HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT ANTIQUES OR COLLECTIBLES?

Send me an E-mail
(Please, no questions
 about value.)

Instructions for sending photographs of your pieces with your question.
 

Which department store originated the concept of selling artistic home furnishings?

Macy's
Harrod's
Liberty & Co.
                     To see the answer

Arts & Crafts:
From William Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright

by Arnold Schwartzman

The author focuses on a British craftsmen, such as William Morris and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who turned their backs on the mass production of the Industrial Revolution to form a ‘Round Table’ in order to establish a means of returning to hand-crafted products.

                                  More Books

 WATCH VIDEOS

How Was It Made? Block Printing William Morris Wallpaper

This video recreates the painstaking reproduction of a William Morris wallpaper design from 1875, a process that can take up to 4 weeks, using 30 different blocks and 15 separate colors.

Click on the title to view.

And look for other videos in selected articles.

Have Bob speak
 on antiques to your group or organization.

More Information

Can't find what
 you're looking for?

Go to our Sitemap

Find out what's coming in the
2024 Spring Edition

of the
THE ANTIQUES ALMANAC

"Art Deco World"

COMING IN
May

Share pages of this ezine with your friends using the buttons provided with each article.


Download our
Decorative Periods and Styles Chart
 

Read our newest glossary:

Antique Furniture Terminology
 from A to Z

courtesy of AntiquesWorldUK

Videos have
come to


The Antiques
Almanac

Expand your antiques experience.

Look for videos in various articles.

Just click on the
arrow to play.

FEATURED
ANTIQUE




Argyle Chair
Charles Rennie Macintosh

Here you'll find articles about museums that feature exhibitions on antiques and collectibles.

LATEST MUSEUM__________________________________________

A Museum of Arts & Crafts
by
Bob Brooke

 

The Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement is the only museum dedicated exclusively to the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Founded in St. Petersburg, Florida, by local philanthropist and collector Rudy Ciccarello, it showcases the ideals of the Arts & Crafts Movement.



Arts and Crafts designers sought to reform both decorative design and daily life, creating objects that were beautiful and functional. The goals of the Movement— simplicity in design, honesty in materials, hand craftsmanship, and depicting the natural world—are still valued today.

The Museum’s collection represents the works of some of the most important artists of the Movement. The collection consists of outstanding, rare, and one-of-a-kind examples of furniture, pottery, ceramic tiles and architectural faience, metalwork, woodblocks, fine art, lighting, textiles, and leaded glass, created between 1890 and 1930.

The spirit of reform and the belief that traditional craftsmanship could enhance a society overcome by industrialization permeated the Arts & Crafts Movement, both here and abroad. Its founders believed that simplicity in style and honesty in construction had the power to transform everyday objects into ones of beauty, enhancing the lives of both maker and user. Artisan furniture makers of the Arts and Crafts Movement interpreted this philosophy in sturdy oak and rich mahogany, as well as chestnut, cedar, elm, cherry, even cypress. With the addition of hammered iron straps and handles, inlaid metals and beveled glass, tooled leather and ceramic tiles, the objects they produced were diverse, useful, and, above all, beautiful.

Artisan metalsmiths sought to move away from the Victorian excess of ornamentation and design items that would be useful but also embody “dignity and grace,” in accordance with the tenets of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Metalworkers made the dignity of labor and the value of good design visible in hammered copper, molded bronze, and cast silver. They created vases, bowls, and candlesticks to andirons, trays, and bookends, as well as artistic jewelry.



At the turn of the 20th century, Americans became infatuated with art pottery. Professional and amateur ceramists across the country—many of them women—sought to create works that were both beautiful and functional. Proponents of the Movement responded to the crassness of mechanized society by insisting on beauty in common things. They saw manual labor as something positive and having redemptive value. The Arts and Crafts Movement appealed to right-minded members of society who wished to live in an environment that was elevated both morally and aesthetically.



The Museum’s collection also features examples of late 19th- to early 20th-century Arts and Crafts ceramics from some of the most significant potteries in the United States— the Grueby and Paul Revere potteries in Boston, the Rookwood Pottery and Gates Potteries in the Midwest, Newcomb Pottery in New Orleans, and the Van Briggle and Rhead potteries in the West.

Jewelry design underwent considerable change around the turn of the 20th century. In reaction against Victorian-era clothing, fashions for women became less rigid, enabling artists to create simpler jewelry designs to complement them. Jewelers looked to nature as inspiration for new designs. An art jewelry movement emerged in both the U.S. and Britain.

The rare and unique pieces in the Museum’s jewelry collection are examples of the spirit of reform present in the Movement. No matter where it developed, art jewelry shared a strong reaction against ornate Victorian and Edwardian styles that prioritized expensive gemstones and metals, favoring instead simpler and more artistic designs inspired by nature. Jewelers, selecting materials for their natural beauty instead of value, preferred silver and copper over gold and platinum, adorned with semi-precious or non-precious materials such as moonstone, amethyst, turquoise, paste stones, baroque pearls, enamel, and horn.

In response to poor workmanship and mass production, artisans took pride in creating pieces that revealed the hand of
the maker. The shared interest in craftsmanship and beauty aligned these jewelers closely with the spirit of the larger Arts and Crafts Movement. The reformist mindset of the Movement also made it possible for women to become jewelers for the first time. The jewelry collection includes work by notable American, British, and European women and men such as Arthur and Georgina Gaskin, Mrs. Charlotte Newman, John Pontus Petterson, Elizabeth Copeland, Archibald Knox, the Kalo Shop, and Tiffany & Co. Through necklaces, brooches, and buckles as well as boxes, bowls, and dining utensils, the collection offers insight into how people of the time created their identities with the objects they chose for personal adornment.

The later 19th and early-20th century color woodblock prints in the collection represent a broad range of styles and sensibilities. The most important names working in the medium at the time, including Arthur Wesley Dow, Gustave Baumann, Margaret Patterson, William Seltzer Rice, Frances Hammell Gearhart, Edna Boies Hopkins, Eliza Draper Gardiner, and J. B. O. Nordfeldt, can be viewed in the displays.

< Back to More Antiques to View                                      

FOLLOW MY WEEKLY BLOG
Antiques Q&A


JOIN MY COLLECTION
Antiques and More on
Facebook

LIKE MY FACEBOOK PAGE
The Antiques Almanac on Facebook

No antiques or collectibles
are sold on this site.

How to Recognize and Refinish Antiques for Pleasure and Profit

Book: How to Recognizing and Refinishing Antiques for Pleasure and Profit
Have you ever bought an antique or collectible that was less than perfect and needed some TLC? Bob's new book offers tips and step-by- step instructions for simple maintenance and restoration of common antiques.

Read an Excerpt

Auction News
Get up to the minute news of antiques auctions around the country and the world.

Also see
The Auction Directory

Antiques News
Read breaking news stories from the world of antiques and collectibles.

Art Exhibitions
Search for art exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world.

Home | About This Site | Antiques | Collectibles | Antique Tips | Book Shop | Antique Trivia | Antique Spotlight | Antiques News  Special Features | Caring for Your Collections | Collecting | Readers Ask | Antiques Glossaries | Resources | Contact
Copyright ©2007-2023 by Bob Brooke Communications
Site design and development by BBC Web Services