Reaching a pinnacle between the years 1880 and 1910, the Arts and Crafts Movement flourished throughout the United States and in Britain. Theorizing that the items one lived with should both beautify and inspire daily life, the general public reverted to an ideology that sought to abandon the bland furnishings associated with the machine-age and return to surroundings accentuated with handcrafted wares.
Aroused by the writings of John Ruskin, the movement generated widespread appreciation, thanks in part to originators such as British craftsmen William Morris, Elbert Hubbard and Robert Ashbee, as well as their American counterparts, Robert Riddle Jarvie, Gustav Stickley and architects Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Nowhere in America was the movement more prolific than in Chicago, and in recognition of that, the Art Institute of Chicago is currently presenting the exhibition “Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago.” On view through January 31, the exhibition presents nearly 190 examples encompassing the entire range of the movement, including ceramics, furniture, metalwork, paintings, photographs and textiles.
Focusing on what the museum terms “Chicago’s absorption and interpretation of the movement,” the exhibition features works culled from numerous prestigious collections, including the University of Chicago, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Crab Tree Farm, several private collections and the Art Institute’s own permanent collection.
Curated by Judith Barter, the Field-McCormick chair of American art at the Art Institute, “Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago” has drawn rave reviews, as has the accompanying book that bears the same title.
“Chicago, as the home of such architects and designers as Frank Lloyd Wright, is justly proud of its contributions to one of the most politically progressive and aesthetically compelling artistic movements of modern times,” says Barter. ‘Apostles of Beauty’ is intended to place the work of such figures in the full philosophical, political and artistic context of the Arts and Crafts movement as it developed in Britain, tracing direct links across the Atlantic to the flowering of Arts and Crafts in the East and West Coasts, and specifically in Chicago.
The first Arts and Crafts exhibition mounted at the Art Institute in more than three decades, it chronicles the Arts and Crafts movement through its complex stylistic influences. “No other city has such a wealth of art from this period, and we are pleased to exhibit here works from private collections rarely shown before that show the reach, depth and aspirations of the movement,” states Barter.
The book seemingly follows a similar path as the exhibition, with the first chapter presented by Barter, “British Historicism and the Road To Modernism,” setting the tone. “The term Arts and Crafts was coined by English book binder T.J. Cobden-Sanderson and was first used as the title for the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1887,” she remarks. “It was no accident that the Arts and Crafts movement began in Victorian England, the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, the heart of mechanization and the epitome of capitalist ownership of the means of production.” Calling the movement a philosophy as opposed to a style, the revolutionary roots of Arts and Crafts morphed into both.
Barter traces the origins of the Arts and Crafts movement to the mid-Nineteenth Century where influences were drawn back to a medieval style often associated with the Roman Catholic Church. Gothic, as Ruskin preferred to term the style, was highly promoted by the author, who went on to become the first art history professor at Oxford University in 1869. A series of circles and guilds adhering to Ruskin’s writings eventually led to the formation of a small group headed by Morris that would ultimately decorate his “austere red-brick country home, known as the Red House. This collaboration proved fruitful,” writes Barter, “and the men soon formed a partnership” known as the “Fine Arts Workmen.”
The group, consisting of Morris, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Philip Webb, Ford Maddox Ford, Peter Paul Marshall and university professor Charles Faulkner, opened a workshop. Quite impressively, one of the firm’s first commissions was the Green Dining Room in the South Kensington Museum, now known as the Victoria and Albert.
In 1875, the firm took on the name of Morris and Company and “continued to serve as one of the premier suppliers of Arts and Crafts wares for many years.” Items from this period on display in the exhibition include the stylish Sussex armchair, circa 1863, attributed to Rossetti of the Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company, circa 1863, and on loan from the collection of Crab Tree Farm.
Two colorful fabric panels by William Morris, Morris and Company, 1895, are from the Art Institute’s collection and were woven and printed at the Merton Abbey Works. Also from the Art Institute’s collection comes an important and stylized white lacquered table by Scottish designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh from 1902.
A stunning silver cup, highlighted by a blue enameled cover topped by an encrusted white stone, is accentuated by two oversized and elongated handles. It is attributed to Charles Robert Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft, circa 1903.
Another significant chair on view is the Charles Francis Annesley Voysey dining chair made by Story and Company in 1898.
“The Smell of Japan was Upon Them: Japanism and the Arts And Crafts Movement,” penned by Ellen E. Roberts, is the title of the second chapter of the book, and it fittingly chronicles the transition of the movement as it progressed into the Twentieth Century. The “romanticized view of Japanese culture made its art seem the perfect model for Arts and Crafts creations,” writes Roberts. Examples such as Christopher Dresser’s electroplated silver teapot, circa 1880, James Dixon and Sons, and a tureen and ladle, 1880, J.W. Hulkin and J.T. Wreath, illustrate a simplistic and unadorned style. Roberts writes that when Dresser emulated “the simplicity he admired in Japanese objects,” he “brought his creations closer to the Arts and Crafts ideal of truth to material.”
The Japanese influence also extended to pottery of the period as seen through examples of Rookwood on display, including a superb tall vase in a matte glaze by master artist Kataro Shirayamadani decorated with flying geese. Also illustrating the style is a framed series of Grueby tiles titled “The Pines,” 1906, that was designed by Addison Le Boutillier. Appropriately, the tiles are compared to a Sixteenth Century Japanese six-panel screen decorated with a landscape.
The third chapter of the book, written by Brandon Ruud, is titled “To Promote and To Extend The Principles Established by Morris: Elbert Hubbard, Gustav Stickley and the Redefinition of American Arts and Crafts.” The chapter deals with the Americanization of the movement and explores the history of several prominent makers, such as Hubbard and his Roycroft ventures, Gustav Stickley and his brothers and the brothers who formed the firm Greene and Greene. Important contributions from designers who influenced each of the producers are chronicled, such as Dard Hunter’s stylish effects on the output of the Roycrofters and Harvey Ellis’ influences on Gustav Stickley’s designs. Also explored is the impact that the recognition of Native American arts had on the movement.
Ruud, the assistant curator of American art at the Art Institute of Chicago, writes, “Lacking the unqualified socialist vision that pervaded the English movement, American designers focused on aesthetic reform. ‘Art Groups’ celebrated objects they displayed and the commodities they produced, and Arts and Crafts societies organized themselves along ‘business principles.”‘
The influx of large and fashionable department stores, publicized brochures and periodicals ushered in a new style, and Americans were eager to jump on the bandwagon. “The transformation of the movement from a philosophical and social ideal into an aesthetic and profitable one went hand-in-hand with the dramatic changes in the patterns of purchasing and consumption by the later third of the Nineteenth Century,” explains Ruud.
“A New Living Spirit: Pictorial Principles and the Arts and Crafts Movement,” written by Sarah Kelley, the Henry and Gilda Buchbinder family associate curator of American art at the Art Institute of Chicago, examines the impact of photographic imagery on the Arts and Crafts movement. From photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz to Edward Curtis, the influences portrayed, from Japanism to Native American, expanded upon the lofty goals of the movement.
“Photographers shared a common culture with craftsmen, and, not surprisingly, they incorporated objects of Arts and Crafts design into their lives and work,” writes Kelley. A photograph by James Craig Annan titled “East and West” depicts a Caucasian woman in Western-style dress of the period seated among Arts and Crafts period items that have been influenced by Japanese styles.
The photographs of the period were likewise promoted in periodicals, such as Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman publication, which also featured the work of Curtis. While most of the imagery created by Curtis was earmarked for his volumes of The North American Indian , the photographer also produced orotones, such as “The Vanishing Race” and “Canyon de Chelly †Navajo” that were sold by the hundreds.
The final chapter of the book, and the one with the most significance in relationship to the exhibition, is titled “Chicago: A Bridge To The Future” and written by Barter and Monica Obniski, a research and exhibition assistant at the Art Institute. Examining the history of Chicago during the period and the impact of the Great Depression, the pair explore the assimilation and transformation of the local artisans. A rich environment filled with talent, artisans included metalworkers such as Jarvie, the Kalo Shop; potteries included the American Terra Cotta and Ceramic Company founded by William Gates and the producers of Teco art pottery and architects, such as George Washington Maher, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Among the highlights of the exhibition are Wright’s dining table and six chairs commissioned for the Frederick Robie house, circa 1908. The six high back spindled chairs surround a rectilinear table with legs extending above the table top and supporting four leaded glass lighting fixtures created a sense of enclosure or intimacy for dinner guests. Giving a nod to Charles Rennie Mackintosh in regard to influences, Barter acknowledges that Wright “simplified his forms and played with positive and negative space to achieve a sense of decoration,” further terming the set a “study in precise and severe lines.”
Distributed by Yale University Press, the hardcover book Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago accompanies the exhibition. It is available for $45.
The Art Institute of Chicago is at 111 South Michigan Avenue. For information, 312-443-3600 or www.artinstituteofchicago.org .
