The 12th Annual
Arts & Crafts Movement
Conference
New York City / September 23 – 26, 2010
The 12th annual Arts and Crafts conference will take full advantage of the wealth of architecture surviving in New York City from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Our approach to this rich period is not limited to a narrowly defined Arts and Crafts style. Rather we employ a cross-disciplinary approach that rejects the notion of a single Arts and Crafts style, to consider the repertoire of diverse styles and sources upon which the Arts and Crafts Movement drew.We celebrate the complexity of a time of experimentation when creative minds were exploring new directions in a quest for a style adequate to modernity. We consider the diversity and magnitude of New York’s accomplishments in a variety of media, inspired by sources ranging from Ruskinian Gothic to Japonisme and Aesthetic, as well as the regional expressions native to New York and its environs. Importantly, we also consider contemporary manifestations of the ongoing spirit of the Arts and Crafts movement.
We begin with Gothic and Venetian Gothic buildings that attest to the influence of Ruskin and of the medievalism of the English Arts and Crafts movement. We also look closely at the wildly imaginative American Aesthetic work of the 1880s, and the vital role played by Louis Comfort Tiffany and his associates at a time of astonishing stylistic inventiveness. The intersection of the Arts and Crafts movement with what is now termed the American Renaissance, exemplified by the work of such firms as McKim, Mead & White, which employed Beaux Arts principles is also central to our exploration, as is consideration of the production and construction of Arts and Crafts objects and structures in and for Gotham City.
Activities planned to complement formal sessions include: curatorial tours of the newly installed decorative arts and architecture collections and period rooms at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; private tours of the Park Avenue Armory at 66th Street with its Tiffany-designed rooms; a walking tour of significant interiors and exteriors from Madison Square south to Louis Sullivan’s Bayard Building (1899), featuring such Ruskinian Gothic masterpieces as the Samuel Tilden House (1884, Vaux & Radford), now the National Arts Club, and the Jefferson Market Courthouse (1877, Vaux & Withers), and numerous other significant buildings, such as Lockwood De Forest’s own house (1887), with its extraordinary teakwood exterior details. We visit Church of the Incarnation (1864, E. T. Littel), with murals by LaFarge, baptistry by St. Gaudens, memorial by H. H. Richardson, windows by Tiffany, LaFarge, William Morris & Co., Edward Burne-Jones, among others, and the New Amsterdam Theater (1903, Herts & Tallant), perhaps the nation’s most significant surviving Art Nouveau interior. We also tour the stained glass restoration project at St. Thomas Church (1914), the Gothic Revival masterpiece of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, as well as numerous works by McKim, Mead & White. We also visit The Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms, and the exhibition, “Gustav Stickley and the American Arts and Crafts Movement,” at the Newark Museum.
Evening activities include receptions at Lillian Nassau Gallery which specializes in the work of Tiffany and other decorative arts of the period, at the National Arts Club with its exterior by Vaux & Withers and its remarkable interiors, and at the Noguchi Museum where we explore the ongoing expression of the Movement.
The conference is organized by Lisa Koenigsberg, president Initiatives in Art and Culture, who originated the series of Annual Arts and Crafts conferences in 1999. A preliminary list of participants includes: architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson, University of Virginia; independent architectural historian Martin Wachadlo; stained glass authority and conservator Julie Sloan; terra cotta authority Susan Tunick; Frank Kowsky, Buffalo State College (emeritus) on the Ruskinian origins of the movement; Martin Eidelberg, professor emeritus of Art History, Rutgers University, and author of many books and articles on 20th-century decorative arts, especially the arts of 1900 and the mid-century; independent scholar; Karen Zukowski on the relationship between that which is termed Aesthetic and the Arts and Crafts, Nina Gray, independent curator and an authority on the work of Associated Artists and of Clara Driscoll of Louis Comfort Tiffany & Associates; Ulysses Dietz, curator of decorative arts, Newark Museum; Sandra Jenkins, independent decorative artsscholar whose research has focused on the National Society of Craftsmen, New York, New York (1906-1920) and the New York Society of Craftsmen (1920-1957); Kirsten Reoch, senior project director, Park Avenue Armory; independent scholar and curator Jeannine Falino who focuses on both the Arts and Crafts movement and contemporary craft; and curators Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Beth Carver-Wees, and Amelia Peck, of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on significant aspects of that institution’s holdings related to the period. (as of 7/5//2010)
Support for this project has been provided by Barbara N. Fuldner, Kristine A. Steensma, Crown Equipment Corporation, Lillian Nassau Gallery LLC., the Noguchi Museum, the Newark Museum, and Style 1900. Anonymous donors have also contributed to this effort (as of 7/05/2010).
Hotels: New York City has many hotels at varying price points and excellent transportation throughout. Since we will be using buses sparingly, we encourage participants to explore options that suit their needs and preferences. We do urge you to make your reservations very early to be assured of appropriate accommodations. Please call the program office for suggestions.
For further information, please contact: Lisa Koenigsberg at lisa.koenigsberg@artinitiatives.com; telephone: (646) 485-1952 or fax: (212) 935-6911.
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