“For Gustav Stickley and other American Arts & Crafts designers the word ‘Mission’ contained a variety of meanings. Initially Stickley embraced the word and published articles promoting it along with calling his furniture ‘Mission Style.’ However in time he abandoned it, perhaps to distinguish himself from other furniture makers.” So states, Dr. Richard Guy Wilson, who will be the featured speaker at the Stickley Museum’s 2nd Annual Amy Stahl Lecture at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 14.
Wilson also suggests that use of the term “‘Mission’ was an attempt to distinguish the American Arts & Crafts from English and European sources. Mission styled furniture, ironware, pottery and buildings became commonplace in the 1890s and 1900s throughout the United States as the Arts & Crafts took hold. The word also implied reform and fit in with the intent that product design and production along with much more political issues were part of the Arts & Crafts mission.”
Richard Guy Wilson holds the Commonwealth Professor’s Chair in Architectural History at the University of Virginia (Thomas Jefferson’s University) in Charlottesville, Virginia. His specialty is the architecture, design and art of the 18th to the 20th century both in America and abroad. He was a visiting fellow at Cambridge University, England during the Winter-Spring 2007. He received his undergraduate training at the University of Colorado and MA and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan.
Wilson has received a number of academic honors, among them a Guggenheim fellow, prizes for distinguished writing, and in 1986 he was made an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He received the outstanding professor award at the University of Virginia in 2001. He has directed the Victorian Society’s Nineteenth Century Summer School since 1979. He has served as an advisor and commentator for a number of television programs on PBS and A&E, most significantly over sixty-five segments of America’s Castles.
A frequent lecturer for universities, museums and professional groups, he has also published widely with many articles and reviews to his credit. Wilson has been the curator and author for major museum exhibitions such as The American Renaissance, 1876-1917; The Art that is Life: The Arts and Crafts Movement in America; The Machine Age in America, 1918-1941 and The Making of Virginia Architecture.
He is the author or joint author of 16 books that deal with American and modern architecture which include studies of McKim, Mead & White, Thomas Jefferson’s design of the University of Virginia, Monument Ave in Richmond, the AIA Gold Medal, a contribution to the recent book on RM Schindler (2001), and principle author and editor of the Society of Architectural Historians book, Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont (2002). His The Colonial Revival House was published in the fall of 2004 and Harbor Hill: Portrait of House was published in 2008. Following the lecture Wilson will sign copies of this most recent book, which explores Harbor Hill, a lavish mansion designed by Stanford White and built in the early 1900s on Long Island.
For tickets or to receive further information, please contact the museum at 973-540-0311 or education@stickleymuseum.org
To download the registration form, please click here.
Amy Stahl Lecture and Book Signing:
by Richard Guy Wilson
Sat., Nov. 14 at 4:00
$10 Members
$12 Non Members
Tags: Amy Stahl Memorial Lecture Series · Arts and Crafts · Arts and Crafts movement · mission · Richard Guy Wilson · What Was Mission?1 Comment
The Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms marked its 20th anniversary with a black-tie fundraising gala, the Celebration Ball, at the Mountain Lakes Club on Saturday, Oct. 3. The Honorary Co-Chairs included U.S. Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen; N.J. Senator Richard Codey; and California philanthropist, Max Palevsky. The eventincluded a live auction led by David Rago, of Rago Arts, who is well-known for his frequent appearances on Antiques Road Show.
