The Society of Arts and Crafts of Boston

Last updated
Society of Arts and Crafts
Formation1897 (1897)
Location
Acting Director
Karina Burston
Website societyofcrafts.org
Formerly called
The Society of Arts and Crafts Boston (SACB)

The Society of Arts and Crafts is one of America's oldest arts and craft nonprofit organization. [1] [2] The Society moved to Boston's Seaport District in 2016 after being located on Newbury Street for over 40 years. [3] The Society was incorporated by twenty-one individuals on June 28, 1897, and was then known as the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston. [4] The small group was representational of Boston's elites in the fields of teaching, art-making, architecture, and craft. The original Society began with the agreement to "develop and encourage higher artistic standards in the handcrafts." [4]

Contents

Frederic Allen Whiting was the Director at the Society until 1912, when Humphery J. Emery took over. He would serve on the board of directors until the 1930s. [5]

Mission

The Society's mission is to support and celebrate craft makers and their creativity. Through its various programs, the organization strives to inspire the creation, assemblage, and promotion of the work of contemporary craft makers. The advancement of public appreciation of fine art has been a lifelong goal of the Society. The Society of Arts + Crafts sponsors exhibitions, the Artist Awards Programs, [6] the John D. Mineck Furniture Fellowship, [7] and educational programming in order to promote the work of contemporary craft artists. Prior to moving fully online in 2020, its retail and exhibition galleries featured nearly four hundred craft artists. [8]

Exhibitions

The following is a list of SA+C's exhibitions since 2012. [9]

Exhibition TitleDateNotes
Executive Order 9066, Wendy MaruyamaSeptember 8 - November 3, 2012
Our Cups Runneth OverNovember 16, 2012- January 19, 2013Biennial
Contemporary Folk February 15 - April 13, 2013
Rethinking Tradition: Portraits in Glass by Joseph CavalieriApril 26 - July 20, 2013
Creative Minds, Disciplined Hands: Selections from the New Hampshire Furniture MastersAugust 3 - October 19, 2013
From Minimal to Bling: Contemporary Studio JewelryNovember 1, 2013 - January 11, 2014Biennial
Floral Fictions: Recent Work by Jessica CalderwoodJanuary 31, 2014 - April 19, 2014
SAC Artists Awards ExhibitionMay 2 - July 19, 2014
William Daley: 14 for 7August 2 - October 25, 2014
Our Cups Runneth Over: Sculptural & Functional CupsNovember 8, 2014 – January 10, 2015Biennial
Collisions & Collaborations: Kathy King, Kevin Snipes and Brian R. JonesJanuary 30 - April 11, 2015
Alchimia: An AnthologyMay 1 - July 11, 2015
Stay in Touch: Seven Years of the John D. Mineck Furniture FellowshipAugust 1 - October 17, 2015
From Minimal to Bling: Contemporary Studio JewelryNovember 6, 2015 - January 10, 2016Biennial
RadiusOctober - November 2016Opening exhibition at new Seaport District location
Our Cups Runneth OverNovember 2016 - February 2017Biennial
I.M.A.G.I.N.E. Peace NowFebruary - June 2017Traveling show in collaboration with artist Boris Bally [10]
Archipomorphic: Tim Ian MitchellFebruary - March 2017
Artist AwardsJune - October 2017Award recipients: Tanya Crane, Janice Jakielski, Julie Morringello
Fantasy Architectures: Jay RogersOctober 2017 - January 2018
From Minimal to Bling: Contemporary Studio JewelryNovember 2017 - February 2018
All Things Considered IX: Basketry in the 21st CenturyMarch - June 2018Traveling show presented by the National Basketry Organization [11]
The Cover Up: Donna Rhae MarderMay - August 2018
Infinite Vibration: Niho KozuruJune - September 2018
Landscapes, CraftedAugust - October 2018
Elizabeth Cohen: Life CycleOctober 2018
Adorning Boston + Beyond: Contemporary Studio Jewelry Then + NowNovember 8, 2018 - February 17, 2019In conjunction with the Museum of Fine Arts exhibit Boston Made, [12] guest-curated by Heather White
Our Cups Runneth OverNovember 8, 2018 - February 17, 2019Biennial, guest-curated by Mary Barringer
Rebecca Welz: Inner + Outer SpacesFebruary 2019 - March 2019
Pulp + ProcessFebruary 21 - April 21, 2019Curated by Sam Aldrich, 2019 Emerging Curator
Peter T. Bennett: The Lure of AluminumMarch 14 - May 5, 2019
PRIEDApril 25 - June 30, 2019Guest-curated by Izzy Berdan and Dave J Bermingham, co-founders of the Boston LGBTQIA Artists Alliance [13]
Linda Huey: Dark Garden and other worksMay 9 - July 21, 2019
The Society of Arts + Crafts .jpg

Annual events

Every year, the Society of Arts + Crafts hosts two promotional events for local and international artists, CraftBoston Spring [14] and CraftBoston Holiday. [15] CraftBoston is a show of contemporary art, craft and design, and is well known for its advancement of both the arts and craftspeople. These events are held at popular venues and convention halls in Boston biannually. [15] [16]

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arts and Crafts movement</span> Design movement c. 1880–1920

The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armory Show</span> 1913 American art exhibition

The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of the many exhibitions that have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Fine Arts, Boston</span> Art museum in Massachusetts, United States of America

The Museum of Fine Arts is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas. With more than 1.2 million visitors a year, it is the 52nd–most visited art museum in the world as of 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Craftsman</span> Architectural style

American Craftsman is an American domestic architectural style, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, which included interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts, beginning in the last years of the 19th century. Its immediate ancestors in American architecture are the Shingle style, which began the move away from Victorian ornamentation toward simpler forms; and the Prairie style of Frank Lloyd Wright. The name "Craftsman" was appropriated from furniture-maker Gustav Stickley, whose magazine The Craftsman was first published in 1901. The architectural style was most widely used in small-to-medium-sized Southern California single-family homes from about 1905, so that the smaller-scale Craftsman style became known alternatively as "California bungalow". The style remained popular into the 1930s, and has continued with revival and restoration projects through present times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Allston Mall</span>

The Allston Mall was the provisional name for a space located on the second floor at 107 Brighton Avenue, Allston, Massachusetts, USA. Owned by Marsha Berman from approximately 1960 to 2005, it was home to countless examples of low rent alternative entrepreneurialism and cultural experimentation. It also provided off-and-on illegal housing to a number of marginal types. The building itself is a two-storey, mixed-use, commercial brick building constructed somewhere around 1900. It is still in use today but is no longer owned by Berman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boston Arts Festival</span>

The contemporary Boston Arts Festival is an annual event showcasing Boston's visual and performing arts community and promoting Boston's Open Studios program. The weekend-long Festival at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park features a wide variety of arts and high-end crafts, including painting, photography, ceramics, jewelry, sculpture and live music. The Arts Festival, which has existed in several different forms, was relaunched by former Mayor Thomas Menino in 2003, then reconceived by Mayor Marty Walsh in 2015. The Beacon Hill Art Walk and Artists Crossing Gallery will be organizing the 2019 September Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copley Society of Art</span>

The Copley Society of art is America's oldest non-profit art association. It was founded in 1879 by the first graduating class of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and continues to play an important role in promoting its member artists and the visual arts in Boston. The Society is named after the renowned John Singleton Copley. The gallery currently represents over 400 living artist members, ranging in experience from students to nationally recognized artists and in style from traditional and academic realists to contemporary and abstract painters, photographers, sculptors, and printmakers. Several of the artists working in the tradition of the Boston School of painters exhibit at the Copley Society of Art, along with the Guild Of Boston Artists a few doors down from the Copley Society of Art's Newbury Street location.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Lee Hu</span> American artist, goldsmith and educator

Mary Lee Hu is an American artist, goldsmith, and college level educator known for using textile techniques to create intricate woven wire jewelry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Wilson (artist)</span> American artist

Anne Wilson is a Chicago-based visual artist. Wilson creates sculpture, drawings, Internet projects, photography, performance, and DVD stop motion animations employing table linens, bed sheets, human hair, lace, thread and wire. Her work extends the traditional processes of fiber art to other media. Wilson is a professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonya Clark</span> American visual artist

Sonya Clark is an American artist of Afro-Caribbean heritage. Clark is a fiber artist known for using a variety of materials including human hair and combs to address race, culture, class, and history. Her beaded headdress assemblages and braided wig series of the late 1990s, which received critical acclaim, evoked African traditions of personal adornment and moved these common forms into the realm of personal and political expression. Although African art and her Caribbean background are important influences, Clark also builds on practices of assemblage and accumulation used by artists such as Betye Saar and David Hammons.

The Furniture Society, founded in 1996, is a membership-based, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation working to advance the art of furniture making by inspiring creativity, promoting excellence and fostering understanding of this art. The Society, based in Asheville, North Carolina, has an international membership comprising furniture makers, designers, educators, museum and gallery professionals, scholars, journalists, collectors, students and the interested public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kahlil Gibran (sculptor)</span> Lebanese American painter and sculptor

Kahlil G. Gibran, sometimes known as "Kahlil George Gibran", was a Lebanese American painter and sculptor from Boston, Massachusetts. A student of the painter Karl Zerbe at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gibran first received acclaim as a magic realist painter in the late 1940s when he exhibited with other emerging artists later known as the "Boston Expressionists". Called a "master of materials", as both artist and restorer, Gibran turned to sculpture in the mid-fifties. In 1972, in an effort to separate his identity from his famous relative and namesake, the author of The Prophet, Gibran Kahlil Gibran, who was cousin both to his father Nicholas Gibran and his mother Rose Gibran, the sculptor co-authored with his wife Jean a biography of the poet entitled Kahlil Gibran His Life And World. Gibran is known for multiple skills, including painting; wood, wax, and stone carving; welding; and instrument making.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosanne Somerson</span>

Rosanne Somerson is an American-born woodworker, furniture designer/maker, educator, and former President of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). An artist connected with the early years of the Studio Furniture, her work and career have been influential to the field.

Sheila Pepe is an artist and educator living and working in Brooklyn, New York. She is a prominent figure as a lesbian cross-disciplinary artist, whose work employs conceptualism, surrealism, and craft to address feminist and class issues. Her most notable work is characterized as site-specific installations of web-like structure crocheted from domestic and industrial material, although she works with sculpture and drawing as well. She has shown in museums and art galleries throughout the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grundmann Studios</span> Former artist studio building in Boston, Massachusetts

Grundmann Studios (1893–1917) in Boston, Massachusetts, was a building on Clarendon Street in the Back Bay. It contained artist's workspaces and multipurpose function rooms Copley Hall and Allston Hall. Prior to 1893, it functioned as a skating rink; after the Boston Art Students' Association leased the building it was renamed in honor of local art educator Emil Otto Grundmann. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose campus was adjacent, owned the property. Tenants included the Copley Society ; artists Henry R. Blaney, Herman Dudley Murphy, Frank Richmond, Mary Bradish Titcomb; sculptor John A. Wilson, architect Josephine Wright Chapman; and the College Club.

Myra Mimlitsch-Gray is an American metalsmith, artist, critic, and educator living and working in Stone Ridge, New York. Mimlitsch-Gray's work has been shown nationally at such venues as the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Museum of the City of New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and Museum of Arts and Design. Her work has shown internationally at such venues as the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Stadtisches Museum Gottingen, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and is held in public and private collections in the U.S, Europe, and Asia.

Wendy Maruyama is an artist, furniture maker, and educator from California. She was born in La Junta, Colorado.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Lathrop sisters</span>

The sisters Clara Welles Lathrop (1853–1907), Bessie Stebbins Lathrop (1854–1930) and Susanne (Susie) Lathrop (1860–1938) were artists and teachers in Northampton, Massachusetts, who exhibited and traveled widely. Clara was a painter, Bessie was a leather worker and woodcarver, and Susie illustrated publications. In addition to exhibiting in the U.S. and Europe, they organized intellectual salons at their Northampton studio and taught art at schools including Smith College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Janis</span> American artist (born 1959)

Michael Janis is an American artist currently residing in Washington, DC where he is one of the directors of the Washington Glass School. He is known for his work on glass using the exceptionally difficult sgraffito technique on glass.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert Langford Warren</span> American architect

Herbert Langford Warren was an architect who practiced in New England. He is noted for his involvement in the American Arts and Crafts movement, and as the founder of the School of Architecture at Harvard University.

References

  1. Roberta Smith (June 8, 1997). "American Crafts, Cause and Effect". The New York Times. Retrieved January 22, 2017. prominent art-oriented Bostonians ... in 1897, founded the Society of Arts and Crafts of Boston -- the first such organization in America
  2. Cathers, David (2003). Gustav Stickley. New York, New York: Phaidon Press, Inc. p. 82. ISBN   978-0-7148-6111-1. The founding of the Rochester [New York] Arts and Crafts Society was announced on 13 March 1897...In May 1897, it held an exhibition...
  3. "Location & Hours | The Society of Arts and Crafts". societyofcrafts.org. Retrieved 2016-02-24.
  4. 1 2 Brandt, Beverly (2009). The Craftsman and the Critic. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. pp. 57–60. ISBN   978-1-55849-677-4.
  5. "Summary of the Society of Arts and Crafts records, 1897-1960 | Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution". aaa.si.edu. Retrieved 2015-10-12.
  6. Artist Awards Programs
  7. John D. Mineck Furniture Fellowship
  8. "Mission & History | The Society of Arts and Crafts". societyofcrafts.org. Retrieved 2015-09-19.
  9. "SAC Exhibition Gallery: Past Shows | Boston Art Gallery". societyofcrafts.org. Retrieved 2015-10-05.
  10. "Home". imaginepeacenow.org.
  11. "Home". nationalbasketry.org.
  12. "Boston Made".
  13. "Home". blaa.us.
  14. CraftBoston Spring
  15. 1 2 "CraftBoston Holiday Show & Ticket Information". societyofcrafts.org. Retrieved 2015-10-12.
  16. "CraftBoston Spring Show Information". societyofcrafts.org. Retrieved 2015-10-12.
  17. Copley Hall (Boston, Mass.); Allston Hall (Boston, Mass.); Society of Arts and Crafts (Boston, Mass.) (1907). Exhibition of the society of arts & crafts together with a loan collection of applied art: Copley & Allston Halls, Boston, Mass., February 5 to 26, 1907. Boston, MA: The Heintzemann Press. OCLC   773833372.