If Mission Oak is severe, it is probably because its foremost designers: Gustav Stickley (Gustav Stickley's Craftsman Workshops 1899-1916), Gustav's five other brothers (L. & J.G. Stickley 1902-present, and Stickley Brothers Company 1891-1954), Frank Lloyd Wright (Prairie School Architect 1867-1959), Elbert Hubbard (The Furniture Shop of the Roycrofter's 1895-1938), Charles P. Limbert (Charles P. Limbert Company 1902-1944), Charles Rohlfs (Charles Rohlfs Workshop 1898-1928), Arthur and Lucia Mathews (Mathew's Furniture Shop 1906-1920), and Benard Ralph Maybeck (Architect 1862-1957), thought it was time to be severe.
These men, I bored you with a long list because much of their valuable work is signed or easily identified by style, were followers of the Arts & Crafts Movement begun in the 1860's. English poet and designer, William Morris was one of it's founders. The movement was a rebellion against inorganic line and industrialization that was strangling hand-craftmanship. Morris preached on the virtues of simple oak furniture and clearly exposed construction. His "Morris Chair" defined such. Morris and his compatriots thought society would be brought to ruin unless it changed. But, what happened? Victorian cabinet-shops hid their joinings as if they were ugly scars. They turned the seeds of organic Rococo to ugly excess with their machine-made carvings. The subtle, organic curves of Art Nouveau (1895-1910) began to whiplash, becoming garish. Then came the eclectic oak furnishings, mass-produced in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and other midwestern cities. Sold in thick catalogs by Sears and Roebuck, it was hastily fashioned to feed a fast growing country. It was often excessive in ornament and lacking in taste. Stickley, Wright, and the others, were slamming their fist on the table with their simple yet imaginative designs, and hand-crafted look. "Enough!" they said.
Sadly, even though it was made in abundance, most top-grade Mission Oak furniture has become unaffordable. Happily, other manufacturers produced Mission pieces that can still be found within budget. Here's another boring list!: Aladin ("Homecraft"), J.S. Ford, Johnson & Company, Grand Rapids Bookcase and Chair ("Life Time"), Karpan Furniture, Loomis & Hart, Mueller and Slack, Choate-Hollister Company, The Udell Works. Any serious hunter of antiques should familiarize oneself with Mission Oak and Arts & Crafts style by visiting museums and studying quality books. I take a copy of American Arts and Crafts - Virtue in Design by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art with me on almost every buying trip, even if I'm going to look a 18th century American furniture. Just as I would look forward to the opportunity to savor a cherry Connecticut highboy made by Eliphalet Chapin, I would likewise appreciate, a round library table produced of quartersawed white oak by Gustav Stickley. While these two pieces of furniture might have little in common, one being cherry the other being oak, the artisans who fashioned them are of similar stock.
Mission Oak
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