The Arts and Crafts Movement emerged in mid-19th century as a rebellion against the Industrial Revolution. Its adherents looked for reform in design and decoration, with a focus on the creation of beautiful, handmade objects. The Arts and Crafts Movement continues to thrive on both sides of the Atlantic. Throughout the UK and North America, national and regional gatherings are regularly held. Centers celebrating, displaying, and selling Arts and Crafts handiworks on both sides of the Atlantic receive thousands of visitors yearly.

Despite this success, there is very little awareness among Arts and Crafts people of the vital roles played by two of the movement’s nineteenth century founders in shaping their creative lives. The first is the great Victorian art and social critic, John Ruskin. It was Ruskin’s vision celebrating the importance, in one’s work, of uniting “Head, Hand, and Heart,” that inspired his contemporary, William Morris, to dedicate his working life to doing just that. Reading the works of Ruskin and Morris in the United States, another founder of the movement, Elbert Hubbard, was inspired after visiting England. He would come back to America and establish The Roycroft in East Aurora, New York, outside of Buffalo.

And so, we are excited to announce the collaboration between The Roycroft Campus, The Ruskin Society of North America, and The Guild of St. George (founded by Ruskin in the 1870s in the UK), in creating an international virtual Conference to tell the story of Ruskin and Hubbard in the establishment of the world-wide Arts and Crafts Movement. We invite you to join us each Saturday in October of 2020 to hear these stories. 

That the Arts and Crafts Movement began in the mid-19^th century is well-known. That William Morris was integral to its beginning in the United Kingdom is similarly well-known. What is not as well-known is that the inspiration for Morris’ exemplary efforts was the most famous art and architecture critic in the UK, John Ruskin. In a series of remarkable best selling books–among them The Seven Lamps of Architecture and The Stones of Venice–and standing room only lectures, Ruskin made, for the first time, the impassioned case for treating all workers as creative beings, for providing them all with the chance to use their “heads, hands, and hearts” (his phrase) in their work. First Morris, and later, in North America, Elbert Hubbard, spurred on by Ruskin’s arguments, set to work making his liberating prescription come alive. This lecture is designed to introduce Ruskin to an Arts and Crafts audience, to make clear what his vision and essential contributions were to the A&C movement, and show how his insights remain critical to the future of the movement and to our troubled modern society.

Why Scottish? Because Ruskin’s intellectual and cultural development was strongly influenced by his Scottish parents, his visits to Scotland and a number of key events in his life took place in Scotland. Moreover, Scotland is rich in architecture, art and craft of the Arts & Crafts Movement.
Ruskin’s influence was strong on three key organisations founded at much the same time, the Guild of St George (which he founded himself in 1871), the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (founded by William Morris 1877 but with Ruskin’s specific encouragement and support) and the Art Workers’ Guild (1884, whose members felt directly inspired by both Ruskin and Morris). All three organisations flourish exceedingly today and provide us with rich evidence that Ruskin’s ideas and principles have had an enduring presence. The lecture will contend that Ruskin influenced the Arts & Crafts Movement both directly and indirectly. The direct influence was transmitted by architects, designers and craftspeople born in the 1830s and 1840s, who read his writings and often had contact with him; pre-eminently Philip Webb, Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and others of that time; and through architects, designers and craftspeople born in the 1850s and 1860s, pre-eminently Robert Rowand Anderson, Robert Weir Schultz and Ernest Gimson (who was both architect and also practitioner of designing and making some of the very best Arts & Crafts furniture). Ruskin’s influence has also been profound on ideas and best practice in the preservation and tender treatment of historic buildings of all kinds and on our past and current thinking about heritage. Finally, one or two current projects will be touched on that illustrate Ruskin’s passionate commitment to social reform and the practical exercise of compassion: in the end, ‘making lives better’ was what he preached and practised, together with his plea that we should deeply see the world around us. Truly and deeply seeing can be seen as one of the leading characteristics of the Arts & Crafts Movement.

Heart, Heart and Hands: From Roycroft to Ruskin is about Kateri’s journey as an artist and teacher, beginning with a job as the overnight clerk at the Roycroft Inn, to a Google search that led her to John Ruskin’s Elements of Drawing, to becoming an artist-in-residence on the Roycroft Campus, which also led to her work being purchased by the Ruskin Collection at Museum Sheffield, UK. All along the way she began to understand the truth and necessity of Ruskin’s teachings that spurred her career as a professional artist and teacher, and it is those very teaching that form the foundation of her work as a teacher of watercolour and drawing.

Roycrofter-at-Large photographer Peter Potter will introduce John Ruskin: the photographer. Ruskin was an early adopter of the photographic process and his thoughts about the medium changed through time. Some of Ruskin’s recently discovered lost daguerreotypes of Venice will be shared.

In America, the Roycroft was at the crossroads as photography evolved from a documentary craft to an expressive art. The Albright Art Gallery, in Buffalo, New York, hosted the first exhibit of fine art photography in the world in 1910 and an enigmatic polymath named Carl Sadakichi Hartmann was the nexus for this connection. His influence and his role on the Roycroft Campus will be explored, along with the work of local photographers in the Buffalo Photo Pictorial Movement.

Elbert Hubbard was a charismatic entrepreneur who found inspiration in John Ruskin—the artist, social reformer, conscience of his times, and William Morris—designer and craftsman. Their Arts & Crafts Movement, the seeds of which were planted in the United States by Hubbard and others, manifested itself at Roycroft in East Aurora at the end of the 19th century. Even beyond Arts & Crafts, though, there was a magic that arose in 1895 on South Grove Street and continues to suffuse both the Roycroft Campus and Inn and the very idea of Roycroft. Join writer and lifelong East Auroran Rick Ohler, who grew up in the shadow of the Roycroft Inn and who continues his relationship with Roycroft daily at his Print Shop studio, for a ramble around the Campus. He will present stories, photos and history that will help you see that the magic of Roycroft is alive and well in the 21st century.

Elbert Hubbard found his inspiration through the writings of John Ruskin and the art produced by William Morris and friends. Hubbard’s dream was to create his own special “utopia” in America where craftspeople would continue in the tradition of the Arts and Crafts Movement. This overview of Elbert Hubbard’s Roycroft Shops will explore the work that was being created between the years 1895-1943. This span, of almost fifty years, will be broken down into four Periods, which will be placed in historical context by way of production and the quality of craft being created. The focus will be on the Roycroft publications, but some examples of other media including copper, stained glass and furniture will be discussed.

While all, or most of us, have read copiously the writings of John Ruskin, some may not have actually encountered the objects in which Ruskin’s ideas actually appeared, that is, the first editions of Ruskin’s books. In this lecture I propose to show and discuss some of these books. Included will be Salsette and Elephanta (1839), Ruskin’s Newdigate Prize Poem; first editions of all 5 volumes of Modern Painters (1843-1860) with an autograph letter; an interesting association copy of Unto This Last (1862); and an almost complete set of the individual pamphlet issues of Fors Clavigera.

For most of his life, Dr. Weber has been studying and collecting Roycroft books and printing material, including some of the original Roycroft presses. When the Campus re-acquired The Print Shop in 2015, Dr. Weber helped to establish the press room once again. This presentation will discuss the process of creating a functioning, turn-of-the 20th century, printing shop, and a demonstration of some of the books that are being created using similar techniques as the original Roycrofters.