American craft
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American craft consists of the United States' contributions to the family of artistic practices conducted by independent studio artists, working singly or in small groups, using traditional craft materials such as wood, glass, clay, textiles and metal and creating works that either serve or allude to a functional or utilitarian purpose, but which have been elevated to fine art through aesthetics and grace. This includes glass blowing, studio pottery, metal work, and weaving.
Contents |
[edit] History
The American studio craft movement is a successor to earlier European craft movements. Modern studio crafts developed as a reaction to modernity and, particularly, the Industrial Revolution. During the nineteenth century, Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle and English social critic John Ruskin warned of the extinction of handicrafts in Europe. English designer and theorist William Morris continued this line of thought, becoming father of England's Arts & Crafts Movement. Morris distinguished the studio craftsman in this way: "[O]ur art is the work of a small minority composed of educated persons, fully conscious of their aim of producing beauty, and distinguished from the great body of workmen by that aim." Both European and American craft traditions have also been influenced by Art Nouveau. Both of these movements influenced the development of the contemporary studio craft movement in the United States during the late nineteenth century, throughout the twentieth century and to the present.
[edit] American craft pioneers
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.
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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] The Depression years and World War II
During the Depression years, the federal Works Progress Administration fostered crafts projects as well as public works and murals. This enabled crafts to flourish at a local level. At the same time, American art programs began to include craft studies into their curricula.
World War II brought an influx of European artists and craftsmen. These European exiles brought with them a range of historical traditions, including not only European craft practices but also knowledge of Asian and other non-Western cultures. During this period, dissatisfaction with industrial society during this period also fostered a supportive environment for handmade art objects. In 1943, the American Craft Council was founded to support craftspeople and cultivate an appreciation for their work. The ACC's founder, Aileen Osborn Webb was potter interested in creating marketing opportunities for studio craftsmen. The organization eventually grew to include "American Craft" magazine and the Museum of Art and Design (then called the Museum of Contemporary Crafts and at one point known as the American Craft Museum). As a result of these phenomena, post-war American craft became stylistically more refined as well as technically more proficient.
[edit] The 1950s and Peter Voulkos
During the 1950s, some artists turned to the truth-to-materials doctrine. This movement also entailed an emphasis on the collective production of crafts work. Craftsmen sometimes worked together during this period to develop more ambitious projects. In 1954, Peter Voulkos founded the ceramics department at the Otis College of Art and Design (then called the Los Angeles County Art Institute). In California, Voulkos' pottery rapidly became abstract and sculptural. Voulkos then moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he founded another ceramics department and taught from 1959 until 1985.
[edit] The 1960s and the new glassblowing movement
The culture of the 1960s was even more conducive to the development of studio crafts. This period saw a rejection of materialism and exploration of alternative ways of living. For some, the creation of handicrafts provided just such an outlet. In 1962, then-ceramics professor Harvey Littleton and chemist Dominick Labino began the contemporary glassblowing movement. The impetus for the movement consisted of their two workshops at the Toledo Museum of Art, during which they began experimenting with melting glass in a small furnace and creating blown glass art. Thus Littleton and Labino were the first to make molten glass feasible for artists in private studios.
In 1971, Dale Chihuly began the influential Pilchuck Glass School near Stanwood, Washington. Pilchuck Glass School has become a center of the contemporary American Studio Glass movement.
[edit] The Renwick Gallery
In 1972, the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery was founded as a studio craft department of the National Museum of American Art. Housed in the original Corcoran Gallery of Art building across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, it provided a distinguished setting for American studio craft objects in Washington, D.C.
[edit] The Year of American Craft
In 1992, President George H. W. Bush signed a proclamation designating 1993 as The Year of American Craft. As part of this commemoration, Renwick Gallery director Michael Monroe selected seventy-two works by seventy American craftsmen which were donated to the White House to serve as The White House Collection of American Crafts. This collection was displayed for four months at the National Museum of American Art in 1995.
[edit] Sources
- Barbaralee Diamonstein, "Values, Skills and Dreams: Crafts in America," in Michael Monroe, The White House Collection of American Crafts, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1995. ISBN 0-8109-4035-3.
- Julie Hall, "Tradition and Change: The New American Craftsman," E.P. Dutton, 1977. ISBN 0-525-22195-6.
- Kenneth Trapp and Howard Risatti, Skilled Work: American Craft in the Renwick Gallery. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998. ISBN 1-56098-806-1
[edit] See also
- American Craftsman
- Applied art
- Art nouveau
- Art deco
- Arts and crafts
- Ceramics
- Craft
- Decorative arts
- Glass art
- Glass blowing
- History of decorative art
- Mosaic
- Studio pottery
[edit] External Links
