still under construction 10-12-09 -- much of the contents below are too derivative, not yet reflective enough of my own work, to be considered original enough to become respectable. Let's just say that I'm working as fast as I can to distill the vast corpus of material that exists on Stickley, especially from the point of view of his contribution to woodworking.
Editorial Note: Any book or magazine that gives info on woodworking, whether how-to-do-it -- "processes" -- or projects to build -- "products" -- is, in my rubric, a woodworker's manual. Thus while it is readily agreed that Gustav Stickley's oeuvre decidely falls outside this rough definition of a "woodworker's manual", it is undeniable -- especially today, with a revival of the public's interst in Arts and Crafts that has lasted longer than the initial movement, and shows no signs of abating -- that his ideas about designs for furniture possess a lasting impact. In that light, his contributions to woodworking deserve to be celebrated.
Table of Contents
2. Impact of Britain's Books and Magazines: Access for Americans to Leading Architect-Designers:-- Arthur H. Mackmurdo, Charles F. A. Voysey, M H Baillie Scott, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
7. Stages in the Development of Stickley's Operations
7a Stirrings of Ambition 1858-1898
7b Art and Crafts Beginnings 1898-1900
In early issues of The Craftsman, and in almost-lock-step with many fellow Americans discussed directly above, Stickley acknowledges that the example of Ruskin and Morris awakened him to the Arts and Crafts, Read More here. in 1901, Issue number 1, displays Stickley's homage to William Morris' ideas and ideals. In turn, The Craftsman's second issue celebrates John Ruskin.
2. Impact of England's Books and Magazines: Access for Americans to Leading Architect-Designers:-- Arthur H. Mackmurdo, Charles F. A. Voysey, M H Baillie Scott, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Much of what Americans absorbed absorbed about the English movement reached North America in printed form. As detailed on this webpage, books and magazines from England were inspiring sources for Americans.
The rough adaptation an advertisement in the same publisher's novel, The Unpretenders, it is a "quick and dirty" attempt toward showing the "role" of the monthly periodical, International Studio as a leading influence of aesthetic taste in the early decades of the 20th century. Patterned on the London-based The Studio (1893-1964), The International Studio, New York: John Lane company, v.1 1897-v.99 1931, this upscale magazine included photographs as a regular feature of its articles.
Subscription
50c per copy
$5.00 per year
EVERY number of the International Studio contains authoritative articles on the work of artists of established, as well as of rising, fame. The reader is kept informed of exhibitions, museums, galleries and studios in all the important art centres of the world. The illustrations, both in color and halftone, are unequalled in quantity and quality by any other periodical. The subjects discussed each month are: paintings, etchings, drawings, photography, sculpture, architecture, decorations, tapestries, rugs, textiles, furniture, embroideries, landscape architecture, stained glass, pottery and the numerous other handicrafts, etc. The International Studio has maintained its place as the leading art magazine in the English language ever since its first issue in March, 1897.
In 1899 and early 1900, International Studio dedicated over 100 pages in five issues to covering the London-based Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society's sixth exhibition. Evidently the first British Arts and Crafts Exhibition given a high profile in a periodical readily available in the United States, it is not unlikely that Stickley and his designers became familiar with the text and the many illustrations.
In 1897 Arts and Crafts societies were formed in Boston and Rochester, New York, and similar groups soon emerged in other eastern cities. [Beverly K. Brandt, The Craftsman and the Critic
Brandt's Usefulness and Beauty -- also go to arts and crafts files on hard-drive]
Many Americans, including Stickley, recognized that an American taste for simplicity was developing. (Rhetorically, one asks, "How do we reconcile these stirrings for simplicity among Arts and Crafts enthusiasts with the continued interest in the Colonial Revival?" Interest in single branch, or a shared interest in both branches is not incompatible. For example, today, among amateur woodworkers, its is not uncommon that we share an equal appreciation for each decorative arts styling. At the turn into the 20th century, it is not unlikely among citizens -- especailly educated urban residents -- that some embraced one over the other style, while still others were equally drawn to both. ) Publicity given Frank Lloyd Wright's creations is a testament to simpler, more restrained designs (This link discusses the several sources that lead to a shift from turned spindles to square, stright-lined spindles, perhaps one of the leading indicators of a turn by Ameican tast to a more restrained design.)
[needs work] than could have him to change the nature of his production while offering a potentially profitable marketing opportunity for his firm.
Thus Stickley was drawn toward the Arts and Craft movement for both personal and commercial reasons, and in 1900, he put his newly conceived Art Crafts furniture on public view, and as Margaret Edgewood's article (above) shows, this shift in design preference by Stickley, did not go unnoticed by an American public, tastes were shifting.
GREGORY, E. W. Architects of the modern English home [the work of M. H. Baillie Scott]. House Beautiful v. 30 (August 1911) p. 66-71 [accompanied by several drawings, several of which copied on "screenshot software"] Evidently a series of articles in early issues of IS: "A SMALL COUNTRY HOUSE", The International studio. 2-3 - 1897 ]
Quarter Oak; Quarter-Sawn Oak
Prairie Style
Fumed Oak
tenons and keys,
dovetails,
inlay: -- glossary_inlay.htm -- this page made with TEA software.
exposed tenons,
many pieces ornamented with hand-wrought copper or iron hardware.
Characteristics of C. F. A. Voysey's architecture. International Studio v. 33 (November 1907) p. 19-24
C R Mackintosh, in Hermann Muthesius, The English House London: Frances Lincoln, 2007, v 1
Davey, P., reviewer C. F. A. Voysey (Book Review); Baillie Scott (Book Review). The Architectural Review 198 (December 1995) p. 96
Baillie-Scott, M. H. Houses and gardens [Review]. The Nation v. 85 (August 1 1907) p. 106-7
"It is a treasure house of everything of value
in the way of art."—Indianapolis Star.
"An art gallery in itself."— Brooklyn Eagle
Source: Ad for Anne Warwick's, The Unpretenders, New York: John Lane, 1916; for a contemporary account of the impact of the IS, see Beverly K. Brandt, "Worthy and Carefully Selected": American Arts and Crafts at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904 Archives of American Art Journal 28, No. 1 1988, pages 2-16.
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Stickley himself subscribed to International Studio, and at least two of Stickley's designers, Harvey Ellis (1852-1904) and LaMont Warner (1876-1970), clipped and filed articles and images from International Studio and English architectural magazines.
America, in general, had been drawn to the simplicity and skilled hand craftsmanship of Japanese decorative art.
Asian decorative art were first seen in America at Philadelphia's Centennial Exhibition of 1876.
At the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, Americans -- exposed to art objects from a variety of nations and times -- were influenced by Japanese decoration, late 17th- and early 18th-century English domestic design, and blue and white Chinese porcelain. Where they could, designers included examples from Greek, Persian, Moorish, Egyptian and other exotic styles and motifs. Elaborately, for those who could afford it, homes were designed and decorated through the collaborative efforts of designers, architects and craftsmen. Typical motifs included sunflowers, fan shapes, peacock feathers, and bamboo.
A fever developed for collecting artistic works, and home interiors became expressions of artistic taste, generating the term, "Household Art". The underlying principles of the movement emphasized "art in the production of furniture". A reaction to the highly elaborate products of mainstream Victorian taste, aestheticism stressed simple forms and uncluttered surfaces. Often, ornament was placed asymmetrically.
Source: Martha Crabill McClaugherty, "Household Art: Creating the Artistic Home, 1868-1893" Winterthur Portfolio 18, No. 1 Spring, 1983, pages 1-26)
At least one contemporary writer, Arthur Russell, appeciated the simplicity and subtlety of Grueby pottery as 'Japanesque', because he claims
"[t]he Japanese have taught us much, but nothing more clearly perhaps than that beauty does not depend upon intricacy or elaborateness of design and ornamentation".
Source: Arthur Russell, "Grueby Pottery", The House Beautiful December 1898.), quoted in Eidelberg 1987, p.50.]
Stickley himself collected Japanese prints and admired Asian design, and it is possible that Stickley was familiar with a New York store specializing in Japanese decorative arts.
Source: Barbara Stickley Wiles, interview February 14, 1979, as cited by MARY ANN SMITH, GUSTAV STICKLEY: The Craftsman SYRACUSE: SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1983, page 14 (?).
The interiors that Harvey Ellis designed for Gustav Stickley were Japanesque; Ellis, Stickley and LaMont Warner all collected Japanese woodcut prints. As an art student, Warner "had absorbed the Japonisme of his teacher, Arthur Wesley Dow".
Source: David Cathers "In a Higher Plane" [not complete], International Arts and Crafts, Edited by Karen Livingstone and Linda Parry London: V&A PUBLICATIONS, 2005, [chapter 11] pages ?
Influence of North American Indians Charles Lummis Land of Sunshine
Modernity, Yes -- Not Anti-Machine
Joel Lefever:-- They Make Furniture with Machinery
Holland Historical Trust Curator Joel Lefever examines three Grand Rapids firms that changed public attitudes toward the production of fine furniture with machinery in the late nineteenth century.
What set Grand Rapids apart in the furniture industry was the impact that its companies had on the way furniture was perceived by both the trade and the public. Traditionally, high-quality, stylish, expensive furniture had been handmade. During the period from 1870 to 1885, the leading Grand Rapids companies, in particular Berkey & Gay Furniture Company; Nelson, Matter & Company; and Phoenix Furniture Company, helped machine-assisted production of fine furniture to gain acceptance.
These three companies, which are considered the most significant early Grand Rapids firms, exhibited large bedroom suites at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and all three won awards, signaling that machine-assisted production had matured.
Longer-established cabinetmakers and factories did not readily accept that the same machinery used to make inexpensive "cottage furniture" could also be applied to high-end furniture. Customers, who were not concerned with construction methods, were easier to convince: they simply wanted substantial furniture that looked good for a reasonable price.
The trade did not object to the use of machinery for production of "low" to "medium" furniture. Machines were used as early as the 1850s for preparing, shaping, and turning wood. However, when Grand Rapids applied the same technology to upper-end furniture in the 1870s, the furniture trade took notice, and some began to complain bitterly. The industry was divided between those who embraced technological advances and those who did not. Ultimately, only those who accepted new woodworking technology could survive.
These three major Grand Rapids companies contributed to the city's emergence as a furniture manufacturing center. They combined keen businessmen, raw materials, available work force, technological advances, professional furniture designers, and aggressive marketing to create a significant impact on the industry.
Source: Joel Lefever, "They Make Furniture with Machinery", Christian G Carron, ed., Grand Rapids Furniture: The Story of America's
Furniture City. Grand Rapids, MI: Public Museum of Grand Rapids, 1998, pages 32-41.
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America's practitioners of Arts and Crafts ideas and ideals saw themselves as 'Modern' definitely embracing America's growing sense of national identity
"Regardless their admiration of the aesthetic values they derived from British, Native American and Japanese sources, or any yearnings that they might hold for simplifying their lives by returning to an era before the ongoing Industrial Revolution -- the Anti-Modern Impulse --", |
claims David Cathers,
America's practitioners of Arts and Crafts ideas and ideals saw themselves as 'Modern' men and women, definitely embracing America's growing sense of national identity." |
For Cathers, this concept about "modern" could come from Hermann Muthesius, where -- in his 1905 treatise on The English House, a work that Cathers cites -- Muthesius discusses the irony of William Morris as a "modern man":
... [William] Morris spent most of the rest of his life learning one craft after another. Not restricting himself to the mechanical sort of handwork but working with the intelligence of the discoverer and pathfinder. His foundation was always the practice of the medieval craftsman. But as a modern man he could not help building on this foundation in a modern way, a way appropriate to the cultural conditions of today. In this it was far from his mind to search for 'new forms', but because he always returned to nature to use her in the way that medieval artists had done, as a modern man, automatically and without wishing to, he discovered something new. Hermann Muthesius, The English House, in 3 vols, ed with intro by Dennis Sharp; trans by Janet Seligman and Stewart Spencer London: Frances Lincoln, 2007, volume I, page 97.
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Anchor in appendix 22:
Margaret Edgewood's frequently cited article about Stickley's furniture, "Some Simple Furniture", describes it as "new in form and color ... made of American wood, designed and executed by American artisans". Margaret Edgewood, The House Beautiful (October 1900), p.653 not online?
As shown in Document 21, Frank Lloyd Wright -- Art and Craft of the Machine 1901, the use of power machines for manufacture of fine furniture -- while it was shunned by their English brothers and sisters -- was readily embraced by the Ameircans
In the December 1902 of The Craftsman the designer/decorator Henry Belknap (1860-1946), a veteran of several firms of the era, made the case against unaided hand labour and raised the related issues of profit for the producer and affordability for the consumer:
It would seem that a field is open for an enterprise which, while having its commercial side, is yet upon a higher plane ... It is probable that in order to make such a place sufficiently profitable ... work must be admitted which is not strictly that of the individual craftsman ... No one but the idealist imagines that we can eliminate the machine ... for the cost of hand-work must always place it beyond the reach of all save the wealthy.
16 Source: Henry Belknap, "The Revival of The Craftsman", The Craftsman December 1902, pages 184-5.
Perhaps Gustav Stickley's Craftsman Workshops best exemplified Belknap's views. Why? Because, in balancing the demands of both craft and commerce, Stickley worked at creating e an enterprise that was both economically viable, yet could exist "upon a higher plane".
In 1906, perhaps after the production of his 32-square spindle Morris Chair, wrote published "the use and abuse of machinery"
According to David Cathers, regardless of Stickley's aspirations or his achievements, his compromises he had to make, and his ultimate failure are testimony to the flawed foundations of America's first Arts and Crafts Movement.
Following an apprenticeship in his uncle's chair factory, Gustav Stickley became a furniture manufacturer in the early 1880s, and over the following two decades he grew prosperous producing unremarkable revival-style chairs. But financial success alone failed to satisfy him. By the late 1890s, feeling compelled to engage in more meaningful work, he became increasingly drawn to the nascent American Arts and Crafts Movement.
Henry Wilkinson (1869-1931)
Stickley was not a designer himself, he did have gift for attracting and motivating talented people. At Cornell University -- where he got his architecture degree -- Wilkinson acquired an admiration for John Ruskin, William Morris, and neo-gothic design. In July, 1900, Henry Wilkinson was hired as Stickley's first architect/furniture designer. In a very real sense, then, Wilkinson was prepared intellectually for employment as Stickley's first designer, for it is he who created Stickley's first Arts and Crafts furniture.
Stylistically innovative, the Wilkinson-designed furniture attracted the distributor, Clingman - Tobey Furniture, although this connection was brief, less than 12 months, enough time to lanuch Stickley a marketer of Arts and Crafts furniture.
Lamont A Warner
Only a step behind Wilkinson in his appointment, Lamont Warner joined Stickley in September, 1900.
During 1901 and 1902, Wilkinson and Warner, as the firms chief designers, developed what Stickley called 'the structural style of cabinet making', a phrase that highlighted the "articulated construction of rectilinear Craftsman furniture".
[this term is by david cathers -- what is meant by it?]
For Stickley, "such details as mortise and tenon, key and dovetail can be made very decorative, provided they are only where needed and actually do the work they are intended".
Gustav Stickley, Chips from the Craftsman Workshops — Number II Syracuse, NY: 1907, page 38.
He also emphasized "the structurally-necessary hardware", for instance light-catching hand-hammered copper or in hinges across cabinet doors, both to hold to together and to enliven an otherwise plain colour mattered, too.
Stickley's finishers gave quarter-sawn oak furniture soft brown hues by exposing it to ammonia fumes that were absorbed into the wood then they applied dyes to develop green-brown, grey-brown tones.
Scaling Down
His furniture of this period, often built on a massive scale, and yet in itself skilfully executed joinery, its subtle curves, its play of solid and void, and the exactitude of its dimensions achieved the "refined plainness" that Stickley sought.
Some of Stickley's early Arts and Crafts furniture revealed his evident debt to British precedents, British furniture that Stickley knew best and the strongest influence on him was that of M.H. Baillie Scott.
At the time, International Studio published Baillie Scott's designs, and Stickley's designer, LaMont Warner, habitually saved clippings from that source.
Stickley must have also had a copy of John P. White's 19' catalogue of Baillie Scott furniture, because a few Stickley firm's designs of this time derived from illustrated in that catalogue.
In general, however Stickley and his designers absorbed Baillie Scott's vocabulary and convincingly created work of their own.
Sources: M H Baillie Scott, Houses and gardens : arts and crafts interiors 1933; Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1949, pages 89-93; James D. Kornwolf, M. H. Baillie Scott and the arts and crafts movement: pioneers of modern design 1972; Nicholas Taylor, "Baillie Scott's Waldbuhl", Architectural Review ,December 1965, pages 455-58; Kevin P. Rodel and Jonathan Binzen, Arts & crafts furniture : from classic to contemporary Newtown, CT : Taunton Press, 2003; David Cathers, Gustav Stickley New York: Phaidon, 2003.
The rectilinearity, deft proportion, decorous detailing of the 1901 Craftsman adjustable back armchair owes something to Baillie Scott, one would mistake it for anything but a Stickley creation (plate 11.11) .
When his structural style was at its peak summer and fall of 1902, Stickley and his designers were certainly reading the illustrated articles to journals were publishing about the Turin International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Art.
Phillipe garner book on decorative arts 1890-1940 has a section describing the major exhibitions of the era.
Sources: "International exhibition of modern decorative art at Turin", International Studio 17 October 1902, pages 251-259; E. Shovey et. al., "First international exhibition of modern decorative art at Turin", International Studio 17 (July 1902) pages 45-47; M. O'Neill, "Rhetorics of Display: Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau at the Turin Exhibition of 1902", Journal of Design History 20 no. 3 2007 pages 205-225;
The exhibition apparently caught their attention was The Rose by Charles Rennie and Margaret Mackintosh. The Rose Boudoir's colour palette of whin silver and green was a far remove from Stickley's brown and grey-brown hues, and its graceful furniture was almost ethereal in contrast to Stickley's substantial cabinetry. Most important, the furniture and decorative objects in this space melded with the architecture and formed a harmonious, unified whole. The Rose Boudoir conveyed an aesthetic message -- the interior as ensemble -- that was new to Stickley's firm.
In late 1902, early 1903, Stickley visited Europe
Probably because of the Turin exhibition, and certainly because of the soon-to-open London Arts and Crafts Exhibition, Stickley decided to mount an exhibition of his own, and he made this trip to find objects to include in his displays.
Details of his itinerary are sketchy: he was in Paris in late in 1902 or early 1903, to visit t the shops of Siegfried Bing and Rene Lalique. In London, the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society opened it seventh exhibition in mid-January 1903, and while Stickley never specifically said he had gone to it, there is enough evidence to place him there, especially when later events -- evidence of purchases of products that were exhibited and the like -- are considered.
Stickley's Arts and Crafts exhibition, Syracuse, March-April 1903, later in Rochester, New York
The exhibition's main focus was American artisans working in wood, metal, leather, textiles and ceramics.
Not online, this "catalogue" is available only by readingit at the Syracuse Museum. Annotation on google book search:
Catalog of an exhibition of arts and crafts furniture and furnishings held at the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute. Objects in the exhibition include items from noted arts and crafts designers such as Gustave Stickley, Hendrik Van Ingen, Harvey Ellis, Fireside Industries of Berea College, Dedham Pottery, Grueby Faience Co., Newcomb Pottery Co., Rookwood Pottery Co., Van Briggle Pottery Co., Cheltenham press, Merry Mount Press, student work from Alfred University Ceramics Department and the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute, and other works from individual artists and a small number of items from other countries.
By sponsoring this exhibition, attracting handicraft workers to participate, and reporting on the event in The Craftsman, Stickley began to assume his central role in American Arts and Crafts.
In sum, Craftsman furniture, characterized by a stark simplicity, was introduced to the public and the furniture trade in 1900, soon achieved wider public acceptance. [for documentation, check Philippe Garner, ed., The Encyclopedia Of Decorative
Arts New York: Van Nostrand, 1978. Also note that in 1909 binstead's book was published in America with two addional chapters, each written by Americans -- stickley was one author.
As noted above, lead by the formation of groups in Boston and Chicago, Arts and Crafts design was celebrated by a growing list of energetic organizations. Such activity only helped Stickley command a greater and greater market share.
In May, 1903, Stickley hired the architect/designer Harvey Ellis. At the time, Stickley's furniture was
"massive, powerful, and bristling with vigorously revealed structure: exposed mortise and tenon joints, locked in place with pins; chamfered, butt-jointed boards; and wrought metal hardware attached to the furniture with pyramidal faceted-head lag screws."
Ellis's arrival quickly changed Stickley design. Ellis injected a smaller scale, lighter, softer lines that included arcs and curves, and more color, including color in the inlays, for which Ellis is most famous. Like Stickley himself, Ellis was influenced by designers such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh, C. F. A. Voysey, and M. H. Baillie Scott.
He also brought geometric, conventionalized design motifs, derived not only from his English Arts and Crafts sources, but from American Indian art for which he had great admiration. And he brought his superb drafting skills, informed with the simplicity and sophistication of the Japanese prints he collected, which elevated the level of The Craftsman magazine illustrations to heights never before achieved.
Harvey Ellis is best remembered for his Craftsman furniture designs that reflect British precedent, chiefly Voysey, Mackintosh and Baillie Scott. One of Ellis's inlaid drop-front for example, was in part inspired by the Voysey stationery case that Stickley bought in London, and inlay was similar to the inlay on the J.S. Henry piece acquired by Stickley at the same time. Ellis's Craftsman furniture was a marked departure from the firm's structural furniture of 1901-2.
Ellis banished the articulate (?) joints and massiveness of the earlier work, and built on a smaller, more elegant scale. And he brought a light colour palette to Stickley's cabinet wood with the addition of stylized inlays of pewter, copper and tint woods (plate I I.I4).
It also seems apparent that Ellis, more than anyone else, brought Native American designs to the Craftsman Workshops. His cover illustration for the October 1903 The Craftsman incorporated elements adapted from North American Indian pottery and baskets, and t article he illustrated for that issue, mentioned above 149), depicted stencilled wall coverings based on similar themes. These motifs evidently appealed to him because North American Indian geometry suited the generally rectilinear character of Craftsman furniture and because they could add colour to a Craftsman interior. The essay's text suggest another reason why these motifs attracted Ellis: observed that Native Americans used 'symbols to typify the elements' — that is, they conventionalized natural forms and therefore created art that in the eyes of I Craftsman paralleled 'the much-admired work of the Japanese artists',30
Ellis created his first Craftsman houses for the July and August 1903 issues of The Craftsman, and the works transformed Craftsman design. The living room in the August house plan, to take one example, was a far remove from the heavier, more visibly hand-hewn am predominantly brown or green-brown interiors published in the magazine prior to Ellis's arrival (plat 11.15). It had ebonized floors, plum-colour wall beneath a yellow frieze, a pale cream ceiling, and olive green portières (door curtains) with indigo and ivory appliques outlined in brown and yellow stitching. TM walls were divided into plain horizontal bands that looked back to Whistler's paintings and domestic interiors.
Motifs derived from Mackintosh were visible throughout this room: for example, the rose bush stencilled onto the linen-covered wall and the spade shape with tripartite sprouts stencilled onto the frieze area above the fireplace. In the large scale of the timber construction, the spareness of the room, the flat planes of colour and the asymmetric composition of his rendering Ellis's Japonisme was strongly in evidence as well.
With this elegant, aestheticized interior Ellis created a compelling synthesis that was wholly his own.
Ellis was a superbly gifted designer with wide-ranging taste that encompassed ideas from Japanese art, Native American handicraft, and British Arts and Crafts design. In 1903, assimilating those sources and summoning up his considerable powers, he realized the architectural coherence that Stickley and his other designers had sought without success in the wake of Turin and in the months following Stickley's trip to London in January 1903. Stickley's quest for that Arts and Crafts ideal, the interior as a total work of art, was finally realized at the Craftsman Workshops because of Harvey Ellis.31 Harvey Ellis synthesized British and Japanese influences in creating the first coherent domestic interiors to appear in Stickley's magazine.
In contrast to Stickley's earlier creations, the Ellis fall-front desk shown in figure 5, demonstrates the designer's major impact on the furniture made in the Craftsman Workshops. Although it is essentially rectilinear, the deeply arching apron not only introduces this graceful curve to Stickley's furniture, it also imparts to the desk a sense of lightness totally unlike the conscious sturdiness of the earlier designs. Gently rounded cutouts, echoing the curve of the apron, appear at the bottom of each side. The desk is without expressed structural features, replaced by what we have come to recognize as the stylistic traits of Ellis: the arching apron, wide, overhanging top, a back formed of laminated panels, and, of course, the conventionalized inlay pattern on the fall-front. Most of Ellis" Craftsman furniture is made of oak, but he either fumed it near-black or selected wood with a less obvious flake. Thus the graining of the quarter-sawn oak is a much less significant design element for Ellis than it was for Stickley—most likely because its patterns would have been at odds with his inlay motifs.
In addition to the aspects of Ellis" design vocabulary seen in this desk, there are several other equally important elements he introduced to Stickley"s work. The first is the bowed side, as seen for example, on the later Stickley chest, figure 6. Nothing in Stickley"s pre-Ellis work even hinted at this kind of roundedness and subtlety. Second, Ellis created the attenuated tall back chairs, close relatives to the tall chairs designed by Mackintosh and Voysey, and, to a lesser degree, by Wright. And, finally, Ellis introduced the use of veneer to Craftsman furniture, a traditional technique for the matching of grain patterns.
It is the inlay that makes Ellis-designed Craftsman furniture so special to the present day collector. The inlay made it unusually difficult and time-consuming to produce, and presumably more expensive to buy. Stickley first advertised inlaid pieces in The Craftsman magazine in July, 1903, featured a major article about them in January, 1904, and mentioned them for the last time in his May, 1904 issue. After that, production seems to have been discontinued. In an interview with the author, Gustav Stickley"s daughter Barbara Wiles confirmed that her father produced only enough inlaid furniture to show at trade exhibitions and major retail stores, and this would seem to explain its exceptional rarity today.
The inlay itself was composed of pewter, copper and light woods, and introduced a new note of color to Stickley's Craftsman designs. The love of color and its skillful use are apparent in Ellis" work throughout his career. Roger Kennedy says of Ellis: "he celebrated color".
8. Sources of Background Information: Roger Kennedy, "Long Dark Corridors: Harvey Ellis," Prairie School Review 5 First-Second Quarter 1968.
Sources
1 Thomas E. Tallmadge, "The Chicago School", Architectural Review 15 December 1908.
2. Claude Bragdon, "Harvey Ellis: A Portrait Sketch", Architectural Review 15 December 1908.
3.Hugh M. G. Garden, "Harvey Ellis, Designer and Draftsman", Architectural Review, XV, December 1908.
4.For a detailed discussion of Ellis" architecture of this period, see: A REDISCOVERY—HARVEY ELLIS: ARTIST, ARCHITECT. This is an exhibition catalog published jointly by the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester and the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum in Rochester, New York, 1972. For a discussion of Ellis" furniture designs, see: FURNITURE DESIGNED BY ARCHITECTS, by Marian Page, New York: Watson Guptill, 1980.
5.Roger Kennedy, "Long Dark Corridors: Harvey Ellis," Prairie School Review 5 Issues 1 and 2 1968.
6.Claude Bragdon, "Harvey Ellis: A Portrait Sketch," Architectural Review 15 December 1908
7.. Hugh M. G. Garden, "Harvey Ellis, Designer and Draftsman," Architectural Review, 15 December 1908.
David Cathers, Stickley style: arts and crafts homes in the craftsman tradition 1999; Furniture of the American arts and crafts movement: Stickley and Roycroft ...1981; Gustav Stickley; Furniture of the American arts and crafts movement: furniture made by Gustav Stickley ... 1996.
The Standardization of 1904 Begins Stickley's Mature Period, 1904-1910
David Cathers -- a leading authority Stickley -- calls 1904 the "pivotal" year for Stickley furniture
The Craftsman Workshops Syracuse NY Catalogue "D" 1904
In February 1905, Gustav Stickley published an extensive catalog -- an 128-page "Cabinet Work from the Craftsman Workshops, or "Catalogue D", with either newly designed pieces, or modified pieces of earlier designs. In both its format and its contents, Catalogue D was a definite departure, indicative of a major revison of company policy.
As his chief biographer, David Cathers, notes, Stickley's earlier catalogs and promotional booklets had a more pedestrain flavor: -- bound in stout brown paper covers, Gothic typefonts, and Morrisian decorative borders that echoed William Morris design. His assistant, Irene Sargent, wrote pieces designed to inspire, which link Stickley furniture to medieval antecedents and/or themes addressed by Morris
In 1904, Stickley shed the medievalist facade -- created by Irene Sargent -- that he had earlier cast over his Arts and Crafts enterprise, making the "D" catalogs more straightforwardly indicative of more direct business orientation.
The covers are gray and rather industrial looking, while pages inside are filled with business-like black-and-white photos.
Lacking in these black-and-white images, of course, are the rich brown hues and textures of the actual wood. Moreover, "the proselytizing agenda of Sargent's essays are gone, supplanted by a brief promotional "Introduction", annonuncing such innovations as sleek spindles, some with inlay. In broad terms, with Catalogue D and its "Supplement" Stickley distilled the heft of his 1901 and 1902 furniture with the refinements Harvey Ellis designs of 1903 and 1904.
Overall, these designs possess an integral wholeness, plain, modest, yes, but also coherent and sturdy . These new designs were tangible proof of a matured confidence, a confidence that resulted in simple, functional furniture that Stickley had aspired toward from his beginning in the industry.
Stickley Revises Construction Details of Production of Selected Pieces in Catalogue D
The mitered Mullions once found on the doors of Craftsman bookcases and china cabinets were replaced by simpler, lap-jointed Mullions. The backs of case pieces were now in most instances constructed of lightweight panels. Seams, where wooden members butted together on cabinet doors or the sides of cases, were now hidden beneath sheets of Quartersawn Oak veneers. Exposed Tenons were still much in evidence, but few pieces with Tenon-and-Key joints remained in production. The most recent designs lacked the characteristic massiveness of the early furniture, and the timber used in their construction was generally thinner than the stock used before. Stickley's wood finishes retained their beautiful, subtle luster and durability but, like his furniture, they were increasingly standardized.
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Coinciding with the release of Catalogue D, Janurary 1904, The Craftsman began the series, "Home Training in Cabinet Work". Some of the "Home Training" designs were created for The Craftsman, but others were versions of Stickley production furniture, and still others inspired by furniture originally in international art journals like The Studio.
The initial article set the tone for the series: the purpose was two-fold, i.e., "therapeutic" and "educational". The first, the therapeutic, offered recreation to the stressed office worker. The second, the educational, provided manual training that would "fit a boy, by practice, to become a skilled workman, builder, or designer". Evidently while Stickley's signature went on the byline, the series was authored by Louise Shrimpton [more to come here -- obviously all the articles in The Craftsman need to be read.
Link to the articles on "Home Training in Cabinet Work" in The Craftsman, March, 1905 to October 1905
Source: adapted from David Cathers Gustav Stickley New York: Phaidon, 2003, pages 124-141
(Ellis died in January 1904, which means that he only worked about Stickley about eight months.)
In 1904 Stickley's firm began to "standardize" Craftsman furniture design.
The furniture -- handsome, substantial and functional -- required skilled hands to construct. Production, more and more machine-aided, was increasingly standardized for economy.
But, by reducing standard designs to a limited number, and increasing its reliance on machines, the firm's products became more affordable.
With these innovations, For Stickley, his firm was now creating what, in the December, 1905 issue The Craftsman, he called
... a
democratic art, an art that is not restricted
to a small exclusive circle, but to all
humanity, an art that gives true motives
and right impulses and shall teach us "to
do the right thing well in the spirit of one
who appreciates the fit, the seemly and the
beautiful."
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Integrating Hand Craftsmanship With Machine Production
Coherence of Style in Decorative Arts
Following the didacticism of groups -- "tastemakers” in the United States -- such as Boston's Society of Arts and Crafts, where a determination existed to develop a sense of "taste" in newly arrived immigrants, Stickley had declared from the beginning that his intended market was the "the middle class individual". But until 1904, Stickley could not produce goods for the middle class person. In 1904, he successfully reduced his production costs by integrating hand craftsmanship with machine production.
According to Cathers, pages 38-42 of his bio gustav stickley, this "Chip" is only 24 pages long: A Revival of Old Arts and Crafts Applied to Wood and Leather
Sources: Eileen Boris, Art and Labor: Ruskin, Morris, and the Craftsman Ideal in America Temple University Press,1986; David Cathers "In a Higher Plane" [not complete], International Arts and Crafts, Edited by Karen Livingstone and Linda Parry London: V&A PUBLICATIONS, 2005, [chapter 11] pages ?.
Stickley had always been critical of elaborate machine-made ornament that imitated handwork, his attitude towards technology was quite straightforward. As he later said, 'When rightly used, the machine is simply a tool in the hands of a skilled worker, and in no way detracts from his work. Gustav Stickley, "The Use and Abuse of Machinery, and its Relation to the Arts and Crafts", The Craftsman November 1906 p.204.
In January 1904 the 'Craftsman house' became a regular feature of Stickley's magazine. The Craftsman house was a modest, sturdy, reasonably priced suburban or rural dwelling built, ideally, of local stone and wood. Its interior was characterized by open planning, built-in furniture and harmonious colour combinations, this last a legacy of Ellis, though missing his élan.
From 1904 Stickley's wares — and his Craftsman houses — were conceived in a consistent style. As noted above -- and in Chapter 1:1 Background Information -- Stickley had learned architectural coherence from the examples of Voysey, Baillie Scott and Mackintosh, and from Harvey Ellis, and that was now his aesthetic ideal. This shift towards the unified interior ensemble, however, also reflected more commercial considerations. Stickley became an astute marketer, selling not just products but a lifestyle. The Craftsman house, filled with harmonious, standardized Craftsman furniture, Craftsman metalwork and Craftsman textiles, evolved into his marketing ideal as well (plate 11.17). Source: David Cathers "In a Higher Plane" [not complete], International Arts and Crafts, Edited by Karen Livingstone and Linda Parry London: V&A PUBLICATIONS, 2005, [chapter 11] pages ?.
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During the years of the Craftsman Workshops Stickley remained committed to good design and sound craftsmanship, producing work of great integrity. But he was also a factory-owning businessman who embodied American furniture manufacturing expertise, entrepreneurial ambition and self-promotion. He was both an apostle of Arts and Crafts virtues and a capitalist who built up a substantial enterprise; if this was a contradiction, it never seemed to trouble him.
[paragraphs below in boxed passage, ch 2 magazines]
He apparently spent most of his firm's profits on two essentially altruistic ventures. One was underwriting The Craftsman magazine, and the other was building Craftsman Farms. The magazine was initially edited and largely written by Stickley's mentor, the Syracuse University professor Irene Sargent (1852-1932), and it promoted Stickley's products during the fifteen years, 1901-16, that it was published.
But it acquired a larger educational mission, its advocacy ranging from design reform to the ethics of daily living. The Craftsman was a constant proponent of 'the simple life' and of progressive social ideals, such as the conservation of natural resources and the preservation of Native American culture. To encourage
its readers to take up handicrafts on their own, the magazine provided detailed plans and instructions for the home worker in cabinet-making, metalwork and needlework. It became a 'gathering place' for nearly all the participants in the American Arts and Crafts Movement, publishing articles, to give only a few examples, by Ernest Batchelder (1875-1957) on the principles of design, C.F. Binns (1857-1934) on ceramics, Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) on architectural theory, and William L. Price (1861-1916) on domestic architecture.
The Craftsman was the most widely read publication of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. In an era of burgeoning mass-circulation magazines, its peak readership of 22,500 was small, but because of the architects, designers, artisans, educators, and Arts and Crafts societies that read it, the impact of The Craftsman was much more far-reaching than its relatively narrow distribution might suggest. Moreover, Craftsman and Craftsman-inspired houses and interiors were frequently featured in architectural journals and in interiors magazines such as House and Garden and House Beautiful, carrying Stickley's message far beyond his faithful core audience, and making him nationally influential on matters of handicraft, furniture design and domestic architecture. Stickley's influential Craftsman magazine brought readers an appealing monthly mix of design, domesticity and Craftsman propaganda.
[end of quoted passage]
The second undertaking made possible by the profits Stickley earned was Craftsman Farms, the 650-acre
model farm that he began developing in rural New Jersey in 1908. He envisaged his farm as a rustic family compound but he also planned to establish a small cooperative community of homeowners there, as well as an artisan colony and boys' school. These well-intentioned plans, unfortunately, remained unrealized. Craftsman Farms became a place of great pastoral beauty, but it was in truth a 'gentleman's farm' where the Stickley family made its home (plate I I.I8).
A few American Arts and Crafts communities did exist. The Byrdcliffe Colony, for instance, was established in 1902 by the wealthy, idealistic Englishman Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead (1854-1929) and his American wife Jane Byrd McCall (1861-1955), both of whom had been friends and disciples of Ruskin. Whitehead built Byrdcliffe on about 1200 acres near Woodstock, New York, choosing this region for the dramatic beauty of its mountainous terrain and the possibilities it offered for 'plain living' in a healthful and invigorating rural setting. He also chose it because of its proximity to the affluent New York market where he hoped to sell the colony's wares. Whitehead conceived a threefold plan for Byrdcliffe: it was to encompass a community of like-minded artists, a handicraft school and a self-supporting business venture producing visibly handmade furniture (plate 11.19), picture frames, ceramics, woven textiles and metalwork. The workshops at Byrdcliffe were small but well equipped because, like Stickley, Whitehead sensibly recognized that machines enabled artisans to perform routine tasks efficiently. The colony, however, was never a commercial success and attracted few inhabitants. But its resident artisans lived simply, enjoyed communal social and cultural events, and created significant handiwork inspired by their natural surroundings.'
THE spirit and purpose of this series of articles on structural wood working is best expressed in the motto of The Craftsman, "Als ik kan," and in beginning this friendly talk with the boys, young and older-grown,—it seems most natural to go back to the time when I was a boy and first learned to make things. Although the boys of to-day are to be the men of to-morrow, there are many grown-ups whom I hope to interest in these practical talks illustrated with drawings and working plans as object lessons, that can be utilized by any boy or man who wishes to do something with his own hands and head, and to learn how to do things right by beginning right.
Country-born on a small farm in the Middle West, where most of the land was yet heavily timbered, I found myself at the age of twelve called upon to do all kinds of farm work in the summer, and to chop wood and draw it to the nearest market in the winter. With few aids other than natural resources we were obliged to depend upon ourselves for the commonest needs and comforts of life.
Under such conditions we could only think of making the necessary things in the most primitive and practical way. If we needed an axe-helve, an ox-yoke, a pair of bob-sleds or a pork barrel, we had to make them by hand; and in many cases we had even to make our own tools.
These things were made in a direct and substantial manner without any thought of ornament; and yet as I look back I can see that we worked out many beautiful shapes, especially in axe-helves and ox- yokes.
After many years and long experience I am free to own there was a deeper satisfaction in working out these simple forms which were put to practical use, than has come in later years from articles made for the exacting demands of modern taste. And so this thought comes up: When we come to make things ourselves and because they are needed, instead of depending upon the department store to furnish them, we shall not only find more pleasure in making them, but we shall also take more pleasure in possessing them.
In referring so frankly to my boyhood and experience, I do not forget that conditions have changed since then, and that I am addressing a later generation and many boys who are not compelled to work for a living so early in life, and are denied the privilege of earning by manual labor their own food, clothing and shelter, or to help to earn the comforts of life for the dear ones of the family.
While it is not necessary to return to primitive conditions of living, which demand that things shall be made to fit them, yet we can begin with primitive forms, which is always safe. In starting this way we begin right and have the structural instead of the non-structural always before us.
Too much stress can not be laid upon this principle, especially in the training of the young, and in spite of all the coddling influences of modern life, I still believe that the boys of to-day have the same good stuff in them, the same capacity for helpfulness and the same manly instincts of self-reliance of which strong men are made.
The natural and democratic impulses of the boy prompt him to friendly sympathy and liking for men who work, and work, honest, hard work has laid the foundations of the great achievements of the men who have shaped the past and are shaping the future of our country. I believe in the dignity of labor, useful, intelligent labor, but instead of trying to tell the boys what they will never fully understand until they have done some real work in the world, and learned to take pride and to find pleasure in it, I will simply ask them to read a few pages in the lives of men whose names are familiar to us all: Men like Abraham Lincoln, General Grant, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, not to mention many others who have proved themselves truly great men in every walk and calling of life.
In almost every case the reader will see how proudly they refer to their humble beginnings, and the hard work done in boyhood. And right here I am tempted to quote a few lines from General Grant's story of his own early life: "When I was seven or eight years of age I began hauling all the wood used in the house and shops. I could not load it on the wagons, of course, at that time, but I could drive,— the choppers loaded and some one at the house unloaded. When about eleven years old I was strong enough to hold the plow. From that age until seventeen, I did all the work done with horses, such as breaking up the land, furrowing, plowing corn and potatoes, bringing in the crops when harvested, hauling all the wood, besides tending two or three horses, a cow or two, and sawing wood for stoves, etc., while still attending school."
Many of the boys I hope to be able to interest and to persuade to learn how to do things for themselves, or for others, are those who are not driven by necessity to labor with their own hands, but who will, I trust, take up this work from choice, as many of their elders have done, who are not craftsmen by trade. These professional men and others find pleasure and relaxation during leisure hours in building something useful or working out some original notion, in that friendliest and most natural material that Nature has given to man for his shelter, and which enters so largely into the comforts and conveniences of the home.
The world has never found any substitute for wood in its many utilities and its natural beauty. Time and the forces of Nature have wrought out the many wonderful fibers and textures, and the almost endless variety of beautiful traceries in the grains and the interesting age-mark rings which keep the record of the birthdays of the forest trees.
THE FIRST LESSON IN STRUCTURAL WOOD-WORKING
IN presenting this first study of the subject, six illustrations are given, including a dog kennel, a bird house, a small chair, an arm chair, a medicine cabinet and a wall cabinet, together with two cuts showing the work bench and a tool cabinet.
Tools, few or many, you must have, and various sizes of tool cabinets are made and furnished at from five to ten dollars, upwards. The one shown in the cut costs $10.00 at retail. The work bench you will also need to buy, for you can not build it as it should be built for service, and the one shown is specially manufactured for the purpose, and costs $8.00.
Each of the object illustrations is accompanied by brief but clear instructions, with working drawings and a mill bill. The latter is made out the same as for factory use, and if taken to the lumber manufacturer the materials can be all obtained cut to measure in the rough. Then with a little study, and the necessary tools, you will be ready to begin your part as a builder, selecting whichever article suits you best. Now do your best and make a workmanlike job, although it may be your first attempt.
THE TOOL CABINET
THE WORK BENCH
not complete
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It is perhaps Stickley's contradictory nature — his idealism mixed with a strong commercial sense — that reveals the essence not just of his Craftsman enterprise but of much of the Arts and Crafts Movement on the American East Coast.
With varying degrees of standardization and by complementing hand labour with machine technology, these designers and makers democratized good design and sound craftsmanship, producing wares that were affordable to middle- and upper middle-class markets. If they made compromises with commercial realities, they also created superb handicraft objects.
Their days were few.
Before 1910 competitors selling look-alike mass-produced goods flooded the marketplace, and after 1910 Arts and Crafts simplicity began to be out of date.
Rohlfs stopped making furniture about 1910; Grueby was bankrupt by 1909 and Stick-ley by 1915, victims of changing tastes and, perhaps to a greater extent, of their own flawed business decisions; Marblehead, Newcomb, Rookwood and Roycroft survived the century's second decade but much of their earlier vitality was gone.
Yet in the years of their greatest creativity Stickley and his East Coast peers had an enormous impact on domestic design and gave life to an authentic American Arts and Crafts vision of 'enterprise upon a higher plane'.
Sources: David Cathers "In a Higher Plane" [not complete], International Arts and Crafts, Edited by Karen Livingstone and Linda Parry London: V&A PUBLICATIONS, 2005, [chapter 11] pages ?; Hermann Muthesius, The English House, in 3 vols, ed with intro by Dennis Sharp; trans by Janet Seligman and Stewart Spencer London: Frances Lincoln, 2007
Notes for Cathers' Chapter 11
1. Clark 1972, p.182.
2. James 1994, p.48.
3. Jean-Francois Vilain, 'The Roycroft Press: Books, Magazines and Ephemera', in Via and Searl 1994, p.24.
4. James 1994, p.57.
5. Will M. Clemens, 'A New Art and A New Artist', The Puritan (August 1900), p.586.
6. Anonymous, 'Arts and Crafts', The Furniture World (July 1902), p.7.
7. This was the American edition of the British art journal, The Studio, with an added American section at the back; each issue of International Studio followed by one month the corresponding issue of The Studio.
8. Poesch 1984, pp.154-5.
9. Anonymous [Irene Sargent], 'Nursery Wall Coverings in Indian Designs', The Craftsman (October 1903), p.99.
10. Owen 2001, p.160.
11. Arthur Russell, 'Grueby Pottery', House Beautiful (December 1898), quoted in Eidelberg 1987, p.50.
12. Poesch 1984, pp.154-5.
13. Margaret Edgewood, 'Some Simple Furniture', The House Beautiful (October 1900), p.653.
14. Marsha Houk, 'An Artist Who Works in Wood', Woman's Home Companion (June 1902), p.26.
15. Susan Frackleton, 'Our American Potteries — Newcomb College', Sketch Book (July 1906), quoted in Owen 2001, p.160.
16. Henry Belknap, 'The Revival of The Craftsman', The Craftsman (December 1902), pp.184-5.
17. Kaplan et al. 1987, p.257.
18. Owen 2001, p.145.
19. Jack Quinan, 'Elbert Hubbard's Roycroft', in Via and Searl 1994, p.11.
20. Gustav Stickley, Chips from the Craftsman Workshops — Number II (Syracuse, NY, 1907), p.38.
21. 'William Morris: His Thoughts, Theories and Opinions Upon Work in A Factory', The Craftsman (December 1903), pp.245-53.
22. The Faulkner Bronze Company exhibited two 'electric light pendants', both designed by Anne Stubbs. See Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, Catalogue of the Seventh Exhibition (London, 1903).
23. A photograph of one of the Donegal carpets Stickley bought from Morton appears in Irene Sargent, 'A Recent Arts and Crafts Exhibition', The Craftsman (May 1903), plate following p.72; some Stickley purchases from G.P. & J. Baker are recorded in the Stickley Business Papers, Collection 60, Winterthur Library.
24. Cooper 1987, p.216.
25. Two Ellwood textiles — incorrectly
attributed to 'Mrs. Elwell' — appear in Sargent, The Craftsman (May 1903), plate following p.76.
26. Cathers 2003, p.210.
27. Cathers 2003, pp.213-14.
28. I am indebted to Rita Pittman-Curry for this information.
29. Claude Bragdon, 'Harvey Ellis: A Portrait Sketch', Architectural Review (Boston, December 1908), p.176.
30. Anonymous [Irene Sargent], 'Nursery Wall Coverings in Indian Designs', The Craftsman (October 1903), p.97.
31. Of course, not every one wanted an interior that was a 'total work of art'. The American architect Katharine Budd, for instance, expressed a dissenting view: 'Furniture which has perfect harmony in style is not only unnecessary, but undesirable as well, in a true bungalow. Irregularity to a certain extent lends additional charm.' See Katharine C. Budd, 'The Bungalow in America', Architectural Review (Boston, August 1904), pp.221-4.
32. Anonymous, 'Notes', The Craftsman (December 1905), p.437.
33. Gustav Stickley, 'The Use and Abuse of Machinery, and its Relation to the Arts and Crafts', The Craftsman (November 1906), p.204.
34. I thank Nancy E. Green for sharing her knowledge of Byrdcliffe.
STICKLEY CATALOGS AND BOOKLETS
1900
"New Furniture from the Workshop of Gustave Stickley, Cabinet Maker."
1901
"Chips from the Workshops of Gustave Stickley." Unsigned text, by Irene Sargent.
"Chips from the Workshops of the United Crafts."
"Retail Plates."
"Things Wrought by the United Crafts."
1902
"Retail Plates."
1903
"The Simple Structural Style of Household Furniture."
"Name This Child."
1904
"Safecraft—Catalogue C."
"What is Wrought in the Craftsman Workshops."
1905
"Cabinet Work from the Craftsman Workshops -- Catalogue D."
"Craftsman Furnishings."
"The Craftsman's Story."
"The Craftsman Workshops -- Supplement to Catalogue D"
"Hand-Wrought Metal Work."
"Needle-Work from the Craftsman Workshops."
Link to the articles on "Home Training in Cabinet Work" in The Craftsman, March, 1905 to October 1905
1906
"Chips from the Craftsman Workshops 1906"
In 1906 and in 1907, Stickley issued two booklets, where each present a "promotional message cast in autobiographical form". Ghostwritten, Both recount details about his rural childhood, his experience in the 1880s and 1890s as a manufacturer of furniture before his Arts and Crafts sojourn, and then his gradual acquisition of an aesthetic taste for Arts and Crafts furniture. In these long, ruminative essays, Stickley does several things:
traces his vision on the evolving Craftsman style,
expresses his opinion on the deleterious moral consequences of excessive materialism, and
propagandizes on the need to conserve America's natural resources.
True to the social and moral code of the Arts and Crafts movement, not only does he sell furniture -- he advocates an ethical mode of life.
Writes Cathers,
These booklets have few illustrations and many words; you do not flip casually through them. The texts are, in a literal sense, fictions; they are constructs that present Stickley's self-invented Craftsman persona. They are also seriously considered documents that, like Stickley furniture, demand close attention and an openness to the rigorous aspects of the Craftsman sensibility.
Source: David Cathers, Gustav Stickley New York: Phaidon, 2003, pages 137-139
"Craftsman Furnishings."
"Christ Among His Fellow Men." Text by Harriet Joor, with a foreword by Gustav Stickley.
1907
"Chips from the Craftsman Workshops—Number II." "Descriptive Price List of Craftsman Furniture, with Retail Plates."
1908
"Craftsman Fabrics and Needlework."
1909
"Catalogue of Craftsman Furniture."
"Some Chips from the Craftsman Workshops."
"The Motif of Mission"
Review in Wood craft: a journal of woodworking with which is ... of Binstead's book, The Furniture Styles, as published in America in 1909, with Stickley's chapter, "The Motif of Mission", pages 179-187.
url:, Volumes 9-11 1908
An excellent and an inexpensive book on the furniture styles is the one by H. E. Binstead. editor of the Record, a leading London journal of the furnishing trades. The latest English edition of this work has already received approving attention in the columns of Wood Craft and we have now the additional satisfaction of announcing an American issue of it published by the Trade Periodical Co., 255 Dearborn street, Chicago. At a moderate cost the publisher submits a well-illustrated cloth-bound guide to the recognized periods in furniture design. It may be well to remind our readers that the chapters treating of Elizabethan, Queen Anne, Louis XIV., Louis XV., Chippendale, Sheraton, Adam, Heppelwhite, Louis XVI., Empire, British New Art, History in the Furniture Styles and a Chronology of the Furniture Styles are now supplemented by chapters on the Motif of Mission by Gustave Stickley, editor of the Craftsman, and Mission or Craftsman Furniture by J. Newton Nind, editor of the Furniture Journal.These additions are instructive ones and have enhanced the value of a good book. The price is $2.
CHAPTER XIV: THE MOTIF OF "MISSION", BY GUSTAV STICKLEY.
1910
"Catalogue of Craftsman Furniture." "The Craftsman House."
"Craftsman Premium Catalogue."
1912
"Craftsman Furnishings for the Home." "24 Craftsman Houses."
"What They Say About The Craftsman." "Craftsman Furniture."
1912
More Craftsman homes by Gustav Stickley The Craftsman publishing company, 1912
1913
"Craftsman Furniture."
"Craftsman Houses—A Book for Home-Makers." "Craftsman Service for Home-Builders."
1914
"$150,000 7% Cumulative Preferred Stock Offering of Gustav Stickley The Craftsman Incorporated and The Craftsman Magazine Inc."
"Craftsman Restaurant."
"A Summary of Craftsman Enterprises."
"Woodwork and How to Finish It."
1915
"Craftsman Department of Interior Furnishings."
2009
Gustav Stickley's Craftsman homes and bungalows by Gustav Stickley
Skyhorse Pub., 2009
At home with Gustav Stickley by Gustav Stickley
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 2009
1991
The 1912 and 1915 Gustav Stickley craftsman furniture catalogs by Gustav Stickley
Athenaeum of Philadelphia, Constable, 1991
1995
Gustav Stickley--craftsman homes. by Gustav Stickley
Gramercy Books, 1995
1989
Collected works of Gustav Stickley by Gustav Stickley
Turn of the Century Editions, 1989
1985
Collected Works of Gustav Stickley by Stephen Gray, Gustav Stickley, Robert Edwards
Gibbs Smith, January 1985 Paperback
2007
Gustav Stickley's Craftsman Homes and Bungalows by Gustav Stickley
Skyhorse Publishing, September 2007 Paperback
1978
Catalogue of craftsman furniture made by Gustav Stickley at the Craftsman Workshops, Eastwood, N.Y. by Gustav Stickley American Life Foundation, 1978
1979
Stickley Craftsmen Furniture Catalog by Gustav Stickley
Peter Smith Publisher, June 1979 Hardcover
1989
Craftsman furniture made by Gustave Stickley at the Craftsman Workshops, Eastwood, N.Y. by Gustav Stickley Knock on Wood Publications, Inc., 1989
1979
The best of Craftsman homes by Gustav Stickley Peregrine Smith, inc., 1979
2009
Craftsman houses by Gustav Stickley Dover Publications, 2009
1979
Craftsman homes by Gustav Stickley Read Online Dover Publications, 1979
1909
Craftsman homes by Gustav Stickley Craftsman Pub. Co., 1909
1913
Craftsman houses by Gustav Stickley The Craftsman publishing company, 1913
1982
What is wrought in the Craftsman Workshops by Gustav Stickley
Turn of the Century Editions,
1982
More craftsman homes by Gustav Stickley Dover, Constable, 1982
1909
Craftsman homes by Gustav Stickley Read Online The Craftsman Publishing Company, 1909
1982
More Craftsman homes by Gustav Stickley Dover Publications, 1982
1982
What is wrought in the Craftsman workshops by Gustav Stickley Turn of the Century Editions, 1982
1997
The Craftsman on CD-ROM by Gustav Stickley Interactive Bureau, December 31, 1997 CD-ROM
1978
Catalogue of Craftsman furniture by Gustav Stickley American Life Foundation, 1978 Unknown Binding
1986
Making Authentic Craftsman Furniture by Gustav Stickley Dover Publications, January 1, 1986 Paperback
1989
Craftsman Bungalows by Gustav Stickley Dover Publications, January 1, 1989 Paperback
1982
What is wrought in the Craftsman workshops by Gustav Stickley
American Life Foundation, 1982 Unknown Binding
1989
Craftsman Bungalows 59 Homes from the Craftsman by Gustav Stickley
Peter Smith Publisher, November 1989 Hardcover
2002
Craftsman Homes by Gustav Stickley The Lyons Press, June 1, 2002 Paperback
Sources:
