The Year in Stickley
by Kate Nixon
March is Gustav Stickley’s birthday month and if you’re a member of the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms, you can get a virtual tour of another Gustav-designed Craftsman house! We’ll also review the year in Gustav Stickley news and review a few of the high-selling Gustav-designed works from 2021!
Happy Birthday, Gustav!
On Saturday, March 26, as part of the birthday celebrations, the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms will host a virtual visit into the privately-owned Parker House, designed and constructed in 1913 as Craftsman House No. 157 by Gustav Stickley for prominent Morristown photographer, William C. Parker. The Parker House today remains largely unaltered from its original plans and construction. Parker House owner Mitch Codding and Jonathan Clancy, Stickley Museum Director of Collections and Preservation, will present an exclusive photo tour of the exterior and interior of the historic home, including the impressive Arts and Crafts collections featured throughout. Also included in the special session, James Tottis, Vice President of Museum Affairs at Cheekwood Estate and Gardens in Nashville, Tennessee, will offer Members a brief overview of Cheekwood’s ongoing exhibition “Spanning the Atlantic: The Arts and Crafts Movement” (on view through April 10, 2022) and a look ahead to their upcoming exhibition on American Arts and Crafts in the of spring 2023.”
This event is for museum members. If you’d like to join the Stickley Museum, please visit stickleymuseum.org for more information.
Gustav in the News
Believe it or not, the name Gustav Stickley has made a few headlines in the last 360 days. Nearly a year ago in the spring of 2021, Gustav Stickley: American Craftsman, the first feature-length documentary of Gustav Stickley’s life, was released on DVD and through streaming services. The documentary, which premiered in 2020 to audiences in Syracuse and at the 2020 National Arts and Crafts Conference in Asheville, North Carolina, offers a comprehensive look at Stickley’s life, his businesses, the development of his style that would mold an American movement through interviews and archived materials and a close examination of his works. The documentary visits several relevant locations to the Stickley family, including his Syracuse home, where he lived and created his first arts and crafts interior, the pump house at Skaneateles Lake in upstate New York, which he restored as a summer family camp among other locations. The lives of the talented collaborators Stickley surrounded himself with are also explored with Harvey Ellis, Lamont Warner and Irene Sargent being prime examples of figures Stickley built professional relationships with. The documentary can be purchased through the First Run Features website and can be found on streaming services Apple+, iTunes, and Vimeo,
The houses that Gustav Stickley lived in both in his youth and as a family man were also in the news this past year. In September of 2021, the National Park service designated the Gustav Stickley House in Syracuse, New York as a historic site. The house, which completed the first phase of its restoration process with the completion of the exterior, was a recipient of a “Save America’s Treasures” grant in the fall of 2020. The foundation was awarded a maximum amount of $500,000, which made the foundation the highest awardee in New York State. On Monday, September 20th of this year, local officials joined to officially unveil the Save America’s Treasures grant signage in recognition of our $500, 000 matching grant from the National Park Service. fundraiser to turn the Stickley home in Syracuse, New York into a museum and hotel continues into the next year.
Above: officials gather outside the Syracuse house to reveal the sign declaring The Gustav Stickley House Restoration Project a recipient of the Save America’s Treasures Fund. A rendering of what the interior of the Gustav Stickley house in Syracuse, New York will look like after the next phase of restoration is complete. The fundraiser to help complete the house and turn it into a museum and hotel will continue into 2022.
Despite the devastating news of the damage to the Log house annex at Craftsman Farms in 2020, 2021 has seen the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms think outside the box in offerings for their supporters. In addition to the impressive series of Zoom presentations offered by Executive Director Vonda Givens and Director of Collections Jonathan Clancy, the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms offered guided outdoor tours of Stickley’s own country estate of Craftsman Farms. The Craftsman Farms Grounds Tour travels along the original Craftsman Farms entry road through the historic core of the property and also includes a tour of the landscape as well as the exterior of the Log House, cottages, and rehabilitated garage (now the Education Center). A new online exhibition “Circa 1917: Rediscovering Craftsman Farms” was created to reveal Gustav’s philosophical and aesthetic vision in an interactive way through visuals and documentation. At the holidays, the Stickley Museum thankfully was able to connect with their local supporters as they opened the doors to the log cabin and shop during two Saturdays in December.
Lastly, the September opening of the Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement brought the chance for collectors and the general public to view one of the most impressive collections of Arts and Crafts era objects in the country. The Two Red Roses Collection – entrepreneur Rudy Ciccarello’s Arts and Crafts collection housed in the museum – includes works from Leopold and J.G. Stickley, the Stickley Brothers, and naturally, Craftsman Worskhops. In fact, Rudy’s collector journey started with a reproduction bookcase from Gustav Stickley; Ciccarello told the publication Architectural Digest that “I was impressed with its simple, clean design, white American oak construction, beautiful finish, copper hardware, and rugged sturdiness.” The opening of the museum marked an important moment not just for the works of Stickley, but for the movement as a whole.
The Works of Gustav Stickley in Auctions
Here are just a few of the high-selling works of Gustav Stickley, fetching selling prices in the tens of thousands during 2021:
Toomey & Co’s Fine Art + Furniture & Decorative Arts Auction – June 6th, 2021
Gustav Stickley (1858-1942)
rare corner cabinet, #972
Eastwood, New York, 1904
oak, glass, iron
marked with red decal
Sold for $36,250
Rago Arts’ Early 20th Century Design Auction – January 20, 2022
Gustav Stickley Early china cabinet
oak, patinated iron, glass
Butterscotch Auction – November 21st, 2021
Gustav Stickley early oak bookcase circa 1901
glazed door with three interior shelves
c. 1901, having a glazed door revealing 3 inner cabinet shelves over an open cabinet shelf, all topped by an open shelf with slatted back
h. 60 w. 29 d. 11-1/2 in.
Provenance: Descended through a Pleasantville, NY estate
Ref. “Collected Works of Gustav Stickley” ed. by Stephen Gray & Robert Edwards, 1981, pg. 24, Earliest Craftsman Furniture
estimate: $1,000 – $1,500
Sold for $50,000
California Historical Design’s AcStickley Auction – December 11th, 2021
Extra Large Gustav Stickley – Harvey Ellis 7-Drawer Sideboard c1903.
Signed with early Stickley in box decal.
Excellent original finish.
Measures 72″w x 42″h x 21.75″.
Sold for $18,000
Treadway Gallery’s Decorative Arts Auction – January 16th, 2022
Gustav Stickley sideboard #901
Eastwood, NY
fumed oak, iron
unmarked
40″h x 50″w x 23″d
A rare and desirable form with two half drawers with original iron star pulls over two cabinet doors with butterfly joint construction The thick slab sides with double key and tenon construction. At some point there was a hole drilled in one drawer that has been filled and disguised professionally. The left side door is without its original lock. Literature: Stephen Gray, The Early Work of Gustav Stickley, New York, 1987, p.57
Sold for $15,600
If you know of an additional way to celebrate the life of Gustav Stickley, email us at [email protected].