Inspiring Reform: Boston's Arts and Crafts Movement [Hardcover]

Marilee Boyd Meyer (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1997

Fine craftsmanship and handiwork, originality in design, aesthetic purity, and honest use of materials in both decorative and utilitarian objects were the ideals embraced by Boston's Society of Arts and Crafts. This book celebrates the organization's centenary with splendid examples of metalwork, jewelry textiles, furniture, ceramics, photography, and more. 273 illustrations, 52 in color.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

These two excellent books are joined spiritually as they explore the Arts & Crafts movement's quest for a retreat from the materialism of the Gilded Age as manifested on different sides of the continent. Inspiring Reform is an exhibition catalog from the Davis Museum and Cultural Center's centenary celebration of Boston's Society of Arts & Crafts, which sponsored the earliest exhibition of Arts & Crafts pieces in America in 1897. The Davis exhibit, which will also be at the Smithsonian, covers the years 1890-1930 and features 150 examples of furniture, ceramics, metalware, book art, prints, and very unique photography. More than 230 illustrations?40 in color?acccompany the catalog's ten essays, all written by specialists in the field. Another essay collection, Toward a Simpler Way of Life, focuses on the variety of styles of Arts & Crafts structures found in California. In their drive toward the anticommercial, the practitioners drew on the decorative schemes of English Tudor, Swiss Chalet, Japanese Temple, and Spanish Mission styles to evoke an earlier, preindustrial time. As expected, Bernard Maybeck, the Greene Brothers, and Julia Morgan are here, but so are many talented, lesser-known designers. The knowledgeable essays also give due attention to the builders, contractors, and artisans who contributed so much. The book will have a bounty of 365 period duotone photos, not seen by the reviewer. Important studies of this perennially popular style, both works are highly recommended for all art and architecture collections.?Joseph C. Hewgley, Nashville P.L.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Informative essays explore pottery, woodcarving, furniture and jewelry making, metalworking and bookmaking. This elegant book, with its handsome design and more than 200 photographs, is itself an Arts and Crafts artifact. -- The New York Times Book Review, Robin Lippincott

Product Details

• Hardcover: 239 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams / Davis Museum & Cultural Center; 2nd edition (February 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810963418
• ISBN-13: 978-0810963412
• Product Dimensions: 14.1 x 8.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #868,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Beverly Brandt is an award-winning Professor in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University, where she teaches courses on design history, theory, and criticism. She received her Ph.D. from the American and New England Studies Program at Boston University in 1985. Her dissertation and subsequent publications have focused upon the Arts & Crafts Movement, specifically The Society of Arts & Crafts in Boston. Her work has been featured in numerous magazines and journals including American Craft, American Ceramics, Metalsmith, Designers West, Historic New England, the American Society of Interior Designers Report, Tiller, a bimonthly devoted to the Arts & Crafts Movement, The Tabby: The Chronicle of the Arts & Crafts Movement, the Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, the Journal of the Archives of American Art, the Journal of Interior Design, and the Journal of Interior Design Education and Research. She has contributed essays to The Encyclopedia of Arts & Crafts, the International Arts Movement, 1850 - 1920 (New York: E.P. Dutton, and London: Headline, 1989; reprinted by Knickerbocker Press in 1998); The Ideal Home, The History of Twentieth-Century American Craft, 1900 - 1920 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., published in association with the American Craft Museum, 1993), Innovation and Derivation: The Contribution of L. & J.G. Stickley to the Arts and Crafts Movement (Morris Plains, N.J.: The Craftsman Farms Foundation, 1995), the Substance of Style: Perspectives on the American Arts and Crafts Movement (Winterthur, DE: the Henry Francis duPont Winterthur Museum, 1996), The Craftsman on CD-ROM (New York: Interactive Bureau, 1998), the award-winning Inspiring Reform: Boston's Arts and Crafts Movement (Wellesley, MA: Davis Museum & Cultural Center, in conjunction with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997), and Country Houses and Collections: An Anthology (The Attingham Trust, 2002). Her new monograph, The Craftsman and the Critic: Defining Usefulness and Beauty in Arts and Crafts-Era Boston (University of Massachusetts Pres, 2009), received support from the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, the Craft Research Fund, and the Hildegard Streuffert Endowment.