Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony "" Online Exhibition
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Pre-Visit Lessons

 


Eva Watson-Schütze
Bolton Brown, ca. 1905
Platinum print
8 x 6 1/4 inches
Collection of Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York


Bolton Brown
Landscape, in Carrig-Rohane frame
Oil on canvas
21 1/4 x 22 1/2 inches
On loan from Morgan Anderson Consulting

   

 

Artists and Artisans

Lesson Identifying the many people who founded, worked at, and visited Byrdcliffe.

Objective Students will be able to identify the artists, art forms, and people associated with Byrdcliffe and how the Arts and Crafts aesthetic was expressed at Byrdcliffe.

Activity Ask students to pick two or three of the people listed below. Have them read the biographies in the exhibition catalogue and identify a work from the exhibition, or from their own further research.

Questions to Guide Students' Research

  • What medium was the artist working in? (Note: some of the people associated with Byrdcliffe were not artists, in that case skip to next question.)
  • How did they best express the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement?
  • How did their philosophies fit into the Arts and Crafts movement?
  • How would you describe their work?
  • What do you think their position would be on current events (pick two)?

Artists, Artisans, and Personalities of Byrdcliffe

  • Jane Addams – founder of Hull House, Chicago, IL
  • C.R. Ashbee – artist, metalwork
  • Jessie Tarbox Beals - photographer
  • Bolton Brown – cofounder of Byrdcliffe
  • John Burroughs – writer, naturalist
  • Helen Goodrick Buttrick – textile artist
  • Dawson Dawson-Watson - painter
  • John Dewey - educator
  • Charlotte Perkins Gillman - writer
  • Elizabeth Hardenbergh – painter, potter
  • Lovell Birge Harrison - painter
  • Carl Eric Lindin - painter
  • William Morris - artist
  • Edith Penman – painter, etcher, potter
  • John Ruskin – writer, artist
  • Ellen Gates Starr – co-founder of Hull House, Chicago, IL
  • Zulma Steele – designer, painter, potter
  • Bertha Thompson - artist
  • Edna Walker – painter, potter
  • Hervey White – co-founder of Byrdcliffe
  • Jane Whitehead – founder of Byrdcliffe
  • Ralph Whitehead – founder of Byrdcliffe

Extension Exercise
Research the American Arts and Crafts movement in comparison to what was happening in England. Why do you think the Arts and Crafts movement took off in both places?