years ago. But I must have liked it, because I… [more]
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The Independent, May 17thcottage on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds is perfect for a peaceful weekend. Best for... History. Choristers House - This former school in North Yorkshire features turrets, beams and leaded windows. Manna for fans of the Arts and Crafts...Read more
Chance to walk in footsteps of Ashbee
Cotswold Journal, May 16thAshbee brought his Guild of Handicraft from London to Campden in 1902 and, despite it going into liquidation in 1908, the architect and designer's bold gesture transformed the history of the town by bringing the Arts and Crafts movement to the area...Read more
Historic restoration projects earn honours - Langley Advance
Langley AdvanceNews, May 16thThe home was made with materials produced in local mills, and conveys the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement in the early development of the village of Fort Langley. Today the house has been restored to much of its original historic beauty...Read more
Honoring one's elders
Palo Alto Online, May 15thBuilt in 1899 and on Palo Alto's Historic Inventory, it was noted as "an outstanding example of the Bay Area Arts and Crafts movement." In the "institutional restoration and remodel" category, two buildings were cited: the Palo Alto Art Center at 1313...Read more
Pre-Raphaelite art is a reminder of Mom's influence
The Herald-Mail, May 11thThey influenced William Morris, a central figure of the Arts and Crafts movement of the 1880s and '90s, and Aubrey Beardsley, a provocative Art Nouveau illustrator active at the turn of the century. All this looks impressive to me as I look backward...Read more
A respected authority on the arts and crafts design movement is to give a talk ...
Perthshire Advertiser, May 10thDr Cumming wrote a book in 2006 on the arts and crafts movement in Scotland, titled 'Heart Hand and Soul'. She also curated the exhibition of the same name which was seen in Edinburgh, Sheffield and Aberdeen, and has recently edited The Art of Modern...Read more
Handicraft Guild established Minneapolis as national center for Arts and ...
MinnPost.com, April 23rdThe international Arts and Crafts movement revived interest in hand-made arts and crafts. It started in England in the middle of the nineteenth century as an alternative to tedious factory labor brought by the Industrial Revolution. The Arts and Crafts...Read more
Arts & Crafts in Psychiatric Occupational Therapy
PsychCentral.com (blog), April 21stThe profession of occupational therapy (OT) has many of its roots in the Arts and Crafts Movement, a response to the industrialized production at the end of the nineteenth century which promoted a return to handcrafting (Hussey, Sabonis-Chafee, & O...Read more
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