Ideals Ingrained

“First, it appeals to me historically, then intellectually and then aesthetically.” Given the philosophy behind British Arts & Crafts, it’s not surprising that collector Mickey Wolfson describes his attraction to it in such terms. Wolfson, founder of the Wolfsonian museum in Miami, home to the largest public British Arts & Crafts collection outside England, adds, “It was a zealous movement. People were looking to find alternatives to imperialism and industrialization.” Wolfson may be more academic in his pursuit than a typical devotee, but this complex movement had a strong ideological basis. And although the market for American Craftsman, as the U.S. version is known, may be more active, British Arts & Crafts furnishings, textiles, pottery, metalwork and glassware constitute a robust collecting field that offers plenty of beauty to go along with its high ideals.

Rooted in the Gothic Revival of the early 19th century, Arts & Crafts was flourishing well before its name was coined, around 1888. A range of designers who were striving to restore handcraftsmanship and authenticity to everyday utilitarian objects, embraced the Arts & Crafts philosophy of form over superfluous decoration and manual over mass production. “It was about quality,” says Mary Greenstead, a curator of decorative arts at the Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, in the Cotswolds, which possesses one of the strongest Arts & Crafts collections in the U.K. “The furniture was not necessarily showy, but it was made of the best possible materials.”

Arts & Crafts designers rejected the more ornate styles of Rococo and Neoclassicism in favor of vernacular subject matter and materials. The movement’s great proselytizer, William Morris, is best known for his stained-glass windows and textile designs, which incorporate natural and medieval motifs. His firm, Morris & Co., manufactured his designs and those of other artists in one-offs and in small editions, as well as in serially produced tapestries, upholstery, curtains and other decorative textiles in cotton, wool and silk. These generally range from $1,000 to the mid five figures, depending on the material, size and technique.

One-offs by both Morris and his frequent collaborator the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones command top dollar. A richly detailed Arthurian-themed tapestry designed by Burne-Jones put up in Sotheby’s Best of British sale on March 20 was estimated at $1 million to $1.5 million. London gallery Haslam and Whiteway has a number of stained-glass windows designed by Burne-Jones for a hospital chapel and produced by Morris & Co. priced from $15,000 to $120,000 each.

Another major figure of the movement was Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who incorporated the sinuous lines of Art Nouveau into his furniture. Among Mackintosh’s most recognizable creations are the high-backed chairs commissioned by Catherine Cranston for her famous Glasgow tearooms. An Argyle chair fetched £380,650 ($592,300) at Christie’s London in 2002; in the same sale, Mackintosh’s 1904 mahogany writing cabinet brought a record £996,650 ($1.6 million).

Quintessential British Arts & Crafts works tend to be less elaborate than those pieces but are not, as a common misconception would have it, exclusively severe and constructed of unadorned oak. “You do get some quite sober furniture, but lots of playful and colorful things too,” says Martin Levy, director of the London antiques dealership H. Blairman & Sons. The gallery, which specializes in 19th-century design, brought a selection of such items to tefaf Maastricht last month, including a goblet by glassmaker Harry Powell (£7,500; $14,700) and an important circa 1900 overmantel by Alexander Fisher (£240,000; $470,000).

Arts & Crafts adherents “were against the dictates of style as style,” explains Wendy Kaplan, a curator of decorative arts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “They loved the process of making things.” Kaplan, who organized the museum’s 2004–05 landmark Arts & Crafts exhibition, adds that as a rule, ornamentation wasn’t applied to the surface but delicately inlaid to suit the design so that the construction of the piece would come through clearly. “The motto was, you could decorate your construction, but you couldn’t construct your decoration,” she says.