How did the early the 20th-century American middleclass hope to solve the hygiene and home labor problem? American Arts and Crafts furnishings with their simple straight lines—free of dust and microbe harboring carvings—were marketed as lifestyle solutions for servant free clean living. With their ornate furnishings and excessive bric-a-brac, Victorian households required perpetual, time-consuming maintenance and dusting—usually done by servants. The Arts and Crafts lifestyle is the focus of a new traveling exhibition entitled Gustav Stickley and the American Arts and Crafts Movement at the San Diego Museum of Art. The exhibition originated at the Dallas Museum of Art.

The American Arts and Crafts movement evolved from the English Arts and Crafts movement. Espoused by William Morris and John Ruskin, the English Arts and Crafts movement promoted the idea that a unique, simple, well-designed handmade object was superior to an object created by mass production. Under capitalist entrepreneurs like Gustav Stickley, the American Arts and Crafts movement became a hybrid of simple, well-designed objects created in individual batches using efficient machinery to make them affordable for the American middleclass market. A good promoter, Gustav Stickley also founded a journal called The Craftsman to advance both the new Arts and Crafts aesthetic and his products.

The early works created by Stickley’s The United Crafts company were sturdy looking chests and cabinets made of unvarnished east coast oak featuring oversized hand-hammered Gothic hinges or tables covered in leather with over large brass tacks. In 1898, Stickley visited Britain to view works by English Arts and Crafts practitioners. Stickley’s earlier works in the exhibition are heavier and more English Gothic because they owe their influence to William Morris who promoted the Gothic style. Stickley would even design a “Morris Chair” to pay homage to the influential Englishman.

From the early period are a series of floriform occasional tables that are unusual and seem more akin to the Art Nouveau style. “Poppytable No. 26” (designed 1900) features a top and under shelf in the shape of a poppy flower complete with deep incised curving lines that describe the individual petals. The table’s five legs are stylized plant stems. It seems out of place in this exhibit due to its extravagant form, but it is a wonderful but enigmatic design experiment.

The most elegant works from Stickley’s The United Crafts workshop begin about 1903. Owing more to the Scottish school of design lead by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the company’s furnishings become more slender and delicate. Spare inlay designs made of pewter and copper also appear. The wood finishes also become darker, which is also a feature of the Mackintosh style.

A grand example from this period is the “Fall-Front Desk” (designed c. 1903). A rectangular dark oak cabinet with two rectangular panels doors flank a square drop front that features three delicate abstracted pewter inlays, with just a touch of copper, which suggest three flowers with long stems. A simple flat board slightly longer than the cabinet tops the desk. The closed drawers and compartments sit above a deep shelf, which appears darker due to shadowing. The bottom rail with a broad arch complements the rectilinear mass of the desk. The dark wood and darker shadows evoke mystery but the pewter inlays give candlelight glowing warmth to the elegant desk.

A grand installation in the exhibit is a dining room complete with wood floors, carpet, table, chairs, and sidepieces. The installation is based on a custom-made model dining room that Gustav Stickley presented at the 1903 Arts and Crafts exhibition he organized in Syracuse, New York. Dinnerware, linens, and various decorative pieces complete the ensemble. Unfortunately, only a screen, corner cupboard, corner table, and white table scarves embroidered by Angelina G. Hurrelle are authentic to the original 1903 model dining room. The rest of the ensemble is composed of other pieces similar to those found in the original room. One gets a sense of the original model room’s all encompassing gesamtkunstwerk aesthetic, but the museum describes the installation with great fanfare as a “re-creation” of the 1903 original. With so few of the authentic furnishings from the original 1903 model room, one may be feel disappointed viewing the room.

This exhibition has a local connection because a prominent distributor of Stickley furnishings was the Marston Company of San Diego owned by merchant George Marston. His home is now a museum: The George and Anna Marston House & Gardens in Balboa Park. William Sterling Hebbard and Irving John Gill designed the house, and it is considered one of the 25 most important Arts and Crafts buildings in the United States.

Overall, the handsome exhibition is accompanied by a sumptuous catalogue by Kevin W. Tucker, The Margot B. Perot Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at the Dallas Museum of Art. The volume features several essays by other Stickley scholars and includes invaluable information useful to Stickley collectors. If you own a Craftsman bungalow in North or South Park, or a grander Arts and Crafts home in Mission Hills, or even appreciate the nostalgic clean lines of the Arts and Craft style then this is a must see exhibition.