Stickley Marks

The name Stickley is synonymous with solid, unadorned Mission-style Arts & Crafts furniture. At the same time, it is synonymous with confusion—because the five Stickley brothers worked as partners and competitors in different business ventures. All the Stickley brothers used paper labels, decals, and branded marks on their products. Manufacturer Date Other Information Mark Craftsman […]

Frank Lloyd Wright

The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) designed Arts and Crafts furniture for his home in Oak Park, Illinois, as early as 1893. He also created some Mission-style furniture for use in his studio and several homes he designed during the first two decades of the twentieth century. The early pieces were made by custom […]

Stickley & Brandt Chair Company

The Stickley & Brandt Chair Company was formed in Binghamton, New York, and run by Charles Stickley and members of the Brandt family from 1891 to 1918. The company made elaborately carved chairs and rockers and did not do much work in the Mission style until 1909, when it began marketing its Modern Craft line […]

L. & J. G. Stickley Company

Two Stickley brothers, Leopold and John George, established a furniture business in Fayetteville, New York, about 1902. It was incorporated in 1904 as L. & J. G. Stickley Company. It sold Arts and Crafts furniture under the Onondaga Shop label. The furniture followed the designs of Gustav Stickley, but the company used both veneers and […]

Stickley Brothers Company

Albert Stickley and his brother John George moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1891 and established Stickley Brothers Company. John George moved to New York City about 1898 and left the firm in 1902 to join his brother Leopold. Albert expanded the company’s operations to England, opening a warehouse and factory in London in the […]

The Stickley Brothers and Their Factories

Gustav Stickley Gustav Stickley (1858–1942) had four brothers in the furniture business, Charles (1860–c.1928), Albert (1862–1928), John George (1871–1921), and Leopold (1869–1957). Gustav, the originator of Mission furniture, Charles and Albert founded a small chair company called Stickley Brothers Company in Binghamton, New York, in 1884. Gustav left the firm in 1888, and by 1891 […]

Rose Valley Association

The Rose Valley Association, a utopian Arts and Crafts colony, was founded in 1901 by Philadelphia architect William Price. The workers made furniture in the Mission manner and marked their pieces Rose Valley Shops with a rose and the letter V in a buckled belt. The pieces were medieval in design and more ornate than […]

The Morris Chair

The reclining Morris chair was first manufactured about 1866 by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, & Company. British designer William Morris became the sole proprietor of the firm, renamed Morris and Company, in 1874. The chair was first made in black walnut or cherry wood and later of oak or mahogany. It was immediately copied in America. […]

Charles Rohlfs

Charles Rohlfs (1853-1936) was a designer, furniture maker, and successful stage actor. He worked in Buffalo, New York, designing furniture in many styles, including Mission. By the 1890s he was making plain oak pieces similar to those popularized by Gustav Stickley. His later pieces had fewer straight lines than those by other makers of Mission. […]

William Morris

British designer, writer, and artist William Morris (1834–1896) was the leader of the nineteenth-century Arts and Crafts movement in England. He rejected the methods of mass production and excessive decoration of the Victorian era and advocated a return to the medieval traditions of design, craftsmanship, and community. In 1861 Morris and some associates established Morris, […]