Frank Lloyd Wright and the Buffalo School of Arts & Crafts

The New York State Alliance for Arts and Crafts Presents:
Frank Lloyd Wright and the Buffalo School of Arts and Crafts

October 20–22, 2017
Hayes Hall 403
UB South Campus

This international conference will zero in on how and why the Buffalo region became the national capital for design, production and innovation in American Arts and Crafts. With the region’s wealth of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, The Roycroft Campus, Charles Rohlfs, The Larkin Company, Buffalo Pottery, The Arts and Crafts Shop, Stickley, Heintz Art Metal, Adelaide Robineau, Karl Kipp, Walrath Pottery and so many others, no other region of the country can claim the density of local production. In contrast to the British variant, many members of this Buffalo School of Arts and Crafts freely used the region’s technological prowess to achieve a seamless melding of industrial techniques and handcrafted design, detail and quality—the signature of American Arts and Crafts. This conference will examine how and why.

Speakers include:

Bruce Austin Widescreen: Expanding the Research Agenda for Arts & Crafts

Cathleen A. Baker  Roycrofter Dard Hunter: Bringing the Viennese Secession to American Arts & Crafts Design

Thomas A. Guiler “Organized as a corporation, but work together as a Community”: Elbert Hubbard’s Roycroft and the Commercialization of the Arts and Crafts Utopia

Henry Hull Producing an American Arts and Crafts: The Designs of the Heintz Art Metal Shop of Buffalo, New York

John Murphy  The American iteration of the Arts and Crafts Movement in comparison with its British counterparts

Christine Schnaithmann  The Larkin Administration Building’s Resonance in the Development of German Modernism

Lisa Schrenk The Impact of Buffalo and the Martin Brothers on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park Studio

Bo Sullivan Decoding the Arts & Crafts Vignettes of the Birge Books, 1904‐1918

Jack Quinan  The Larkin Building and Wright’s Oeuvre

Catherine W. Zipf   “To the Best of Her Ability”: Literature, Feminism, and the Arts and Crafts Movement in Western New York

Martin Wachadlo The Architecture of Esenwein & Johnson: Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau Expressions

During the catered lunch, the noted Roycroft scholar and collector Boice Lydell will offer an illustrated tour of Roycroft’s production pulled from his own collection, the finest in the world.

Registration will include the Friday evening reception and keynote address by Jack Quinan at the Roycroft Inn and entrance to the conference Saturday and Sunday.

Cost for early registration is $120. An optional tour of local Arts and Crafts landmarks will take place Sunday afternoon for an additional $80. Registration with a UB student ID is free!

Early registration of $120 closes on October 6. After this date, registration will be $175. The tour cost remains the same.

Special thanks to the University at Buffalo President’s Circle Award, the New York State Regional and Economic Development Grants, the Univer­sity at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, UB's Depart­ment of Art, and the Larkin Center for Commerce.