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Sarah Alice Toohey, mantel facing with waterlilies, ca. 1904. Landscape overmantel, ca. 1912. Both from the Rookwood Pottery. Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, St. Petersburg, FL. Photos copyright © 2024 Dianne L. Durante

Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, part 2

For more on the Museum, see part 1 of this series. This is the second and final post. A video of it is at https://youtu.be/K1p6AeOIj8Q.

Lamps

Below, left: Hanging lighting fixtures ca. 1905-1910, attributed to Dard Hunter, manufactured at the Roycroft Shops in East Aurora, New York.

Hanging lighting fixtures ca. 1905-1910, attributed to Dard Hunter. Right: Hanging lantern attributed to Victor Toothaker, ca. 1910. Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, St. Petersburg, FL. Photos copyright © 2024 Dianne L. Durante

Above right: Hanging lantern attributed to Victor Toothaker, ca. 1910, manufactured at the Craftsman Workshops, Eastwood, New York. The “Glasgow rose” motif was inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School.

Below, decorative art by one of the great names of American architecture: Louis Sullivan. This sconce, dating to ca. 1907, was designed for the Henry B. Babson House in Riverside, Illinois (demolished in 1960). Sullivan designed one of the buildings for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. We know that Babson attended the Exposition, because it inspired in him a yearning to own purebred Arabian horses, which by the 1930s he did. “Babson Egyptian horses” are still a recognized bloodline in the thoroughbred world.

Louis Sullivan, Sconce from Henry B. Babson House, Riverside, IL, ca. 1907.

The striking point about the Babson House sconce is its quality. It’s one of many cast by Winslow Brothers Ornamental Iron Company for the home of a wealthy (but not fabulously wealthy) American. But the workmanship is better than that on Bishop Suger’s chalice, the best that artisans of the mid-12th century France (read: Europe in the Middle Ages) could produce.

Below: assorted table lamps. On the left is a windmill-themed lamp attributed to Forest Emerson Mann, ca. 1910. Quaint Dutch motifs were considered suitable for homes in the Arts and Crafts style.

Left: Windmill lamp attributed to Forest Emerson Mann, ca. 1910. Center & right: Table lamps designed by Dirk van Erp, ca. 1915-1933 and 1911-1915.

Above right: table lamps designed by Dirk van Erp, ca. 1915-1933 and 1911-1915, manufactured by Dirk van Erp Studio in San Francisco, California. The shades are of mica.

Windows

The MAACM has a large collection of leaded-glass windows. Below: George Washington Maher’s poppy windows from the Winton House, Wausau, WI, ca. 1905. Rather than colors, Maher used different textures of clear and white glass.

George Washington Maher, Poppy windows from the Winton House, Wausau, WI, ca. 1905. Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, St. Petersburg, FL. Photos copyright © 2024 Dianne L. Durante

Below left: Frank Lloyd Wright, Windows from the Avery Coonley House, Riverside, IL, ca. 1906-1908. As with the desk (see last week’s post), the horizontal lines compliment the Coonley House’s Prairie Style design.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Windows from the Avery Coonley House, Riverside, IL, ca. 1906-1908; and Window from the Darwin D. Martin House, Buffalo, NY, ca. 1903-1905.. Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, St. Petersburg, FL. Photos copyright © 2024 Dianne L. Durante

Above right: Frank Lloyd Wright, window from the Darwin D. Martin House, Buffalo, NY, ca. 1903-1905. The chevrons and squares in iridescent glass are stylized versions of wisteria that grew on the property.

Ceramics

Below: some typical ceramic vases from the Arts & Crafts movement.

George Prentiss Kendrick, lamp bases with leaves, ca. 1898-1901; Grueby Faience Co. in Boston, Massachusetts. Fritz Wilhelm Albert, vases (192 & 310), ca. 1910 and ca. 1904-1905; Gates Potteries (Teco Pottery), Terra Cotta, Illinois. Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, St. Petersburg, FL. Photos copyright © 2024 Dianne L. Durante

Below: these ceramic panels, each almost 6 feet high, were designed to amuse and educate the young patients at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London (demolished 1968). They were executed in London at the Royal Doulton factory, which is better known today for dinner services and figurines.

William Rowe and/or Margaret E. Thompson, Babes in the Wood and The Goose Girl, 1903. Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, St. Petersburg, FL. Photos copyright © 2024 Dianne L. Durante

Fireplaces – the center of many homes – were favorite areas for decoration during the Arts & Crafts movement. The mantel facing (around the firebox) and overmantel (above the shelf) below were commissioned from the Rookwood Pottery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Sarah Alice Toohey, mantel facing with waterlilies, ca. 1904. Landscape overmantel, ca. 1912. Both from the Rookwood Pottery. Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, St. Petersburg, FL. Photos copyright © 2024 Dianne L. Durante

These two elegant peacock panels for an overmantel were manufactured in University City, Missouri. They’re done in sgraffito (Italian: “scratched”) technique, which involves applying a layer of color, and before the piece is fired, scratching in a design that exposes the clay underneath. Peacocks were a favorite subject of Arts & Crafts designers and artists.

Frederick Hurten Rhead, peacock panels for overmantel, 1910. Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, St. Petersburg, FL. Photos copyright © 2024 Dianne L. Durante

The Rookwood Pottery developed a unique translucent glaze called Vellum. Tiles sprayed with it were sold framed, to reinforce their status as artworks rather than merely functional pieces. The Rookwood Pottery remained in operation until 1967.

Lenore Ashbury, October, 1914. Rookwood Pottery, Cincinnati, Ohio. Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, St. Petersburg, FL. Photos copyright © 2024 Dianne L. Durante

And finally: another peacock, this one on a panel created for the exterior of a home in Beverly Hills, California.

Gladding, McBean & Co., Los Angeles, Peacock Panel, ca. 1928. Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, St. Petersburg, FL. Photos copyright © 2024 Dianne L. Durante

The Museum of the American Arts & Crafts Movement has many more works that are worth a look – I’d allow three hours or so for a visit. Nearby in St. Petersburg are the James Museum and the Imagine Museum (modern glass: a few examples in this post).

More

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