Gustav Stickley Arm Chair

2,850

Here for your consideration is a great and very rare GUSTAV STICKLEY # 340 arm chair. Is in excellent original finish and correct in all ways and is properly signed as shown. Has replaced leather as the original was worn out after a century of faithful service. Has the HARVEY ELLIS arch.

Between 1900 and 1916 a style of furniture featuring "...a severely plain and rectilinear style which was visually enriched only be expressed structural features and the warm tones of the wood..." gained popularity in the U.S. This furniture, referred to as "mission oak", was an "...American manifestation of the Arts and Crafts movement..." (Cathers, Furniture of the American Arts and Crafts Movement).

Stickley began making furniture in the mission oak style with the founding of the Craftsman Workshops in Eastwood, New York (now a part of Syracuse, New York) in 1904. His furniture was all handmade rather than machine made, crafted to be simple and useful; it was primarily built from native American tiger oak, joinery was exposed, upholstery was carried out with natural materials (canvas and leather), wood could be varnished but never painted, and there were no unnecessary lines. Furniture was smoked to give a dark finish, no nails were used only wooden pegs and beaten copper and iron hardware with bronze touches was employed.

He moved his headquarters to New York City in 1905 and planned to establish a boarding school for boys in Morris Plains, New Jersey (what is now Parsippany, New Jersey). Craftsman Farms was designed to be self-sufficient, with vegetable gardens, orchards, dairy cows and chickens. The main house there is constructed from chestnut logs and stone found on the property, and exemplifies Stickley's building philosophy. As he wrote in The Craftsman:

"There are elements of intrinsic beauty in the simplification of a house built on the log cabin idea. First, there is the bare beauty of the logs themselves with their long lines and firm curves. Then there is the open charm felt of the structural features which are not hidden under plaster and ornament, but are clearly revealed, a charm felt in Japanese architecture....The quiet rhythmic monotone of the wall of logs fills one with the rustic peace of a secluded nook in the woods."

Although the main house at Craftsman Farms was initially conceived of as a clubhouse for students, financial troubles forced Stickley to live there with his family instead. The planned boarding school never became a reality.

Stickley was a poor businessman and the American public began to reject his simple furniture in favor of revival styles; in 1915 he filed for bankruptcy, stopping publication of The Craftsman in 1916 and selling Craftsman Farms in 1917.

Gustav Stickley died on April 21, 1942.