American Craft - American Craft Pioneers

American Craft Pioneers

In the early nineteenth century it became increasingly popular for rural Americans of modest means to take the decoration of their homes and furniture into their own hands. The artist Rufus Porter was an early proponent of the American craft movement, who believed that the arts needed to be accessible to, and appreciated by, the nation as a whole. In 1825 he published A Select Collection of Valuable and Curious Arts, and Interesting Experiments Which are Well Explained, and Warranted Genuine, and May be Prepared, Safely and at Little Expense, which is a book of instructions for various domestic decorative arts, including wall, floor, and furniture painting. By the end of the nineteenth century, the preindustrial craft trades had almost totally disappeared. Industrial expansion and westward movement had largely severed American culture from early Colonial American and Native American craft roots. Against this backdrop, Louis Comfort Tiffany was a pioneer of the American craft movement, arguing for the placement of well-designed and crafted objects in the American home. Tiffany's elegant stained glass creations were influenced by the values of William Morris and became America's leading embodiment of art nouveau.

Gustav Stickley, the cabinetmaker was an early leader in the development of Studio Furniture and the American craft movement. Stickley's designs were distinguished by their simplicity and by their harmony between interior decorative art and architecture. Stickley's magazine, "The Craftsman," was a forum for this movement from 1901 through 1916. Originally focused on expounding ideas from the England's Arts and Crafts Movement, "The Craftsman" increasingly developed American craft concepts over the years of its publication. Stickley's ideas later had significant influence on Frank Lloyd Wright and future generations of American craftsmen, artists and architects.

The Roycroft movement was an American adaptation of the British arts and crafts movement founded by Elbert Hubbard and his wife Bertha Crawford Hubbard in the small-town of East Aurora, New York in 1895. Its primary focus was on writing and publishing ornate books, but it also made furniture and metal products. Roycroft was organized as a living/working artisans' community along the lines of a Medieval European guild.