NOTES
This cabinet for storing sheet music presents a taut arrangement of vertical and horizontal lines with clear solids and voids. The near-black finish accentuates its minimal form. Stylized flowers of colored woods, pewter, and copper inlaid in the door offer a subtle enrichment.
From 1900 until World War I (1914–1918), furniture maker Gustav Stickley was a leading contributor to the American Arts and Crafts movement. During the 1880s and ’90s, Stickley was a successful manufacturer of middle-class Victorian furniture. He first explored consciously artistic furniture in 1900, gradually developing radically spare forms that evoked the sentiments of English designer William Morris, for whom simplicity was the essential requirement of modern furnishings. Stickley renamed his business the United Crafts and, in October 1901, began to publish The Craftsman magazine. In 1903 and 1904, the Stickley style was further refined in favor of attenuated forms embellished with inlaid ornament, as seen in this music stand.
