Born in Osceola,
Wisconsin in
1858, Gustav Stickley was a founder of the American
Arts and Crafts movement. Moving from stone
masonry to
carpentry and
furniture making, and lastly to
architecture and
philosophy, Stickely's influence on turn of the century style was profound.
Returning from a trip to
Europe in
1896, where he met many European Arts and Crafts artists, Stickley founded
United Crafts of Eastwood,
New York. The furniture he made was a reaction against what he perceived to be an effeminancy in
Victorian design:
The age of leisure and daintiness, with its slight and delicate belongings, has passed; this is a generation of straightforward utilitarianism, which is well represented by the strong-fibered and sturdy oak."
He preferred using oak in his furniture, finishing it with
shellac. His furniture was sturdy, with exposed joints, and
canvas and
leather upholstery.
Moving from furniture making to
philosophy, Stickley started a periodical,
The Craftsman, in
1901. This magazine served to spread his
gospel of simple, honest, straight forward design, and later had an impact on house design. Many
bungalows and
foursquares built during the first two decades of the 20th century reflect his design philosophy. Stickley was interested in making humble homes that harmonized with their surroundings, as this quote from
The Craftsman shows:
A house that is built of stone where stones are in the fields, of concrete where the soil is sandy, of brick where brick can be had reasonably, or of wood if the house is in a mountainous wooded region, will from the beginning belong to the landscape. And the result is not only harmony but economy.
Stickley's influence diminished after the end of World War I, and his ideal of the lone craftsman was supplanted by the realities of
mass production and
standardized housing construction. He died in
1942, long before his philosophy and style would see a
renaissance that began in the 1970s, and continues to the present day.