Читать книгу Great Book of Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture, Revised & Expanded Second Edition - Robert W. Lang - Страница 6

One hundred years ago, society as a whole, and the design community in particular, stood at a crossroads. The world was rapidly changing as new technologies were developed. The notion of what makes a house a home was questioned then, as it should be questioned now. The places where we spend our time and the objects with which we surround ourselves have a significant influence on our comfort, peace of mind, and well-being. Craftsman design fills the need for usefulness and the desire for beauty in a way that expresses the inherent character of the natural materials, and the character and values of the designer, maker and owner. It is a welcome respite from designs whose purpose is to prove the wealth of the owner or to present “newness” only for the sake of following the latest trend.

Good furniture design simply makes sense; furniture should serve its purpose as well as possible, be constructed to endure, and use materials that please the eye and hand. It should bring a sense of calm and comfort to its environment, not disturb or detract from it. Craftsman design expresses integrity and quality in a quiet, dignified manner. It does not shout, but it cannot be ignored. It serves its purpose while providing pleasure to the senses. Good design comes, as Gustav Stickley said, “from the bottom up.” It is based on solid fundamentals, expressed in a straightforward manner.

In 1902, Gustav chose a joiner’s compass as his logo with the Flemish phrase “Als ik kan” (To the best of my ability) inscribed within the compass and his signature underneath. Gustav Stickley’s shopmark and label offered a guarantee of authenticity, and his personal guarantee of quality.

As Stickley put it:

“In the beginning there was no thought of creating a new style, only a recognition of the fact that we should have in our homes something better suited to our needs and more expressive of our character as a people than Imitations of the traditional styles, and a conviction that the best way to get something better was to go directly back to plain principles of construction and apply them to the making of simple, strong, comfortable furniture that would meet adequately everything that could be required of it.” ⁽¹⁾

It is this expression of character that separates Craftsman furniture from other styles, and the values attached to that expression are the foundation of its appeal. This appeal also comes from the bottom up—it matches a desire for things that make sense, that present themselves in an honest way and use the beauty of nature without exploitation. Like the furniture itself, the values and ideals behind the furniture have a timeless appeal to the best aspects of human nature.

Though Gustav Stickley is certainly the main character, the story of American Arts & Crafts furniture also features Gustav’s four brothers, particularly his youngest brother, Leopold, who was to become Gustav’s biggest competitor. The five brothers were independent and strong-willed men, all successful in the furniture business but unsuccessful at working with each other.

Their father abandoned the family when the boys were quite young; as they came of age, the three oldest went to work at the chair factory in Brandt, Pennsylvania, owned by their uncle, Jacob Schlaeger. In 1884, in Binghamton, New York, Gustav, Albert, and Charles formed the Stickley Brothers Company, which sold (and after 1886, manufactured) furniture. Leopold and John George joined the growing company around 1888.

Gustav left the family business later that same year, and in partnership with Elgin A. Simonds, started a similar business named Stickley & Simonds. Although the partnership lasted only a few years, it was revived in Syracuse, New York, in 1894. During the years in between, Gustav held positions with a streetcar company in Binghamton and later was director of manufacturing at the New York State Prison in Auburn, New York.

In the late-1890s, Gustav Stickley and his brothers Albert and Charles were all successful furniture manufacturers. Albert had taken the Stickley Brothers name and moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Charles stayed in Binghamton, operating as Stickley and Brandt with brother-in-law Schuyler Brandt. Younger brother John George worked as a sales representative for Albert. Leopold left the family business about a year after Gustav and worked for him both at Stickley & Simonds and at Gustav’s independent operation in Syracuse. The three companies became four in 1902 when Leopold formed the L. & J. G. Stickley Company near Syracuse, New York, with John George as his partner.

The three companies operating in the late-1890s were quite similar in size and in the type of furniture that was manufactured—mainly chairs in a variety of styles, including reproductions and adaptations of antique styles. In 1899, Gustav ended his partnership with Simonds and began to develop the furniture designs that became known as Craftsman. Gustav Stickley’s efforts went far beyond the manufacture of furniture, he became a publisher and advocate for the Arts & Crafts movement, and had a tremendous effect on American culture, creating a new style that became popular because it spoke to and met the needs of a society in transition.

Across the Atlantic, the Art Nouveau movement in Europe and the Arts and Crafts movement in England were gaining popularity and significantly influencing American design and architecture. Both movements grew from a common root—a reaction to what had happened to the traditions of design and craftsmanship with the industrial age, and the introduction of factory methods for the production of furniture and other objects. The conditions of workers in the factories, and the effects on society of factory-made goods, were important elements of both design movements.

Both Gustav and Albert traveled to Europe in the final years of the nineteenth century, and as thriving manufacturers in an industry dependent on serving the changing tastes of the buying public, they were well aware of trends in style and design. The latter half of the nineteenth century had seen a transition to modern manufacturing methods, but most designs of that time were reiterations of designs from earlier periods, adapted to machine-made techniques. The Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts designs were among the few new designs in furniture in the previous 50 years.

These trips were essentially scouting missions, searches for the latest trends. Both brothers were greatly influenced by what they saw in Europe and England. Albert returned to America ready to hop on the English Arts and Crafts bandwagon, while Gustav returned ready to hitch up his own horses and drive the American Arts & Crafts movement in a new direction.

Albert established a warehouse in England in the hopes of establishing an export business, and hired T.A. Conti to design and produce inlays, and David Robertson Smith to design furniture. Conti was working in Grand Rapids in 1900, and Smith came to Michigan in 1902. The inlay designs produced by Stickley Brothers and the Quaint line of furniture were apparently the work of Conti and Smith. There is little evidence of Albert being involved in design work beyond the role of owner of the company—he was astute enough to recognize trends in design and style, and wise enough to hire competent designers, but he was not the creative force that his brother Gustav was.

After dissolving his partnership with Simonds, and touring Europe and England, Gustav returned to Syracuse and worked at developing his new designs. His new furniture was first marketed by the Tobey Company of Chicago, a distributor of furniture produced by others, as well as a manufacturer. Dissatisfied with this arrangement, Gustav began marketing his own work. His new designs and the style he developed became popular, and his company became successful—as did those of his brothers and numerous other competitors.

The first decade of the twentieth century belonged to Gustav Stickley. The Craftsman magazine was launched in October 1901, and within a few years Gustav expanded his reach into architecture and home construction. Furniture remained the backbone of the business, but Gustav expanded operations to also produce linens, rugs, and metalwork, including lamps, hardware, and accessories. This continued expansion eventually became his financial undoing. Following all of his interests, and developing enterprises devoted to each of them, Gustav created an operation that was too complex for one person to manage.

When Gustav Stickley first began his experiments with Arts & Crafts furniture, he tried many variations before settling on the designs that went into production. These early pieces were not the squared-off designs associated with him today, but featured curves and decorative carvings based on plant forms. He soon decided it was better to start with a structural idea rather than with an ornamental one. That philosophy is at the core of Stickley’s designs: an eloquent expression of a purely functional item, with the structural elements themselves becoming the ornamentation.

Stickley’s furniture as it was presented in the first issue of The Craftsman magazine.

Stickley’s strength as a designer was his sense of proportion. Simple furniture is not simple to design, and with decorative elements nonexistent or kept to a minimum, a successful design must make the most of those elements that do exist, show the materials to their best advantage, and be balanced. While the scale of many pieces often appears monumental when viewed in isolation, the overall scale of the furniture is often on the small side, which keeps the furniture from overwhelming its environment.

At first glance, Craftsman furniture is intriguing because it is so well proportioned and makes such good use of the material. But a quick glance is never enough. It invites a closer look, to examine the exposed joints, to take a good look at the details. This furniture makes friends with its user. Chairs invite you to sit and relax, and once seated you discover interesting details you might not have noticed before. Bookcases and china cabinets provide a safe and secure place to keep things, and by their nature let you know that what is inside is rather special.

Rather than being overpowering, this furniture invites the viewer to look closer and to use it for its intended purpose. Tables provide a welcome place for family and friends to gather, and desks give a sense of taking care of necessary business without being ostentatious. All of the elements are quite simple, but the way they are combined makes all the difference. The quality of the joinery and finish must be executed as flawlessly as possible for these designs to be successful.

Gustav Stickley, while an innovator in design, did not work single-handedly, and his work does show influences from designs that were seen in England prior to the introduction of his Craftsman furniture. Although Stickley’s daughter Barbara, maintained that Harvey Ellis was the only person to ever collaborate with or design furniture for Stickley⁽²⁾, a letter from the architect Claude Bragdon mentions another architect, Henry Wilkinson, working for Gustav designing furniture in 1900.⁽³⁾

After Gustav Stickley, the most influential designer of the period was Harvey Ellis. Gustav employed Ellis briefly before his untimely death in 1904. Ellis is usually described as an itinerant architect, and his addiction to alcohol caused his early death. Ellis and Stickley met in 1903, with Ellis going to work for Stickley in May or June of that year. At the beginning of the next year, Ellis was already dead, but Stickley’s 1904 catalog featured many Ellis designs, notably inlaid chairs and cabinets that never went into full production, a bedroom suite (Nos. 911, 912, 913, 914), the No. 700 series of bookcases, and china cabinets, servers, and delicate small drop-front desks. The addition of arched elements, subtle curves, and purely decorative elements added a touch of lightness and grace to Stickley’s previous work. These pieces are some of the best-proportioned and most elegant furniture ever made.

In addition to these furniture designs, Ellis also wrote articles, designed houses, and drew illustrations for The Craftsman magazine. It is generally reported that Ellis was hired for his skill and training as an architect. But Ellis’ talent for furniture design and the number of pieces attributed to him make it hard to believe Stickley was interested in his furniture designs only as an afterthought. Furniture production was always the largest part of Stickley’s business, and faced with the ever-increasing number of companies copying his work, Stickley needed new, fresh designs to stay ahead of the competition. Harvey Ellis strongly influenced Gustav Stickley’s furniture, and many of the pieces that are considered the “best” examples came from or were strongly influenced by Harvey Ellis.

The temptation to attribute designs for specific pieces to individuals is strong, and many writers have done so. But there simply isn’t enough evidence available to do that. Some design elements attributed to Harvey Ellis appeared before he came on the scene, while others appear in pieces that didn’t come into production until well after his death. It is likely that Ellis, and others employed by Stickley, supplied the themes for these pieces, while Stickley’s draftsmen worked out the details and possibly applied the themes and design elements to other pieces.

Harvey Ellis had a remarkable influence on Stickley’s designs, but this influence is often overstated. As Stickley’s daughter, Barbara, put it:

“Gustav took care of Harvey, but he also recognized Ellis’ design genius . . . (and) above anyone else at the United Crafts, Harvey understood Gustav’s ideas about furniture.” ⁽⁴⁾

Before settling in on his Craftsman designs, Stickley experimented with Art Nouveau designs, the best known of which are the tea tables based on stylized plant forms. There were also notable china cabinets that featured applied curves on the panels, a shape quite similar to the corbels that would appear on later pieces. The rarely seen early pieces indicate clearly that subtle curves and delicate pieces were a part of Stickley’s design vocabulary before Ellis arrived on the scene.

Stickley’s bungalow chair, produced in 1900, is remarkably similar to chairs shown in Ellis’ renderings and raises the question of who was influenced by whom. Stickley’s final designs, produced at the end of his career in 1915 and 1916, show a versatile and talented designer fully capable of producing work in a variety of styles.

Stickley and Ellis’ work showed influences from English Arts & Crafts designs, notably those of Voysey, Ashbee, and Mackintosh. The two men shared interests and leadership in the Arts & Crafts movement, had common interests and influences, and recognized the importance of the philosophy behind their new designs. While Stickley employed Ellis, Ellis was also extremely independent and able to explain his designs as logical solutions to common problems. Their brief working relationship seems to be more the collaboration of equals rather than of a hired hand doing his employer’s bidding.

Harvey Ellis arrived in Syracuse in late spring 1903, with a considerable reputation as a talented designer and leader of the Arts & Crafts Society in Rochester, New York. He also carried a significant amount of baggage, due to his alcoholism, and the effect that his addiction had already had on his career. The chaotic effects of his drinking had played a role in Ellis’ career from the beginning.

Many of the pieces attributed to Harvey Ellis, including this sideboard, first appeared as illustrations in The Craftsman (October 1903).

After a six-month stay at West Point, Ellis traveled to Europe and then served a brief apprenticeship in Albany, New York, with architect H.H. Richardson. In 1879, he opened an architectural practice in Rochester with his brothers, Charles and Frank. In 1885, reportedly after a disagreement with brother Charles, Ellis headed west, working first in St Paul, Minnesota, for Leroy Buffington and J. Walter Stevens, and later in St. Louis, Missouri, for George R. Mann.

The work produced during this period, both actual buildings and architectural renderings, showed a talent for design and a mastery of technique. His pen-and-ink and watercolor renderings, reportedly executed without the aid of drafting instruments, are among the finest work ever produced. Architectural renderings are usually thought of as technical works, but in addition to mastery of lines, Ellis brought a wonderful sense of composition and detail.

Many of his designs were never constructed, but were significant for the era, notably two designs for Buffington—a 29-story office building, and a prototype for the now-common suburban bank branch. Some notable structures that were built include the Mabel Tainter Memorial Theater in Menomonie, Wisconsin, Pillsbury Hall at the University of Minnesota, and the John L. Merriam residence.

Ellis’ obituary⁽⁵⁾ reflected the view of his peers in the architectural community:

“The drawings and designs of the late Harvey Ellis...came just short of influencing western work more strongly than that of any other designer, before or since his time...No one else could do such striking things and yet avoid the bizarre.”

What kept Harvey Ellis from becoming a truly great architect was his erratic behavior, typical of an alcoholic, and described by his friend, Claude Bragdon, a few years after Ellis’ death:

“To paint an authentic human portrait glowing colors will not suffice: it is the shadows that tell the story, and one black shadow, already outlined, I must proceed to block in at once. During the major portion of his life Harvey Ellis was the slave of drink.

“During the period he worked for Eckel and Mann of St. Louis, he did not know the amount of his salary. When he found his pockets empty, he went to them for more money, and got it—he left all keeping of accounts to them. Buffington found it necessary to deal with him on a somewhat similar basis. He gave Harvey, at the end of every day, amounts varying from a quarter to several dollars; and whatever the sum, in the morning it was gone. The prize money, which he won in the first New York Grant Monument competition, he dissipated (with the help of boon companions) in three days. He seldom sold a picture, because he could not endure the patronage of the rich buyer, while if a true connoisseur expressed a liking for one of his pictures Harvey usually insisted on making him a present of it.” ⁽⁶⁾

It is a common misconception that an alcoholic or other addict isn’t capable of producing quality work. In reality, they are often able to produce quality and quantities of work well beyond the norm. What suffers most is the alcoholic’s relationships with other people, particularly employers, and with themselves. Here is Bragdon’s description of Ellis’ work:

“One may praise without qualification Harvey’s architectural pen-drawings. They are everything that such drawings should be: unlabored, economical of line, brilliant, beautifully balanced, with far more of color and body than is usual in pen-drawings. His early experience as an etcher doubtless accounts for his mastery over this difficult medium.” ⁽⁷⁾

In 1893, an economic downturn led to a slowdown in building and architecture, and Ellis returned to Rochester. He also did something he had never been able to do: he began a ten-year period of sobriety. As Bragdon describes it:

“...he rose from his besotted bed and for a period of ten years did not touch alcohol until, a few months before his melancholy death, weakened by disease, he sought its aid to give him strength for his daily task.” ⁽⁸⁾

In 1929, Bragdon wrote:

“Ellis quit drinking and left architecture to escape from the ‘work-a-day world’ to return to Rochester...[where] the only things he seemed to care for were to paint cryptic, unsalable pictures, under a still north light, with plenty of time and plenty of cigarettes and to talk about everything under the sun except himself to anyone who would listen.”⁽⁹⁾

During this period, Ellis did little architectural work, but it isn’t clear if it was due to a slow economy, or personal reasons. He was active in the Arts & Crafts movement, helping to found the Rochester Arts & Crafts Society in 1897, and became that organization’s first president. In late-1902, Gustav Stickley was planning a major exhibition of American and European Arts & Crafts to be held in Syracuse. Stickley selected Theodore Hanford Pond to organize and serve as chairman of this exhibition. It was likely Pond who introduced Ellis and Stickley.⁽¹⁰⁾

At the close of the exhibition in Syracuse, it was moved to Rochester and shortly afterward Harvey Ellis arrived in Syracuse to work for Stickley. The exact date of Ellis’ employment is not known. The Arts & Crafts exhibition closed in Rochester at the end of April 1903, and the first publication of Ellis’ work in The Craftsman appeared in the July 1903 issue. Given the amount of material by Ellis in that issue, it seems likely he began to work for Stickley soon after the exhibition closed, and that he arrived with a good deal of the published material in complete, or near-complete form. Gustav Stickley introduced his readers to Harvey Ellis as follows:

“The illustrations and text of A Craftsman House Design, and An Adirondack Camp, are from the pen and pencil of an artist and writer new to the pages of our magazine: one whose practical qualities, originality, and artistic accent cannot fail to make him welcome in our present issue, and eagerly awaited in the future.” ⁽¹¹⁾

In addition to the two house designs, there were articles on a Man’s Dressing Cabinet and A Child’s Bedroom that are evidently the work of Ellis. The dressing cabinet was presented as a do-it-yourself article, later reprinted in Making Authentic Craftsman Furniture, and the illustrations in the bedroom furniture article carry Ellis’ signature, a stylized “H” and “E” enclosed in a circle. Ellis’ illustrations usually contained design motifs similar to those that eventually appeared on inlaid Craftsman furniture, not only on furniture but also on curtains and other linens, patterns in art glass windows, and as stenciled wall decorations.

LaMont Warner was Gustav Stickley’s head draftsman and furniture designer from 1900 to 1906. He has been credited with design of the No. 634 five-leg cross-stretcher table (here). The trumpet stretchers on this table also appear on smaller tables. It is not possible to say authoritatively whose idea was whose. My guess is much of the design work was collaborative, with Gustav supplying creative direction and general ideas, while Warner, his staff, and production people generated details and final designs.

Mary Ann Smith’s Gustav Stickley: The Craftsman outlines Stickley’s design process, as described by his grandson Peter Wiles. Gustav explained the design concept to his workman verbally, waving his hands to indicate the general shape and features of the piece. The workman built the piece and showed it to Stickley who inspected it, again indicating changes by waving his hands. Another model would be built incorporating the changes. This process continued until Stickley approved the design, which then went into production. Only at this point would measured drawings be made.

Although Wiles would have been too young to have witnessed this first-hand, I see no reason to doubt it was Stickley’s method, at least in part. However, there is a contradiction between Wiles’ second-hand account, and Claude Bragdon’s description of Wilkinson’s work. Wilkinson’s role as a designer is unclear. Were the ideas his or interpretations of Stickley’s ideas? Quite likely, the designs were a collaborative effort.

Many of the pieces of furniture designed for Stickley by Harvey Ellis first appeared as renderings in The Craftsman, and there would be several stages of drawing and prototype-making between concept and final production. When and where someone else picked up the work of Ellis is unknown, as is the actual role of anyone involved.

Stickley’s ability to communicate design ideas verbally could also be used by others in preparing drawings for the production of prototypes. In addition to the architects who worked on The Craftsman, Stickley also employed a number of designers and draftsmen, notably Peter Hansen, who later worked for L. & J. G. Stickley, and LaMont Warner. Some sources have attributed designs to Hansen and Warner, but these attributions seem based solely on the fact they were present and could have produced the designs.

I believe most of the design ideas came directly from Gustav Stickley, but that the process of taking any design from idea to production was quite likely a collaborative effort. Stickley was involved in all the details of all the work that bore his name, be it the furniture, the magazine or house designs. It is not likely that a significant manufacturer, with decades of experience in the industry, would develop prototypes without any drawings or sketches in the early stages of the process. It is also unlikely, given the number of different pieces manufactured by Stickley that each piece depended on building a complete prototype, without any drawings.

Gustav Stickley was a very busy man, involved in many projects simultaneously, and he seemed quite able to plant the seeds of ideas that others would bring to completion under his direction. In the development of his furniture designs, it is likely the cabinetmaker building the prototype, the draftsman finalizing the production drawings, and everyone else in the process, would have some input. Stickley had a talent for attracting like-minded people, and as a good leader, seemed able to assign projects and accept the results with minimal intervention.

This is evident in the editing and publication of The Craftsman and in the preparation of architectural drawings. Stickley is credited, and in the case of the architectural drawings, many had his signature of approval, but there is no evidence of drawings prepared by Stickley himself. This does not mean the designs are not his creations. It would not have been possible for one individual to do all of the detail work associated with conveying his ideas. I think it reasonable to assume the development of the furniture and inlay designs involved a similar process. Stickley outlined his ideas and his team refined the designs and prepared them for production.

One of the main means of communication in furniture making is sketches, often hurriedly drawn and rarely saved, but nonetheless crucial to the process. There is always some degree of give-and-take in the process of bringing a design idea to finished form, and the scale of Stickley’s operation suggests a team effort would have been necessary. Stickley would not have come close to achieving what he did, if he did not have the ability to listen to those he trusted to carry out his ideas. It is tempting to give credit to Stickley alone, but it must be remembered that he had highly skilled, talented help. It is also tempting to give credit to those who worked for Stickley, but this should only be done if there is strong evidence of significant influence.

Stickley moved his offices and showroom to New York City in 1905. He purchased land in New Jersey, and called it Craftsman Farms. He planned a large house for his residence and planned to establish a school there. He moved his corporate headquarters to a large, expensive building in New York City in 1913 and included showrooms for his furniture, other manufacturers, his architectural and publishing offices, and a restaurant featuring meat and vegetables raised at Craftsman Farms.

Most of Harvey Ellis’ work in The Craftsman was architectural designs and illustrations.

Eventually, he was spending much more than he was taking in and, in late-1915, Gustav was forced into bankruptcy. He briefly worked as a consultant, and then joined in an ill-fated venture with his brothers before retiring in 1918. His final 24 years were spent living with his daughter and grandchildren. When Gustav retired, Leopold and John George took control of Gustav’s factory and other assets. They continued as the L. & J. G. Stickley Company, which still operates, although not owned by the family. Albert and Charles continued into the 1920s with their companies.

Leopold Stickley had left his brother’s company in 1902 to start his own operation, financed in part by a loan from Gustav. At first, he made products sold under other names, but in 1904, Leopold’s own line of furniture was introduced. Focused solely on one business, and aided by brother John George, who was considered one of the best furniture salesmen in the country, Leopold was more successful financially than Gustav. When public tastes changed around World War I, he switched from Arts & Crafts furniture to reproductions of early American furniture. Leopold himself ran the company until his death in 1957.

Gustav Stickley and his brothers literally grew up in the furniture business, manufacturing reproduction and other popular styles of chairs, as well as marketing the work of other manufacturers. Each brother was talented and successful. However, as with their first attempt at working together, their business relationships were on-again, off-again. Their independence and strong wills helped them to achieve business success, but apparently prevented them from working together in groups of more than two.

One of Gustav’s challenges was the vast number of competitors who freely adopted his designs, including those companies owned and operated by his brothers. Similar shop-marks and similar names added fuel to the fire. Gustav’s catalogs emphasized how his furniture was marked, and he occasionally took the opportunity to remind the public that “some of the most persistent of these imitators bear the same name as myself.” ⁽¹²⁾ Gustav Stickley was among the first to produce this style of furniture, and one of the most successful manufacturers of his day. The number of companies that copied his work attests to his design leadership. But Stickley’s impact was broader than his furniture.

Gustav Stickley was also a leader of the Arts & Crafts movement, seeking to promote a better way of life based on ideals from the past adapted to a changing society. While others were trying to sell furniture, Stickley was looking at the changes that were making a tremendous impact on the way people lived and worked. The last 20 years of the nineteenth century brought new ways of manufacturing, communicating, and day-to-day living. The technological revolution at the turn of the twentieth century was lighting homes, powering factories, and speeding up the pace of everything. The telephone was becoming common and automobiles were beginning to replace horses for transportation.

Stickley questioned whether people should use the new technology to do the same things faster and cheaper, or whether new technology should be used to do things differently, to improve the quality of life for all. Quality of life was important to Stickley, and he saw both the home environment and workplace as ideal places for people to establish values of honesty and integrity. He saw cheap, poorly made furniture as a threat to American values. He felt that if people would surround themselves with simple, pure, humble, and honest objects, those qualities would become an inherent part of their daily lives. Driven by his ideas more than by a desire for personal wealth, Stickley couldn’t stop with furniture making. He became a publisher, an educator, and a designer of homes and virtually everything that went into them.

Gustav Stickley’s designs, and those created by Harvey Ellis and produced by Stickley’s factory, are what everyone else at the time copied and are most of what is being reproduced today by the L. & J. G. Stickley Company and other manufacturers. William Morris and John Ruskin in England had sown the seeds for the Arts & Crafts movement. Architects in England and America, notably Charles Rennie Macintosh, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Charles and Henry Greene, were working on similar designs, derived from the same philosophical framework. But it was Gustav Stickley who popularized the style.

The basic elements of Stickley’s designs—simple forms, lack of ornamentation, and high quality—expressed construction that had been seen earlier in the work of the Shakers, the English Arts & Crafts designers, and to some extent the designs of Charles Eastlake. Stickley’s expression of these ideals was, however, quite different in the materials he used, in his structural composition, and in the joinery elements he emphasized. His sense of proportion, and the way in which he combined simple elements, was flawless. Gustav Stickley’s designs simply “look right.” They serve their purpose superbly and make a positive statement about quality without being showy or ostentatious. His designs fit the user, the home, and their purpose, expressing the philosophy behind the designs without making it more important than the specific use of the furniture.

Leopold Stickley is also credited with all of the designs that came from his factory, and even though Leopold didn’t have the demands on his time that his older brother did, it seems sensible that the L. & J. G. Stickley designs were also not the work of one man alone. According to Leopold’s widow, he “roughed out” the designs⁽¹³⁾ so others could complete them. Peter Hansen was Leopold’s chief designer after 1909, but it is unknown who held the position prior to that date. Because so much of Leopold’s work derived from Gustav’s, the question of who designed what becomes even harder to resolve.

One of the few truly original designs to come from L. & J. G. Stickley is the “Prairie” Sofa and Chair (Nos. 220 & 416, here), which featured elements that were never included in any of Gustav’s designs. The wide arms supported by corbels and paneled sides combine to form furniture pieces, which, by a combination of architectural elements, become a part of their environment. Like the best Craftsman designs, these pieces blur the lines between “house” and “furniture,” replacing both with “home.”

Charles Limbert, a Michigan manufacturer, also was willing to experiment and innovate with designs, although some of his construction techniques have not passed the test of time. Limbert’s best designs were well proportioned and included curved work, unexpected angles, and the use of empty space in cutout areas as a design element. Though much of Limbert’s work was derivative of other designers, his original designs stand on their own merits.

The Roycroft shop produced excellent work in small quantity. Founded by Elbert Hubbard following a successful business career, Roycroft’s primary mission was to revive printing. Hubbard’s main interest was writing and publishing—furniture production was a sideline. Hubbard was prominent in the Arts & Crafts movement, but his influence in furniture design was negligible. Much Roycroft furniture reflects English Arts & Crafts design rather than American. Bruce Smith’s Furniture of the Grove Park Inn documents the history of Roycroft furniture making.

World War I and the beginning of the Roaring Twenties signaled the end of the popularity of Craftsman furniture. Wallace Nutting charmed the country with his romantic version of Colonial America, and a craving for glitz and glamour replaced the desire for simplicity. Reproductions from earlier times again became popular with the public, and Art Deco design became a major influence in art and architecture. With its emphasis on form and material, Art Deco can be seen as stemming from the Arts & Crafts movement. Curves replaced straight lines and structure and joinery were no longer emphasized. Comfort and purpose took a secondary role to overall design, and the desire to appeal to the wealthy replaced the desire to appeal to everyone.

Between the 1930s and the 1960s, America struggled to find furniture it was comfortable with and could live with for more than a few years. After World War II, many attempts were made to produce designs based on new materials such as plastics and plywood. With few exceptions, these new styles appealed only to the manufacturers, who were trying to cut costs to the minimum. Older styles were recycled in and out of fashion during these years.

In the late-1960s, people again began to question the role of technology in daily life, posing the same questions Gustav Stickley had asked many years before. Shaker furniture and the work of individual designer/craftsmen gained in influence and popularity. Like an old friend, Craftsman furniture was waiting patiently to be noticed again, enduring because of the way it was made—too good to throw away, and too strong to disappear. Its timeless quality speaks to our desire for comfort and purpose in the home.

During the 1970s and 1980s, interest in the Arts & Crafts movement blossomed in woodworking, furniture making, glass, ceramics, and other crafts. By the mid-1980s, manufacturers recognized the revived interest and began reproducing Craftsman furniture, along with derivative designs. Collectors of antique furniture began offering higher prices for original pieces. Today, the Craftsman style has a permanent place in our design vocabulary.

There is a trend among writers on the Arts and Crafts movement to force history into neatly defined periods and to speculate wildly on the characters involved, making great leaps on the flimsiest of evidence. Often there is no evidence, and motivations are assigned to the players based on what could have happened, or what must have happened, based on the author’s wholly subjective opinion, or connections to the collector’s market. There has also been a trend to downplay the importance of Gustav Stickley, in favor of his imitators and employees. History has always been written by the winners, and from a distant viewpoint. The history of this period has at times suffered at the hands of some writers.

My efforts have been based on the desire to help preserve the important details of Stickley’s designs from the point of view of someone with at least a bit of knowledge about furniture making, and of the process of bringing designs to tangible form. The characters involved and the events that occurred form a fascinating story. Where the facts are incomplete, and the motivations of the characters are unknown, I avoid speculation and trust readers to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions.

If Gustav Stickley were merely a successful furniture manufacturer from the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we would not be interested in his work today. During his lifetime, hundreds of men operated successful furniture companies but only a handful are remembered today and a good portion of those shared Stickley’s name. To pretend their financial success and common last name make them the equal of their older brother misses the legacy of Gustav Stickley. To identify their imitations of his designs, and their shortcuts to production, as important design elements reflects poor understanding of the processes of designing and making furniture, and what is important in Stickley’s innovative designs.

Gustav Stickley is important because in addition to being a successful manufacturer, he was an innovative designer, publisher, and spokesman for the Arts and Crafts movement. He was the leader who was followed, the provider of the platform for other innovators of the time. In the end, he was the one who lost everything he had achieved financially, while preserving his dignity and quality of character.

The Craftsman magazine is often described as a promotional vehicle for Stickley’s furniture company, but it was in fact the voice of the American Arts and Crafts movement, and an attempt to provide ways for a changing society to improve social values and moral virtues. Designs for furniture and houses were important in The Craftsman but nearly always in the context of a much larger picture: how homes and the objects within them affect the lives of the occupants, and the affect of neighborhoods and neighbors on society as a whole. I think the current appeal of these designs is rooted in our need for the ideals Gustav Stickley championed—lasting value, honesty in character, and a healthy relationship between a home and its occupants.

Perhaps if we surrounded ourselves with excellent designs, expertly crafted, we would come to recognize the good qualities in ourselves, and insist on them as a necessary part of all aspects of our lives.

The more I study the work of Gustav Stickley, the more convinced I become that the reason for the revival of interest in his work is that we have a genuine need for the intangible things his designs reflect, that we have the same needs that these designs were originally intended to serve. Craftsman designs were the reflection of an ideal, and the ideal is what is most important. My experience has been that the study and reproduction of these designs has caused the ideas behind the designs to become an important part of how I think and view the world around me. My hope is that those who enjoy my work will also find these values rubbing off in their own lives.