Arts and Crafts In August – Setting the Stage: Stickley’s 1903 Arts and Crafts Exhibitions

Gustav Stickley’s 1903 Syracuse, NY, Arts and Crafts Exhibition set the stage for selling his hometown enterprise. But the decision to immediately move the 1,000-object exhibition from his sales rooms to Mechanics Institute galleries in Rochester was its innovation: by solidifying his mark, exposing many to the early “Mission” style, and raising the Movement’s credibility. Stickley’s exhibition predates by a decade what is widely (if erroneously) acknowledged as the very first traveling exhibit: the 1913 NYC Armory Show of modern art and design. What did the 1903 exhibition – and Gustav Stickley – do for future Arts and Crafts exhibits and the persistence of the movement? Bruce A. Austin, author of A Symbiotic Partnership: Marrying Commerce to Education at Gustav Stickley’s 1903 Arts & Crafts Exhibitions, joins us live to talk about the effect of the 1903 Exhibition and subsequent historic Arts and Crafts exhibitions. Learn more and register here.