The Furniture Genius That Was Gustav Stickley

By Robert Reed

As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, February 2010          

Probably no other American furniture designer had as much impact and influence as Wisconsin born Gustav Stickley.

            The dramatic straight line designs of Stickley furniture early in the 20th century created a stylish wave of unadorned but rugged pieces for fashionable homes. The genius of Stickley was to become the principle force of the Arts and Crafts Movement in this country.

            In the book American Furniture author John Bowman referred to Stickley as “the single most important figure in the development of new approaches to design in the United States.”

            It was simple and rectilinear, yet it was profound.

            Bowman considered Stickley’s Craftsman furniture, “a unique synthesis of American Shaker with combinations of Japanese and the medieval.”  Others might connect it to Spanish colonial tradition or being markedly in the shadow of the English Arts and Crafts Movement.

            Whatever its elements Stickley furniture took the country by storm. It was the first popular ‘modern’ furniture to be produced in the United States. It was center of American furnishing style.

            The very unique Stickley was born of humble beginnings on a farm in Polk County, Wisconsin. He was the oldest of 11 children. His father, a farmer and stonemason, reportedly deserted the family while Stickley was still a youngster.

            Earlier on however Stickley and his five brothers found themselves emerged in the business of making furniture, first for relatives and later for others.

            An already moderately successful Stickely journeyed in Paris in 1898 where he visited the latest designs of Art Nouveau furniture at the Salon de Art Nouveau. The traveling Stickely also visited England that same year and met with the staff of the late renowned furniture maker and reformer William Morris.

            In 1900 Stickley began producing what would become famous as Craftsman furniture. He combined skilled labor with basic machines to craft remarkable pieces from armchairs to settles.

            For the most part his furniture was functional but plain. It was distinctive but solid and heavy. With few exceptions, there was no decoration on Stickley furniture.

            “Structural features became the focal point of ornamentation,” notes Bowman, “as in the frequently exposed mortise and tendon joints, and the exposed dowels used for accent.” He added, “even the iron or copper hardware was given the same meticulous attention as the wood.”

            At the same time production of the masterful furniture was underway, in the early 1900s, Stickley was also publishing and editing a magazine called The Craftsman. Its purpose was to further the cause of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and to also provide instruction in crafting furniture. The first two issues were devoted to John Ruskin and William Morris.

            Most of the wood used in Stickley’s Craftsman shop was sturdy oak. The result was pieces that were as stark as they were heavy. Although Stickley steadfastly referred to his furniture as Craftsman, it was at times called Mission. The Mission name came from the like of such furniture to missions in California. Stickley reportedly never cared for the Mission reference but its association continued.

            Much, but not all, of the original Stickley furniture was signed. Eventually such signings became more elaborate and included the Craftsman shop-mark, a joiner’s compass and the motto Als Ik Kan which translated into, “As I can.”

            Stickley chose to define a chair as simply a chair and not an abstraction of something else. He declared at the height of his career, “the piece is first, last and all the time a chair, not an imitation of a throne, not an exhibit of snakes and dragons in a wild riot of misapplied wood-carving.”

            Undoubtedly Stickley was also a bit frustrated by the completion.

            Early in the 1900s the so-called Midwest furniture industry hotly pursued and imitated the Stickley style. Vast quantities were being produced in locations like Chicago, Cincinnati, and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

            Generally the mass-produced furniture was less expensive than Stickley’s best and of lesser quality.

            “Stickley’s simple furniture presented a strong contrast to the traditional pieces,” noted David Hanks in the book Discovering Antiques. “Whereas factory-made furniture was generally over elaborated and cheaply made, simple Craftsman furniture was sturdily constructed in the Craft workshops near Syracuse, New York.”

            Even Gustav Stickley’s brothers, Leopold and Julius George, were in competition with original craftsman. Initially the two had worked with Gustav, and then they moved off to form L. and J.G. Stickley. Their firm produced Mission-style furniture and hand-hammered copper metal ware for two decades.

            The confusion over the family name and brand prompted Gustav to ultimately include this message in his 1912 catalog:

            “My furniture is made at The Craftsman Workshops in Eastwood, New York. I have no connection with any other factory. Each piece of furniture before it leaves the factory is provided with a tag which carries the price at which the piece is to be sold in the store.”

            Ironically by 1912 the Stickley brand of Craftsman was never more popular nor was it ever subjected to more imitation. Besides L. and J.G. Stickely, at least a half dozen other American-based firms were attempting to manufacture and market similar furniture.

            The Stickley success prompted the relocation and expansion of Craftsman in 1913 to a ‘new’ 12-story headquarters. It was probably a mistake. Over the next two years the cost of downing business at Craftsman rose and the demand for its products declined. By 1915 the once robust annual Craftsman catalog had dwindled to nearly half its earlier size. There were far fewer trendy designs, and a number of items were being contracted out to other firms.

            Ultimately Stickley was forced into bankruptcy that same year. While he continued to make some furniture in a modified and sometimes varying Arts and Crafts style, the Craftsman Company itself went out of business.

            “Other companies less firmly linked in the public mind to a particular style found it easier to shift gears,” noted one historian many decades later, “whereas Stickley’s adoption of a variety of new styles must have been merely confusing.”

            For all of his furniture greatness and genius, Stickley spent his remaining years in obscurity. When he died in 1942 he was a forgotten figure.

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