The Museum of The American Arts & Crafts Movement (MAACM) is embarking on a bold vision to bring the most important collection of American Arts and Crafts decorative and fine arts to a broader public. We hope to grow support for the Arts & Crafts Movement by educating new audiences who may have a limited understanding of this important and colorful period in our history.
The American Arts and Crafts Movement had a profound impact on the world of art, design, and architecture. It brought us not only beautifully hand crafted works but also connected us to the joy of making, our relationship to nature, and how we live our daily lives. It was an important moment in our cultural history, one that still resonates strongly today.
This illustrated essay describes where the movement started, its philosophy, how it migrated to the United States, and how designers, artisans and craftsmen, and the love of Nature came together to produce the beautiful and rare objects found in the collection of the Two Red Roses Foundation. We hope you will read this brief essay and that you will share it with friends, relatives, and your social media groups.
AN UPDATE FROM THE SITE OF THE NEW MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN ARTS & CRAFTS MOVEMENT
Things are coming together and rising high at 355 4th Street North in St. Petersburg, Florida, the future home of the Museum of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. The five-story, 137,000 square-foot building will feature beautiful architectural elements such as a grand atrium, skylights, and a dramatic spiral staircase, all adorned with period art, light fixtures, stained glass windows, fireplaces, and more.
Standing at the Southeast gate adjacent to the garage south looking Northwest. Main entry Ovoid staring to look impressive with slab, wedge wall, embeds exposed. Concrete trucks backed up placing concrete on level 5!
Sunrise from the 4th floor of the Museum of American Arts & Crafts Movement.
Standing on the North side of the 3rd floor looking South at the atrium and ovoid structure area.
THE TWO NEWEST CATALOGS FROM THE TWO RED ROSES FOUNDATION
A photography movement emerged during the late nineteenth century featuring soft-focus effects, tonally subtle images, and atmospheric elements that mimicked the current Tonalism style of painting. Practitioners referred to this as Pictorialism, and photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Gertrude Käsabier, Clarence H. White, Adolf Fassbender, and Edward S. Curtis used their work to help champion the cause of photography as one of the fine arts. Author Christian A. Peterson’s essay “‘Lenses Embracing the Beautiful‘: Two Generations of Pictorial Photographs, 1890s—1940s” analyzes the aesthetics and techniques of pictorial photography and discusses camera clubs, exhibitions, and publications that were essential to the success of the movement. More than forty separate artists are featured within, along with their biographies and over one hundred full-color plates of their best work from the collection of the Two Red Roses Foundation. Important photographic books and periodicals are also presented, including Stieglitz’s influential journals Camera Notes and Camera Work, which helped spread Pictorialism and the later Photo-Secessionist style world wide.
This publication brings together one hundred and twenty nine vases of great rarity and exquisite beauty representing the best of American Arts and Crafts pottery. It is the second edition of “Beauty in Common Things”, originally published in 2008. This new edition retains the brilliantly written and well researched dissertation by authors Jonathan Clancy and Martin Eidelberg. It presents a timeless exploration of how different potteries responded to the new idealism of their age and to the aesthetic and social demands which were put on art. Forty-five new vases, purchased for the Two Red Roses Foundation collection, have been added to this edition. Kevin W. Tucker wrote extended scholarly essays for many of these vases and produced profiles of four additional potteries: Crook Pottery, North Dakota Pottery, Redlands Pottery and Valentien Pottery.
The second series of Pottery Playing cards from TRRF
In the Summer of 2017, TRRF produced a set of pottery playing cards using high-definition images of 52 vases from its collection for the face of each card. The sale was enormously successful. A second set of Pottery Playing cards from TRRF has been created using the images of an additional 52 vases and are now available to purchase on the TRRF website for $10 each, freight pre-paid.
