Fashion, furnishings of Arts and Crafts era unite in ‘The American Look’ - Click here


A Room of Their Own: 
The Bloomsbury Artists in American Collections 
July 18–October 18

The output of the artists in the Bloomsbury group—including paintings, prints, drawings, decorative arts and designs, books, and other works—exemplified the breadth and strength of their complex talents and revealed their responses to war, industry, sexuality, and the environment. The work of Vanessa Bell (Virginia Woolf’s sister), Duncan Grant, Roger Fry, and Dora Carrington, as well as works produced by Fry’s Omega Workshops and books from the Woolfs’ Hogarth Press, represents the very heart of Bloomsbury. This exhibition, organized by the Johnson, includes nearly two hundred works created over a fifty-year period from both public and private collectors in the United States and was previously on view at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. It will travel to Mills College Art Museum in California, the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, the Smith College Museum of Art in Massachusetts, and the Palmer Museum of Art at The Pennsylvania State University.

http://www.museum.cornell.edu/HFJ/currex/exhibits2.html

Visit the exhibition website

Order the catalogue from Cornell University Press


*Felicity Ashbee, she will be missed (1913-2008)*

On her 95th birthday on February 22 a few friends gathered for a little lunch and to be present when Felicity received the first copy of her latest book, published by Syracuse University Press. Child in Jerusalem is a charming child’s-eye memoir of her family’s sojourn in Jerusalem from 1919 to 1923. Her father, the famous Arts and Crafts figure, Charles Robert Ashbee, had gone after World War I to help rebuild the city’s walls. You may recall that Felicitiy came to Daltons in 2002 for a book signing at Daltons. Syracuse University Press had then brought out her book, about her mother, Janet Ashbee: Love, Marriage and the Arts & Crafts Movement. This was the final visit of three to Syracuse. Until recently, she was running around London “like a teenager”, as her late sister Mary commented, taking the steps of her flat two at a time. Felicity died peacefully on August 26th.
Felicity visited Syracuse several years ago, in the early 80s, invited to meet some of the Arts and Crafts folks in Syracuse at a lunch.  Mary Ann Smith and I were there among others. Felicity was tracing the footsteps of her famous father, C.R. Ashbee, who had lectured around the country on the Arts 7 Crafts Movement early in the century.  He had visited Frank Lloyd Wright, who in turn visited him in Chipping Campden.  Felicity remembered him as the “odd little man with a swooping cape and a funny hat.” She was NOT impressed. Wright took the famous photo of CRA that hung on her wall, unidentified until the Victoria & Albert museum, years later, asked if they could take its frame off, only to discover Wright’s signature on the back. 
One of four sisters, Felicity was devoted to her father, trying to be “the son he never had.” She served in the Women’s Air Force during World War II. Trained as an art teacher, she taught in private girls’ schools, designed posters and textiles, traveled, and documented her long and colorful life in paintings, photographs, and memoirs. She kept the family archives and her house was a treasure chest of journals, books and photographs.
Felicity’s travels in the US took her to Chicago and as far as California; she gave a delightful lecture wherever she went, bursting into song as she recalled her days in Chipping Campden. She brought her talk to the Arts & Crafts Society for a double bill with Alan Crawford, her father’s biographer.  She enjoyed seeing her friends in Syracuse.  Felicity was a wonderful correspondent and had two address books, stuffed full and bound with rubber bands, one for home and one for abroad. In London, she was surrounded by family and friends until the day she died.  Her ashes are interred with her parents in the family grave. Her name will be added to the existing headstone, “to prove that I existed,” as she had put it. A Thanksgiving for her life will take place on Thursday 2nd October at 6 pm, at the Art Worker’s Guild, 6 Queen Square, London, under the portrait of her father, who was a founder of the Guild.

Cleota Reed

www.guardian.co.uk
www.independent.co.uk/news


Roycroft Campus Corporation announces grants and major property acquisition at Open House at the Copper Shop on Thursday

The Roycroft Campus Corporation invites you to an Open House on Thursday October 27 from 4pm to 7pm at the Copper Shop Gallery located at 31 South Grove Street on the Historic Landmark Roycroft Campus.

The purpose of this event is to update the public and supporters of the Roycroft Campus Corporation on the efforts to restore the Copper Shop, the first of many buildings to be restored on the Roycroft Campus. The group will also thank the many people and organizations that have come forward to jumpstart the first part of the many restoration phases.

Programming and announcements will be from 5- 5:30pm. At this time there will be a major announcement about the acquisition of another significant Roycroft structure.

Special thanks will be given to the John R. Oishei Foundation for a grant of $220,000 that will be used to develop a strategic business plan, develop and promote educational programming and fund other start up operational expenses. The John R. Oishei Foundation’s mission is to enhance the quality of life for Buffalo area residents by supporting education, healthcare, scientific research and the cultural, social, civic and other charitable needs of the community.

This event will also recognize the Preservation League of New York State for a $5000 grant issued to prepare a historic structure report for the Copper Shop. This grant is funded by Preserve New York, a grant program of the Preservation League of New York State and the New York State Council of the Arts.

Light refreshments will be served while guests stroll through the new Copper Shop Gallery that features work by Roycroft Renaissance Artisans and other local artists. The public is welcome to attend.

For more information call Christine Peters at 716-655-0261




Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House Complex in Buffalo , New York is currently under restoration, but still open for guided tours. For opening times and details www.darwinmartinhouse.org




News from London:

The National Trust has just acquired William Morris's famous Red House in
Bexley, built in 1859 to the designs of architect Philip Webb. The
property has been in private hands for over 50 years and will open to the
public sometime this summer. Until now, the house has been visited only
by small groups of Morris enthusiasts, but it is known throughout the
world as Morris's personal statement in his campaign to raise the crafts
to the level of fine art by creating, with Webb, wall hangings, furniture,
and stained blase, with wall paintings by Edward Burne-Jones and Dante
Gabriel Rossetit. The London Times quoted Tim Knox, the trust's head
curator, as saying that the house still has a substantial amount of
built-in furniture as well as a wealth of painted decoration, which has
been carefully conserved with advice from the Victoria and Albert Museum.
He also said that the key to the house's success will be to make the
four-acre garden into the pre-eminent Pre-Raphaelite garden, filled with
the plants Morris used for his textile design.

The Victoria and Albert Museums show "Art Deco" opens soon in Boston.

Two big Arts and Crafts exhibitions are in the works. One, from the Los
Angeles County Museum, curated by Wendy Kaplan, will open on December 19, 2004, and the other from the Victoria and Albert Museum, curated by Karen Livingstone, will open in March of 2005. Both will travel but venues are not published yet. Watch this site for news as they develop.




Looking for New Board Members

Looking for a way to share your interest and enthusiasm in the Arts and Crafts movement with others? We are currently looking for interested individuals to join our board and/or participate in our committees. Board members attend meetings scheduled on the second Wednesday of each month. New board members will be elected at our membership meeting in September 2002 and serve a three year term. If you are interested e-mail us using the link above for more information.

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