The Rise of Everyday Design: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and America

"The Rise of Everyday Design: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and America" examines how the ideas of Arts and Crafts reformers, influential to this day, transformed the homes and lives of ordinary people in the 19th and 20th centuries.

With more than 250 books, drawings, furniture pieces, decorative arts objects, photographs and advertising ephemera, the exhibition appeals to anyone with an interest in architecture and design, including professionals, enthusiasts and those interested in the antecedents of lifestyle branding and today's maker movement.

It is organized into three main sections. "The Birth of the Arts and Crafts Idea" considers the founding ideals of designers and theorists in Britain, "The Arts and Crafts in America" shows how the principles of the movement crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and "The Postwar Legacy" explores the persistence of the American Arts and Crafts movement beyond World War II. This narrative highlights the contributions of Alice and Elbert Hubbard and The Roycrofters, William Morris and The Kelmscott Press, John Ruskin, Gustav Stickley, Frank Lloyd Wright, bungalow culture and a burgeoning do-it-yourself craft movement."The Rise of Everyday Design: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain  and America" examines how the ideas of Arts and Crafts reformers,  influential to this day, transformed the homes and lives of ordinary people in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.  

Image: Christopher Dresser, geometric designs, plate xxii from "Studies in Design" (London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1876). Chromolithographic print by A. Goater, Lithographer, Nottingham, on paper, 1876. Evelyn Waugh Library, Harry Ransom Center.

Whether you go or not, the exhibition catalog, The Rise of Everyday Design: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and America is  a beautiful book, illustrated with stunning furniture and designs by William Morris, Gustav Stickley, and Elbert Hubbard’s Roycroft community, among many others, along with such ephemera as the catalogues, sales brochures, and magazine spreads that generated popular interest. This perspective offers a new understanding of the Arts and Crafts idea, its geographical reach, and its translation into everyday design, providing a fresh look at the Arts and Crafts Movement, charting its origins in reformist ideals, its engagement with commercial culture, and its ultimate place in everyday households 

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