jgiordano@rsmercury.com | | David Rudd, owner of Dalton’s American Decorative Arts in Syracuse, notes details on a Stickley table on display at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, that are characteristic of the turn of the century furniture designer’s craft style. (Photo by Janine Giordano) | |
COOPERSTOWN – Turn of the century craftsmanship is the focus of the newest exhibit at Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, with this season’s opener “Gustav Stickley: The Enlightened Home” featuring two decorated rooms and assorted pieces of furniture by innovative craftsman Gustav Stickley. Born in Wisconsin in 1858, Stickley was a wood craftsman who learned his trade in Pennsylvania before coming to central New York. “He did so much the first few years of his career,” said David Rudd, owner of Dalton’s American Decorative Arts gallery, in Syracuse. “He was the innovator of the modern movement.” In his younger years, Stickley toured Europe, where he was introduced to the British Arts and Crafts movement, which served as the basis of his furniture designing philosophy. It is Stickley who is credited with moving furniture design from the “superfluous ornamentation” so popular with the designs of the Victorian era, to the simple, well structured, well crafted less ornamental style of furniture popular at the turn of the century. The styles of furniture on display at Fenimore exemplify Stickley’s growth and development in design, particularly with a display of chairs and a display of occasional tables. Pieces on display have been borrowed from Dalton’s shop, the Stickley Museum, in Fayetteville, and the Stickley Museum in Morris Plains, N.J., as well as private collections. Some of the estimated 40 items displayed in the exhibit located in the Scriven Gallery include chairs, a divan, occasional tables, a grandfather clock, chandelier and dinner gong. Decorative pieces complementing the two rooms of furniture set as a 1907 dining room and 1904 living room include pottery from the Native American exhibit at the museum; bowls, trays and lamps of Stickley design; and artwork, tapestry and pottery borrowed from other collections. Other exhibits planned for this year at Fenimore include artwork and a historical recap of carousels, photographs by Richard Walker, a tribute to Cooperstown’s days gone by through black and white photographs taken from the Smith and Telfer collection donated to the museum in 1951. These are in-studio and out-of-studio photographs taken in the early part of the century by “Wash” Smith and “Putt” Telfer. The artwork of 20th century folk artist Earl Cunningham and an artistic representation of black people in an exhibit called “Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art,” combined with constant display of American Indian artwork shown in the “Bits of Home” exhibit are scheduled for the rest of 2008. For more information, location and hours visit the museum on line at www.fenimoreartmuseum.org.
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