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The Stickley Brothers: The Quest for an American Voice
Stickley is a name synonymous with Arts & Crafts style in America. The five Stickley brothers-Gustav, Albert, Leopold, John George, and Charles-were fully engaged in the furniture industry around the turn of the twentieth century and had a huge impact on America's statement of style. But were any one of them a style maker? Gustav Stickley claimed that he had established an American style. Albert Stickley contradicted that claim, and Leopold made his own statement during his final years. Here, for the first time, the representative photographs and ideas of all the brothers' work appear together in one volume, to compare and contrast, so that readers might make their own evaluations. Michael and Jill Thomas-Clark examine each brother's work and its relation to the quest for an American style, placing particular emphasis on the early years and transitional moments. The authors draw a definitive conclusion, and it is an answer certainly worth reading, seeing, and thinking about.
Dr. Michael E. Clark is an associate professor at Elmira College in the Fine Arts Department, and Jill Thomas-Clark is a registrar for the Corning Museum of Glass. Their work has appeared in Style 1900: The Journal of the Arts and Crafts Movement. They live in upstate New York.
Dr. Michael E. Clark is an associate professor at Elmira College in the Fine Arts Department, and Jill Thomas-Clark is a registrar for the Corning Museum of Glass. Their work has appeared in Style 1900: The Journal of the Arts and Crafts Movement. They live in upstate New York.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published September 26, 2002
About the author
Michael E. Clark
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Michael E. Clark (2 spaces)
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October 5, 2018I live in Syracuse, New York, where the Stickley (now Stickley and Audi) furniture company is still going strong, and a source of local pride, so I thought I knew a thing or two about Stickley. I mostly didn't. I didn't know that there were a total of five (count 'em, five) Stickley brothers (Gustav, Charles, Albert, Leopold, and John George), and that all of them were involved in the furniture business, forming and dissolving different companies as the years went on, sometimes among the brothers, sometimes with other people. They all began producing conventional styles of furniture, mostly fancy chairs with carved doodads on them. It was the tail end of the Victorian era, when home decoration was busy and cluttered (the authors call it "dense"). More was better: more stuff, more decoration.
Gustav was the first to throw himself into the Arts and Crafts movement, beginning around 1900 At first Gustav called his furniture "New Furniture." Simple, straight lines, minimal decoration except for structural details like mortise and tenon details or dovetails. The early pieces look almost medieval, solid, monumental.
Gustav was the most famous of the Stickley brothers because he was also philosopher and publicist of not just Arts and Crafts furniture, but a whole Arts and Crafts "lifestyle," combining furniture and art objects with Arts and Crafts homes, medium-sized homes for middle class people, with an open floor plan with a fireplace where families could gather around the hearth. Gustav put out a magazine called "The Craftsman" to spread the gospel of the new style, and he intended to open a Craftsman school, I guess to teach people how to make Craftsman-type stuff and live in a Craftsman-type way. But the school wasn't to be.
This modern, simple look was initially very popular after the stuffy Victorian period, and Gustav prospered. But tastes changed. By the 1920s people began to want something new, and Gustav was stuck. He couldn't adapt, so he went bankrupt, and then retired to his house in Syracuse.
Albert Stickley also produce mostly Arts and Crafts style furniture. He preferred English and Scottish design sources, where Gustav had preferred mostly German, but they made many similar pieces. Albert was more of an innovator, making lighter, more elegant pieces, with inlay and leaded glass decoration. Albert was also more flexible about changing with the times.
Charles, the middle brother stayed in Binghamton and produced more conventional furniture along with Arts and Crafts pieces.
Leopold and John George went into business together in Fayetteville, New York. This was the business that lasted. It almost didn't. At first they did well, with Leo designing pieces in the tradition of his brothers, and John George (or J.G.) traveling as a salesperson to tell people about their beauty and fine craftsmanship. But with changing times and changing tastes, the factory dwindled to a small workshop until it was bought by the Audi family. Since then there has been a resurgence of interest in Arts and Crafts design, and Stickley furniture in particular.
The thesis of the book is: Did the Stickleys create a distinctively American style? The authors conclude that they did, although it was based on European sources. I didn't really care if Stickley style is distinctively American or not. But I loved to look at the pictures. I think the authors did an excellent job of describing the important details of furniture (not something I am an expert on. I had to look up a few words, like "chamfered"), and there were lots of photographs. There were also many reproductions of old advertising drawings for Stickley furniture in rooms in Arts and Crafts houses. These interiors, always empty of people, captivated me with their still, homey settings, airy but not overly large, casual but neat.
The Stickley furniture company is still going strong, but the Craftsman style is mostly no longer for the middle class people Gustav envisioned it for, since it is quite expensive, but I can still admire the beauty and fine craftsmanship from a distance.
Gustav was the first to throw himself into the Arts and Crafts movement, beginning around 1900 At first Gustav called his furniture "New Furniture." Simple, straight lines, minimal decoration except for structural details like mortise and tenon details or dovetails. The early pieces look almost medieval, solid, monumental.
Gustav was the most famous of the Stickley brothers because he was also philosopher and publicist of not just Arts and Crafts furniture, but a whole Arts and Crafts "lifestyle," combining furniture and art objects with Arts and Crafts homes, medium-sized homes for middle class people, with an open floor plan with a fireplace where families could gather around the hearth. Gustav put out a magazine called "The Craftsman" to spread the gospel of the new style, and he intended to open a Craftsman school, I guess to teach people how to make Craftsman-type stuff and live in a Craftsman-type way. But the school wasn't to be.
This modern, simple look was initially very popular after the stuffy Victorian period, and Gustav prospered. But tastes changed. By the 1920s people began to want something new, and Gustav was stuck. He couldn't adapt, so he went bankrupt, and then retired to his house in Syracuse.
Albert Stickley also produce mostly Arts and Crafts style furniture. He preferred English and Scottish design sources, where Gustav had preferred mostly German, but they made many similar pieces. Albert was more of an innovator, making lighter, more elegant pieces, with inlay and leaded glass decoration. Albert was also more flexible about changing with the times.
Charles, the middle brother stayed in Binghamton and produced more conventional furniture along with Arts and Crafts pieces.
Leopold and John George went into business together in Fayetteville, New York. This was the business that lasted. It almost didn't. At first they did well, with Leo designing pieces in the tradition of his brothers, and John George (or J.G.) traveling as a salesperson to tell people about their beauty and fine craftsmanship. But with changing times and changing tastes, the factory dwindled to a small workshop until it was bought by the Audi family. Since then there has been a resurgence of interest in Arts and Crafts design, and Stickley furniture in particular.
The thesis of the book is: Did the Stickleys create a distinctively American style? The authors conclude that they did, although it was based on European sources. I didn't really care if Stickley style is distinctively American or not. But I loved to look at the pictures. I think the authors did an excellent job of describing the important details of furniture (not something I am an expert on. I had to look up a few words, like "chamfered"), and there were lots of photographs. There were also many reproductions of old advertising drawings for Stickley furniture in rooms in Arts and Crafts houses. These interiors, always empty of people, captivated me with their still, homey settings, airy but not overly large, casual but neat.
The Stickley furniture company is still going strong, but the Craftsman style is mostly no longer for the middle class people Gustav envisioned it for, since it is quite expensive, but I can still admire the beauty and fine craftsmanship from a distance.
November 22, 2022
Very cool to see the evolution of Stickley furniture through time and the rise and fall of a furniture empire.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews