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Stickley Bookcase
Real Estate
October 17 is your ONLY opportunity to own this Stickly Bookcase
Gustav Stickley (March 9, 1858 – April 21, 1942) was a furniture maker and
architect
as well as the leading spokesperson for the
American Craftsman
movement, a descendant of the British
Arts and Crafts movement
.
Stickley was born in
Osceola, Wisconsin
in 1858 (original name Stoeckel). In 1901, Stickley founded The Craftsman,a periodical which began by expounding the philosophy of the EnglishArts & Crafts movement but which matured into the voice of theAmerican movement. He worked with architect
Harvey Ellis
to design house plans for the magazine, which published 221 such plansover the next fifteen years. He also established the Craftsman HomeBuilders Club in 1903 to spread his ideas about domestic
organic architecture
.
These ideas had an enormous influence on Frank Lloyd Wright . Stickley believed that:
- A house ought to be constructed in harmony with its landscape, with special attention paid to selecting local materials;
- An open floor plan would encourage family interaction and eliminate unnecessary barriers;
- Built-in bookcases and benches were practical and ensured that thehouse would not be completely reliant on furniture from outside;
- Artificial light should be kept to a minimum, so large groupings of windows were necessary to bring in light.
Between 1900 and 1916 a style of furniture featuring "...aseverely plain and rectilinear style which was visually enriched onlyby expressed structural features and the warm tones of the wood..." gained popularity in the U.S. This furniture, referred to as "mission oak", was an "...American manifestation of the Arts and Crafts movement..." [ 1 ]
Stickley began making furniture in the mission oak style with thefounding of the Craftsman Workshops in Eastwood, New York (now a partof Syracuse, New York )in 1904. His furniture was all handmade rather than machine made,crafted to be simple and useful; it was primarily built from nativeAmerican tiger oak , joinery was exposed, upholstery was carried out with natural materials (canvas and leather), wood couldbe varnished but never painted, and there were no unnecessary lines.Furniture was fumed with ammonia to give a dark finish, no nails wereused only wooden pegs and beaten copper and iron hardware with bronzetouches was employed.
He moved his headquarters to New York City in 1905 and planned to establish a boarding school for boys in Morris Plains, New Jersey (what is now Parsippany, New Jersey ). Craftsman Farms was designed to be self-sufficient, with vegetable gardens, orchards,dairy cows and chickens. The main house there is constructed from chestnut logs and stone found on the property, and exemplifies Stickley's building philosophy. As he wrote in The Craftsman:
There are elements of intrinsic beauty in the simplification of ahouse built on the log cabin idea. First, there is the bare beauty ofthe logs themselves with their long lines and firm curves. Then thereis the open charm felt of the structural features which are not hiddenunder plaster and ornament, but are clearly revealed, a charm felt inJapanese architecture....The quiet rhythmic monotone of the wall oflogs fills one with the rustic peace of a secluded nook in the woods. [ 2 ]
Although the main house at Craftsman Farms was initially conceivedof as a clubhouse for students, financial troubles forced Stickley tolive there with his family instead. The planned boarding school neverbecame a reality. Stickley was a poor businessman and the Americanpublic began to reject his simple furniture in favor of revival styles;in 1915 he filed for bankruptcy , stopping publication of The Craftsman in 1916 and selling Craftsman Farms in 1917.
Gustav Stickley died on April 21, 1942. [ 3 ]
