American Craft - Early Craft Institutions

Early Craft Institutions

The studio crafts movement was fostered by the establishment of crafts programs within post-secondary educational institutions. In 1894, for example, North America's first university ceramics department was begun at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. This was followed in 1901 by the establishment of the first ceramics art school at Alfred University in Alfred, New York. Similarly, the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island established the first metal arts class in 1901 and the first textiles class in 1903.

After World War I, a postwar spirit of internationalism influenced the establishment of other important craft institutions, such as the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Cranbrook craftsmen translated organic and geometric forms into the style that would be known as Art Deco. At Cranbrook, teachers like Maija Grotell produced important work in their own right while also teaching a new generation of young studio craft artists.

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