The Arts & Crafts Movement in Canadian Collections:
“A Joy to the Maker and the User”

by Holly Cecil

The British Arts and Crafts Movement flourished between its peak years of 1880-1910, reviving artisan-produced decorative arts in an increasingly industrial era. Founding visionaries John Ruskin and William Morris, inspired a new generation of designers, high standards of traditional craftsmanship, and social reform for workers. Using an ecosocial lens, this research project addresses key principles in the Arts & Crafts movement: looking to nature for design motifs, improving the living and working conditions of artisans, and using more humble materials to make artistic works affordable to the middle classes. These Arts & Crafts principles are equally relevant today, countering a global economy of disposable goods with growing interest in artists' cooperatives and local craftsmanship.

What else can we do to help to educate ourselves and others in the path of art, to be on the road to attaining an art made by the people and for the people as a joy to the maker and the user? Believe me, if we want art to begin at home, as it must, . . . if you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

— William Morris, “The Beauty of Life,” in Hopes and Fears for Art.
Lecture first delivered before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design, February 19, 1880.

This series of documentary shorts analyzes key Arts & Crafts workshops and designers in the movement through representative objects in the University of Victoria Legacy Art Galleries collection. These objects also demonstrate the wide range of materials and processes that Arts & Crafts artisans perfected — from ceramics to furniture, and stained glass to metalwork, including silver, silver-plate, copper, brass and pewter. Films on the leading British Workshops are displayed on a separate page from four American Workshops.

This undergraduate research project, completed in the Art History and Visual Studies (AHVS) Department, University of Victoria (Canada), was supported by a Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award (JCURA), 2014. Research supervisor: Prof. Erin Campbell, AHVS Department, University of Victoria.

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Acknowledgments:

I would like to thank the following professors and curators who shared their research, knowledge and enthusiasm for these topics:

• At the University of Victoria:
  • Professor Erin Campbell, AHVS Department
  • Caroline Riedel, Curator of Collections, Legacy Art Gallery, Victoria
  • Emerald Johnstone-Bedell, Legacy Art Gallery
  • Professor Martin Segger, AHVS Department
• In England:
  • Helen Elletson, Curator, William Morris Society, Hammersmith, England
  • Ray Liegh and Trevor Chinn, The Gordon Russell Trust Design Museum
  • Derek Elliott, silversmith, at Hart Silversmiths, Chipping Campden
  • Janice Fisher, Curator, Court Barn, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England
  • Carol Jackson, Chipping Campden Historical Society, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England

Contact Information:

email Holly Cecil: cecil [at] uvic [dot] ca

© Holly Cecil 2015 (where applicable)