International Arts and Crafts

by Karen Livingstone, Linda Parry

Published to accompany a major international touring exhibition, this stunning, lavishly illustrated book is the first global examination of the Arts and Crafts Movement, one of the most far-reaching and influential design movements of modern times. Emerging in Britain in the late 19th century and quickly adapted in America and Europe, the movement has given us some of the most recognizable and popular architecture, art, and decorative arts ever created, including work by Gustav Stickley, Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Crane, C.F.A Voysey, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Josef Hoffmann, and Georg Jensen. Today, Arts and Crafts furniture, textiles, glassware, metalwork, and other objects remain widely admired and avidly collected.

With beautiful photographs and authoritative texts written by a team of experts, this is the first major study to cover such a wide geographical range and to present the Japanese Mingei (folkcraft) movement within the international context of Arts and Crafts. Additional chapters on photography, architecture, and gardens contribute to a wider understanding of this much-loved style. AUTHOR Karen Livingstone is a research fellow at the V&A. She contributed to Design and the Decorative Britain 1500-1900. Linda Parry is an expert on William Morris. She curated the highly successful V&A exhibition on William Morris in 1995 and edited the accompanying Abrams book, William Morris. Parry is deputy keeper of the Furniture, Textiles and Fashion Department at the V&A.

Genres: Art

368 pages, Hardcover

First published March 8, 2005

Reviews

[Hope Salmon]

This is a massive, beautifully printed collection of essays and photographs on the arts and crafts movement around the world. “Arts and crafts” used to make me think of pipe cleaners and glue sticks. But over the last few years I found out that this phrase explains my fascination with all kinds of things. My taste from architecture to book printing has been influenced by these guys, especially William Morris. England was at the front, but figures throughout the whole western world suddenly decided to take their cultures’ crafts as seriously as their traditions of philosophy and fine art.

I love so much about this movement. Highlights: ornament everywhere, defiant disregard of individualism, deep love for the medieval, the home as the telos of the artistic life, the play between written words and visual embellishment, the ideal of aesthetic harmony between everything you see.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very handsome piece of scholarship comprised of over two dozen essays written by experts in each subject. It was so well edited it could have been written by one person. It's truly an international study covering movements is England, New York, California and Germany to Japan and Korea. William Morris' ideals spread to Japan in ceramics, interior design and publishing. The volume is filled with new information and details that go far beyond William Morris. Creative communities formed in different parts of the world where artists created goods for wealthy clients and more mass produced items for homes of the less wealthy. It's a big commitment however there are many reproductions. The chapters are organized geographically. It's a gorgeous book!

[Dawson Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

a revelation