The Founding and Fathers of the Arts and Crafts Movement

Sandra Steiner

I will be researching and writing about the Arts and Crafts

Movement, it’s founders and its rise and fall in popularity.

The Founding and Fathers of the Arts and Crafts Movement

• The arts and crafts movement is a political, social, and aesthetic movement founded by John Ruskin. It was popular during the mid to late nineteenth century.

• The movement was a ideological artistic response to the cheaply made manufactured products of the Victorian era.

Factory of the Industrial Revolution

John Ruskin

• John Ruskin was one of the original founders of the movement.

• He didn’t like the cheaply made products that the Victorian era factories produced.

• Moved by Medieval Gothic art he appreciated how this historical art form mimicked nature.

• He wanted to promote quality work, inspired by nature that evoked emotion through symbolism.

John Ruskin

William Morris

• One of Ruskin’s protégé’s and one of my personal favorite artists also embraced the Arts and Crafts aesthetic.

• Originally attending college to join the clergy, after reading Ruskin’s writings he altered it pursuits to learn about architecture.

• He eventually created beautiful design in book design, furniture, textiles, house wares, and wall coverings.

The following are some examples

Strawberry Thieves

Sir Edward Burne-Jones and William MorrisFlora

Elbert Hubbard and theCrossing to America

• The style was picked up by an American named Elbert Hubbard.

• Disenchanted with the Industrial Revolution, Hubbard was fertile ground for the ideology of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

• After a trip to Europe and exposure to the movement, Hubbard brought the Arts and Crafts aesthetic home with him and began printing the beautiful type that he saw in Europe at the Roycroft press.

Roycroft Arts and Crafts Community

• After much success with print and manufacturing in the arts and crafts style, Hubbard founded the Roycroft Arts and Crafts Community.

• A man named Gustav Stickley visited the community and abandoned the style of manufacturing of the Victorian Era and embraced the Arts and Crafts style furniture, eventually cementing that as the signature style of furniture for the American Arts and Crafts Movement.

Hubbard Print

Stickley Chair

The End of an Era

• May 1915 Edward Hubbard boarded the RMS Lusitania on his way to Germany to speak to leadership there. He was trying to avoid a war.

• The Lusitania was attacked and sunk and now rests at the bottom of the Irish Sea.

• Not willing to abandon her husband, Hubbard’s wife stayed by his side.

• Their son ran the community for decades after but it eventually closed.