Gustave Stickley's Craftsman Farms: The Quest for an Arts and Crafts Utopia »

"Illustrated with over a hundred archival photographs, this book provides a comprehensive look at Craftsman Farms, one of the critical utopian experiments of the fin-de-siecle period in America." "From 1911 to 1917 Craftsman Farms - now a major museum - was the home of Gustav Stickley, one of the central figures in the American Arts and Crafts Movement. This book unravels the rich and sometimes contradictory ideas that informed not only Stickley but many of the artists and literary figures of the progressive era in America." "The year 1900 was the fulcrum in a long arc of utopian ideals dating back to Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and William Morris in England, a movement that would eventually lead up to the art communes of the Guild of Handicraft, Woodstock, and the MacDowell colony. Craftsman Farms was at the center of a large group of American experiments in "living the artistic life." With this book, Mark Alan Hewitt provides a foil for a critical examination of the theories that guided many architects, artists, and craft artisans at the turn of the last century."--BOOK JACKET.

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Hewitt (architect and writer) explores the thinking and history behind the creation of Craftsman Farms, a group of buildings in New York. Stickley's youth and education, the development of his utopian ideals, their roots in the work of Carlyle, Ruskin, and William Morris, and the art communes of the US are explored at length. The remainder of the work is an analysis of Stickley's activities as an architect supplemented with many plans and photographs, mainly in somewhat grainy b&w. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)