Arts & Crafts: Living with the Arts & Crafts Style

In this visual encyclopedia of the British and American designers, makers, and manufacturers of the Arts and Crafts movement, Miller writes that the "style found a voice in the simple shapes and minimal decoration of the furniture created by Gustav Stickley and the Gothic and medieval designs produced by Charles Rohlfs." Sections on furniture and furnishings, including lighting and even wallpaper, emphasize these influences, from the Japanese flourishes on a mahogany sideboard by Edward William Godwin to the graphic symmetry of a Mackintosh chair. The legendary Kelmscott Press, with its beautiful books on hand-made paper; William Morris's unmatched textile designs; and Tiffany's iconic lamps are represented, but so are the lesser-known but equally important silvery toned, matte finish green vases of Teco Art Pottery and organic ceramic shapes and matte glazes of potter Artus Van Briggle. In her selections of examples from the movement, Miller shows her appreciation of the genius of these designers and their lovely, simple, effective solutions that are now synonymous with good design. (Oct.)