Gustav Stickley

Gustav Stickley (1858-1942) is one of the iconic and most influential figures of the American Arts and Crafts movement, a self-made man whose furniture company, Craftsman Workshops, and the seminal magazine he founded, The Craftsman, held wide-ranging influence over American interior design and decorative arts for decades. Though best known as a furniture designer, Stickley was an entrepreneur and brilliant manager who assembled a talented team of collaborators to produce lamps, metalwork, textiles, plans for houses, and interiors. The Craftsman and the numerous furniture catalogues he published on a regular basis functioned as effective advertising, helping not only to establish the company's name but also to shape public opinion about the value of design. Born to German emigre parents, Stickley founded his company in upstate New York in 1898, at the age of 40. The company rapidly prospered and eventually became a national enterprise with retail stores in New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Although influenced by the British Arts and Crafts movement and Continental Art Nouveau, Stickley advocated the creation of a distinctive American style that would integrate furnishings, architecture, handicrafts, and principles of harmonious living; he believed that well-designed furnishings could help 'make life better and truer by its perfect simplicity.' This book is the first comprehensive and authoritative account of Gustav Stickley's life and work, with extensive illustrations from private archives, libraries, universities, museums, and the Stickley firm itself. It includes newly commissioned color photographs of Stickley pieces, and a generous selection of images from The Craftsman magazine. The book includes a chronology of Stickley's life and career, a biographical appendix of Stickley's key collaborators, and a complete bibliography.