The Stickley Museum At Craftsman Farms » Joseph Cunningham

New Antiques Magazine Article

Meg — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:11:18 +0000

We thought our readers would enjoy this new Antiques Magazine article on Grueby vases by our friend Joseph Cunningham.

New Antiques Magazine Article is a post from The Stickley Museum At Craftsman Farms

The Interiors of Charles Rohlfs

Meg — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:52:48 +0000

Joseph Cunningham, Ph. D. who recently presented a lecture and book-signing for our members will present a lecture at the Cooper Hewitt National Museum on Wednesday, January 14, 2009, at 6:30pm, entitled “The Interiors of Charles Rohlfs.”

As part of the research for his book “The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs” Cunningham has uncovered substantial new information about Charles Rolfs including the discovery of some Rohlfs interiors previously unknown to curators and scholars. The lecture will present such new interiors along with analysis of recently discovered Rohlfs objects.

For more information or to register for the event go to http://events.cooperhewitt.org/events/the-interiors-of-charles-rohlfs

The Interiors of Charles Rohlfs is a post from The Stickley Museum At Craftsman Farms

Was Gustav Stickley a Modernist? New Perspectives on Early Masterworks

Meg — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:14:17 +0000

Join us on November 8 at 4:00 for this outstanding lecture, reception and book signing!

Was Gustav Stickley a Modernist? New Perspectives on Early Masterworks

Presented by Joseph Cunningham, Ph.D.

Click Here to Register Today!

Joseph Cunningham, Ph.D. will present a lecture entitled, Was Gustav Stickley a Modernist? Perspectives on Early Masterworks. Stickley is widely heralded to be among the most important proponents of the Arts and Crafts Movement in America, but, as Dr. Cunningham will discuss in his lecture, it is now possible to take a wider perspective on his exceptional contribution to the development of Modernism. Dr. Cunningham will propose that Stickley was much more than a mere advocate of British design reform theory or exponent of good design and honest craftsmanship. Stickley can be considered an important modernizing force in American design, beginning around 1900.

Cunningham states, “The revolution of the Gustav Stickley furniture was formally introduced to the public in 1900 in the form of Catalog No. 1, “New Furniture.” Careful analysis of this first body of Gustav Stickley furniture provides a deeper understanding of the complex fabric of influences that came together to make this wide range of designs; some rather nineteenth century efforts and some breathtakingly modernist ones. These objects of design, and domestic use, went a long way toward establishing Stickley’s earliest modernizing efforts in American design reform.

“The birth of Stickley’s modernist ideology can be traced to the seminal writings by Irene Sargent in the first few issues of ‘The Craftsman’ in late 1901 and early 1902. Here the gifted design theorist Sargent set forth the goals of Gustav Stickley’s United Crafts enterprise and its wider aims for helping readers to lead better, more fulfilling lives. Rather than incanting the well developed theoretical dogma of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Ms. Sargent chose to isolate those tenets that focused on modernizing design reform. In place of the rhetoric of the Arts and Crafts Movement, the author anchors her ideas in aesthetic concerns, in terms of pure design as well as in their wider role in the lives of people living in the first years of the twentieth century.

“Sargent’s writings provide a useful portal into Stickley’s efforts, through United Crafts and ‘The Craftsman,’ to modernize the homes and lives of their clients and readers with simple, useful domestic objects and a similarly simplified lifestyle to match. Championing the very same utility and simplicity that architect and tastemaker Phillip Johnson was to declare essential to modern design some thirty years later, ‘The Craftsman,’ and production of Stickley and United Crafts in the period 1900 to 1904 can now be understood for the ways in which they set the scene for modernism in American design.”

Robert Smith Award by the Decorative Art Society. The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs will open at the Milwaukee Art Museum in June 2009 and travel to the Carnegie Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Huntington Art Galleries and Metropolitan Museum of Art. A monograph of the same title is being published by Yale University Press. ADA1900 is collaborating with the Dallas Museum of Art on their forthcoming Gustav Stickley exhibition and book, to which Dr. Cunningham will contribute an essay on the Irene Sargent and the ideological foundations of the United Crafts and Craftsman enterprises.

A book signing of The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs will follow the lecture, and light refreshments will be served.

Advanced ticket purchases are strongly encouraged.

Tickets:

$5 Members in advance

$10 Non-Members in advance

$12 Purchased at the door

Call 973.540.0311 for tickets, or click here to register

Was Gustav Stickley a Modernist? New Perspectives on Early Masterworks is a post from The Stickley Museum At Craftsman Farms

American Decorative Art In Today's New York Times

Meg — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:39:34 +0000

We wanted to share this wonderful article about Charles Rohlfs in today’s New York Times.

Charles Rohlfs’s Theatrical Furniture to Go on the Road

For a few years around 1900 journalists made pilgrimages to a barely marked furniture workshop in an attic over a bicycle factory in Buffalo. The workshop’s owner, a charismatic former actor named Charles Rohlfs (1853-1936), feigned some modesty in his dusty garret. But then he convinced the visiting reporters that his “artistic furniture” had no precedents or peers, only imitators.

The writers gushed over his square-framed oak pieces with sinuous carvings. “Never have art and utility been joined more skillfully than in these chairs and tables and desks,” wrote one in The Buffalo Daily Courier. The German magazine Dekorative Kunst described Mr. Rohlfs as “inventive and uninfluenced,” and Furniture Journal declared him a main inspiration for the far more famous and prolific designer Gustav Stickley.

“Rohlfs was a truly great self-promoter,” said Joseph Cunningham, the author of “The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs” (due in October from Yale University Press) and the lead curator of a Rohlfs retrospective that begins a three-year tour next June at the Milwaukee Art Museum (with stops at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Dallas, Pittsburgh and San Marino, Calif.). Mr. Cunningham, the curator of the American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation in Manhattan, which promotes scholarly research and owns some Rohlfs objects, has spent three years analyzing Rohlfs’s biography. Despite woodworking skills and charm, he stayed in business for less than a decade, producing perhaps a few hundred pieces.

To read the rest, it’s on page E23 for those of you in the New York area, and or you can read it online at Charles Rohlfs, Furniture Artisan, to Have a Touring Retrospective – NYTimes.com

For more information about Rohlfs’ work be sure to register to hear Dr. Cunningham speak at the Amy Stahl Memorial Lecture on November 8.

American Decorative Art In Today's New York Times is a post from The Stickley Museum At Craftsman Farms

Amy Stahl Memorial Lecture and Book Signing

Meg — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:19:22 +0000

We are pleased to announce the launch of the Amy Stahl Memorial Lecture Series this fall. Established in honor of Amy Stahl, longtime dedicated supporter of The Farms and wife of former Trustee Dr. Don Stahl, the annual series is devoted to lectures of scholarly significance.

Joseph Cunningham, Ph.D will be the first speaker in this series. He will speak on the topic, “Was Gustav Stickley a Modernist?: New Perspectives on Early Masterworks.” Stickley is widely heralded to be among the most important proponents of the Arts and Crafts Movement in America, but, as Dr. Cunningham will discuss in his lecture, it is now possible to take a wider perspective on his exceptional contribution to the development of Modernism. More than a mere advocate of British design reform theory or exponent of good design and honest craftsmanship, Dr. Cunningham proposes, Stickley, his Craftsman Magazine and the United Crafts’ enterprise can be considered as important modernizing forces in American design, beginning around 1900.

The Curator of the American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation, Dr. Cunningham is currently at work on the exhibition The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs, which will open at the Milwaukee Art Museum in June 2009 and travel to the Carnegie Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Huntington Art Galleries and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A book signing of Dr. Cunningham’s book The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs will follow the lecture. The American Decorative Art 1900 Foundation is collaborating with the Dallas Museum of Art on their forthcoming Gustav Stickley exhibition and book, to which Dr. Cunningham will contribute an essay on Irene Sargent and the Ideological foundations of the United Crafts and Craftsman enterprises.

Set for Saturday, November 8 at 4:00 p.m., a book signing will follow the lecture. Light refreshments will be served. Tickets are $5 Members and $10 for Non Members. Purchasing tickets in advance is strongly encouraged.

Saturday, November 8 at 4 p.m.

$5 for Members and $10 For Non Members

For tickets, call 973-540-0311.

For more upcoming events, please visit our website.

Amy Stahl Memorial Lecture and Book Signing is a post from The Stickley Museum At Craftsman Farms